My Samsung DMR78AHS dishwasher stopped during the washing cycle and displayed HE error code (Heating Element). Prior, I noticed it wasn’t washing or drying well. Then my plumber discovered that the dishwasher never was properly installed (thank you Lowe’s!): The discharge hose was attached directly through the subfloor to a P-trap down in the basement. My plumber thinks the dishwasher continuously drained water, thus exposing the heating element causing it to probably burn-out overtime.

After this discovery, I properly connected the discharge hose to the sink per the installation instruction to see what that would do but didn’t replace the heating element. The dishwasher would now work and no longer displays HE error code but would never enter into the drying cycle: The countdown timer freezes at the 22 minutes mark and seemed would continue washing forever if I didn’t manually stop the cycle.

I would love to make this thing work and use it a little longer! Where to start? What should I begin to fix or replace? Heating element? PC Board?

Thanks.

Greg, Start at the heater element, remove the wires from the terminals and check for 13 ohms resistance across the element with a multi meter. If the element checks OK, make sure the water temperature in the tub is at least 120 dgrs.F. If the heater is faulty, or the water temp. is too low, the control won't advance into the dry cycle after the final rinse.