The short answer
A Comfee countertop dishwasher that leaves the dishes dirty is most often dishes shadowing each other, with blocked spray arm holes, or an arm that cannot turn close behind. A countertop dishwasher lives beside the sink and borrows its water and its drain through an adapter on the tap, which puts the two ends of its plumbing in the owner's hands every time it runs. The checks below are ordered to match, and the first of them needs no tools at all.
What you observe
- Some items clean, others untouched — A pattern like that is loading or spray coverage, never the detergent.
- Grit or film left on everything — The same water has been recirculated through a blocked filter.
- NEAR MISS - a smell rather than a performance problem — That is nearly always the filter and the sump, and it is a ten-minute job.
Causes, most likely first on this brand
- Dishes shadowing each other — First on this cabinet: everything in this machine is cleaned by water thrown at it, so a tray packed face to face, a bowl over a tall glass or a pan across the upper arm leaves whole items in a water shadow and they come out as they went in.
- Blocked spray arm holes, or an arm that cannot turn — Second, and close behind: the arms are the only thing delivering water to the load, and their small holes block with seeds, labels and scale while a tall item can stop an arm turning altogether.
- A filter that has not been cleaned — Third: the machine filters and recirculates the same water for the whole cycle, so a blocked filter means it is washing everything in what it took off the last load.
Check in this order, and why
- Look at how the last load was stacked — The likeliest cause of patchy results, and it costs one rewash to confirm.
- Spin the arms by hand and check every hole — Two minutes with a torch, and it either explains the pattern or rules it out.
- Take the filter out and look at it — The machine washes in whatever passes through here.
What an owner can safely check
- Reload the machine with nothing face to face and nothing over the upper arm — Then run the same cycle and compare. It costs one wash and settles the commonest cause.
About 20 min
- Spin each spray arm by hand and hold it up to the light — Every hole should be clear. Clear blocked ones with a cocktail stick, not with wire.
Tools: cocktail stick, torchAbout 15 min
- Take the filter out, rinse it under the tap and brush the mesh — Look at what comes off it. This is a ten-minute job that people do once a year and should do monthly.
Tools: brush, warm waterAbout 15 min
- STOP HERE if the next step means pulling the machine out or removing a panel — There are live terminals and standing water behind it, and that is where owner checks end.
Before you open anything
Safety
Unplug the machine before reaching into the sump or working on the adapter, and turn the tap off first. A capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. Go carefully in the sump with a torch: broken glass collects there. Never defeat the door catch to watch it run - the water inside is hot enough to scald.
When to call a technician
Call when the machine is loaded loosely, the arms spin freely with clear holes, the filter is clean and the water arrives hot, and the results are still poor. On a countertop machine that point usually means the wash pump, and the repair is worth pricing against a replacement before it is agreed.
Nearest pages of this class
What this page does not cover
This page covers countertop dishwashers as a class rather than one model line. Rack layouts, arm designs and cycle structures differ by family, and where a family- or model-specific page exists for your unit it is linked below. Not here: capacities, cycle times and part identifiers.
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
