--- title: "Dishwashers" description: "Whirlpool dishwashers: the dishwasher is the one place in Whirlpool's kitchen where the codes are properly documented: 38 code pages for the built-in machine…" url: "https://whirlpoolmiami.support/appliances/dishwasher/" date_modified: "2026-09-06" Appliance type: "Dishwashers" --- # Whirlpool dishwashers ### The best-documented machine in the Whirlpool kitchen Forty-seven code pages across the built-in and portable dishwashers is more than the entire refrigeration branch of this make manages, and the reason is that a dishwasher is mostly sensors: a thermistor for the water, a turbidity sensor for how dirty it is, a flow meter for how much came in, a level switch for how much is still there. When one of those disagrees with the others, the control has something specific to report, and Whirlpool reports it. ### The machines with no display Plenty of Whirlpool dishwashers have a hidden control panel with a handful of lights and nothing to print a code on. Those machines flash, pause, flash again, and repeat, and the count on either side of the pause is the message. Whirlpool publishes those combinations, and this site carries them, because a person standing in front of a machine that is blinking at them has no code to search for and needs the pattern read back. It also publishes the single front status light some models project onto the floor — including what a red glow means, which is not what most owners assume. In a hard-water city these machines also spend their lives fighting scale, and a fair share of what gets reported as poor washing is a spray arm with blocked jets and a filter nobody knew was removable. Built-in and portable dishwashers, with the F-and-E code set and the blinking-light set Dishwasher repair Built-in and portable machines, 47 published code pages between them F1E1 to FAE4 and H2O, plus the flash-and-pause patterns for machines with no display The front status light, the clean light and the sanitize light each have a published meaning The best-documented machine in the Whirlpool kitchen Forty-seven code pages across the built-in and portable dishwashers is more than the entire refrigeration branch of this make manages, and the reason is that a dishwasher is mostly sensors: a thermistor for the water, a turbidity sensor for how dirty it is, a flow meter for how much came in, a level switch for how much is still there. When one of those disagrees with the others, the control has something specific to report, and Whirlpool reports it. The machines with no display Plenty of Whirlpool dishwashers have a hidden control panel with a handful of lights and nothing to print a code on. Those machines flash, pause, flash again, and repeat, and the count on either side of the pause is the message. Whirlpool publishes those combinations, and this site carries them, because a person standing in front of a machine that is blinking at them has no code to search for and needs the pattern read back. It also publishes the single front status light some models project onto the floor — including what a red glow means, which is not what most owners assume. In a hard-water city these machines also spend their lives fighting scale, and a fair share of what gets reported as poor washing is a spray arm with blocked jets and a filter nobody knew was removable. ### The clean light is flashing and the machine will not start. That is a published condition rather than a random blink, and on this make it usually points at the cycle not having completed — the control stopped part way and is telling you so on the only light it has. Try the reset first: open the door, press Cancel or Cancel Drain, close the door and let it run its drain out. If it comes straight back, the two common causes are heat and drainage. Either the machine could not reach temperature, or it could not empty. Both have their own code on machines with a display, and both are repairs rather than resets. ### There is water standing in the bottom after every cycle. A shallow film in the sump is normal and stops the seals drying out. Standing water is not. Work outward from the machine: the filter in the base, which unscrews and rinses; the drain hose, which must rise into a high loop or an air gap before it reaches the disposer; and the disposer knockout plug, which is still in place more often than anyone expects on a newly installed machine. After those it is the drain pump or the check valve, and on machines with a display Whirlpool codes the drain condition so it is not a guess. ### What is the H2O code? It is one of the codes Whirlpool publishes for its dishwashers, and like every other water-related condition on this machine it sends you to the supply before the machine. The shut-off valve under the sink, the inlet line, the inlet valve and the screen in it. What we will not do is tell you a meaning Whirlpool has not published — we read the code off your machine, look it up against the make's own documentation, and then test what it points at. --- **[Read full article: Dishwashers](https://whirlpoolmiami.support/appliances/dishwasher/)**