--- title: "DishDrawer Will Not Drain: the Filter, the Hose and the A3 Code" description: "Fisher paykel dishwasher not draining: the maker's own order for an A3 — filter and filter plate first." url: "https://fisherpaykelmiami.support/blog/dishdrawer-not-draining/" date_modified: "2026-08-26" Category: "Common Problems" --- # DishDrawer Will Not Drain: the Filter, the Hose and the A3 Code ## Fisher Paykel dishwasher not draining: start where the maker starts There is a real advantage to this particular complaint on this particular make: the manufacturer publishes both the code and the order of causes behind it, and the first two things on its list cost nothing and take ten minutes. The code is **A3** on a DishDrawer and **A20** on one of the drop-door machines. Both mean the same thing — the machine could not get the water out — and both have published owner steps. ::: ## Step one: the filter and the filter plate On a DishDrawer these lift out of the floor of the drawer by hand. There are two parts, not one, and that is where people go wrong: the cylinder comes out, gets rinsed, goes back, and the flat filter plate underneath it — the one that was actually blocked — never moves. - Scoop the standing water out with a cup and a towel first. It makes everything below possible and stops the drawer smelling by tomorrow.- Lift the filter out and rinse it under a tap.- Lift the **filter plate** underneath it out and rinse that too. Look at what comes off it.- Put both back seated squarely. A filter that is not properly home will not do its job and can foul the spray arm. The maker's own wording for A3 names the filter first, and names it as either **clogged or installed incorrectly** — both. That second half is worth remembering the next time somebody cleans the drawer. ## Step two: the path out to the sink If the filter was clean, the water is being stopped after it leaves the machine. Four places, in order of how easy they are to check: - **the drain hose behind the drawer**, for a kink where the machine was pushed back;- **the connection at the sink** — the trap, the waste tee or the standpipe, all of which silt up with the same debris the sink sees;- **the high loop**, which should rise close to the underside of the counter before it drops to its connection. If something stored under the sink has flattened it, that is your answer;- **the disposal knock-out plug**. If a garbage disposal was installed at the same time as the dishwasher and the machine has never drained properly since day one, this is very often it. The plug is a cast disc inside the disposal inlet and it has to be knocked out at installation. Plenty are not. Three of those four are not the appliance at all. On the drop-door machines the same idea arrives as **A20**, and the maker adds one more cause: the turbidity sensor, which reads how dirty the water is, coated with build-up. It cleans with a soft brush. ## Step three: clearing the code properly Deal with the cause first. A code cleared on a machine that still cannot drain simply comes back, and you have thrown away the evidence. The published sequence on a DishDrawer is: - **Press once** to stop the beeping.- **Press again** to clear the code.- **Press** to resume the wash program. If the code returns immediately, that is information rather than a failure — it means the machine is still seeing the condition, so the blockage has not gone or the problem is downstream of everything you can reach. ## When it is the pump, and what that looks like If the filter and the filter plate are clean, the hose is straight and the sink connection is clear, the search moves inside the machine. Two things get tested and they are not the same: - **the drain pump**, under load rather than by continuity — a pump can pass a resistance test and still move nothing;- **the check valve**, which stops water flowing back into the drawer. A machine that empties and then refills itself has a valve problem, not a motor problem, and it is a smaller repair. There is also a condition that looks like a drainage problem and is not: **F2**, the rotor. Debris around the rotor stops the wash system rather than the drain, and it very often comes out by hand rather than on an invoice. ## What it costs, and what it usually does not Dishwasher drain work across South Florida sits in a researched market range of roughly $120 to $300 parts and labor, and our starting figure is at the low end of it on purpose — because on these machines the filter and the drain path end a large share of the calls before the pump is ever reached. If it does end at the filter, the visit is the whole cost, and we would rather tell you that on the phone than in your kitchen. **Exact cost is confirmed after an on-site diagnostic**, and the scope and the figure are in writing before anything is opened. --- **[Read full article: DishDrawer Will Not Drain: the Filter, the Hose and the A3 Code](https://fisherpaykelmiami.support/blog/dishdrawer-not-draining/)**