home Fix label Kitchen Appliances label_important Dishwashers category Fisher & Paykel

Fl appear on my fisher & paykel nautilus dishwasher what does that mean?

i cant turn my dishwasher off, i have to turn it off on the main switch, when i turn it on the Fl is flushing and it seems like it's draining the water but there's no water left. what do i do next?

mlayt, April 2006

home Fix label Kitchen Appliances label_important Dishwashers category Fisher & Paykeldone

2022 and boom this saved me. Thanks you

Fomait, November 2022

2016 and tilting 45 degrees does the trick.

Dutch, May 2016

Wooohooooo 7 years later and Handy Hubbies comment still resulted in fixing the issue, We dried out the bottom tray with a hairdryer and she started fine :)

Bex, January 2016

Unbelievable! This worked for me too.. Tilt the dishwasher on a 45 degree angle toward the rear to let the remaining water drain then happy days!

Cheers!

Jesse, October 2015

2015 and the 45 degree angle just saved my dishwasher from kerbside pick-up, thank-you.

Tom, Western Australia., October 2015

Thank you so much Azageary from your post in
September 2011 ... we have just moved to an old house - renting - and notice some water liking in the bottom of the dishwasher because the rubber on the right side of the door is broken... l said for the land lady, but she did not even reply...!! typical ! as was working ok - just had to put the rubber in the right position before washing dishes -l kept using - but just now came the F1!!!! after reading and watching in you tube lots of explanation about F&P , l found your post about tipping it in to 45 degrees... YES! about 1 big cup of water ran on the bottom to the floor and GREAT the machine is working again!!! uffa! THANK YOU FOR THE TIP - but l will keep one eye on that and chase the land lady again!!!

Cristina, August 2013

Have used this forum before when we had the F1 fault, and found that like someone else, a screw holding the racks in place was very loose, allowing water to seep down to the flood sensor. Unable to remove the machine, I just removed all accessible water, then waited a few days for the water in the bottom to evaporate - took a couple of days.

Have just had the F1 fault again, nothing seems amiss, no obvious water, but did the handyhubby bit (those screws are seriously absurdly positioned) and there was about a cup of water in the bottom, which we've cleaned up, and machine worked again immediately.

Thanks to everyone who's contributed to the solutions.

Maureen, July 2013

Thanks so much saved me $$$$$$ on service call that i didn't need

Richard, July 2013

Awesome - thanks guys - that 45 degree tilt did the job beautifully :-)

Lesley, February 2013

Handyhubby, you may have answered 4 years ago but you're still my hero. Cheers for that answer!

Relieved, January 2013

45 degree tilt worked a treat, thanks all, saved a hundred dollars!

AdnKat, October 2012

Thanks so much for your advice of tilting it 45 degrees backwards. It is running now. I had disconnected and cleaned hoses as best I could but I think if I had of done the 45 degree tilt straight away, It would have been fixed 3 hours earlier!!!! Ps don't tilt it on your own, you nrrd 2 strong people and make sure you get to 45 degrees or you wont get all the water out. Cheers from a happy camper, you advice saved me the price of a new dishwasher!!

Rosie, July 2012

F&P Nautilus 1 door 2 rack Dishwasher with F1 code fault and beeping. First time ever.

Internally was visually drained of water but sounded like the pump was trying to operate with partial water gurgle sound.

Turned off the power, disconnected the plumbing with towels in the cupboard to catch excess water just in case.

Lowered the ( threaded )front feet to extract the washer from the cupboard space.

Opened and lowered the door to use to gently drag the washer out of the cupboard space.

Drained some water into a bucket from the waste hose at the back.

Laid some towels down at the back and gently tilted the washer backwards. ( Note the threaded feet dont look to strong so be careful) Water came dribbling out, not much and towels soaked it all up.

Put the plumbing and power back in the cupboard and slid the washer back into its place.

Attached the plumbing and power again.

Bazinga! she works again!

Ez & Geeza, November 2011

There is a tray at the bottom of your dishwasher that has a float switch in it, This is the "flood switch". If there is a leak on any of the hosing or o-rings etc. Inside your machine This tray will fill with water and activate the flood switch. (causing the F1 or E6 fault) Tipping the machine at 45 degrees only clears the water from this tray. If the problem persists you need to locate the source of the leak. My leak was from when a service guy cleared a jam from the drain pump and didn't re-install the o-ring correctly! Hope this helps.

Azageary, September 2011

Thanks for the help! It has seemed to have worked. Very grateful!

limeand ginger, August 2011

Can't believe our F1 error was so easy to fix after reading this thread. Big ups to everyone for the excellent remedies.

Heather, June 2011

Thanx for all the helpful posts. My hubby just got home from a 12 hour day and i'm sure the last thing he wanted to do was spend all night fixing the dishwasher. 2 attempts but we now have a working dishwasher :) That has made my night!! I hate dishes.

The Jacksons, May 2011

Thanks from us too... your remedy worked perfectly for us as well.

I had just got a quote from our local F and P accredited repairer for them to make a house call.... we live in the country... saved us $40 for their bloke to look at it.. then who knows?

I can now ring and cancel...

Great! Thanks Again

Howard, May 2011

Well not quite sure what it means but u can fix it by tilting your dishwasher on a 45 degree angle and the error should be gone! However the people at Fisher and Paykle Dont want you to no this. so I asume if they say "Ohh yeah the F! error umm send it to us and for (stupid amount of money here) we will fix it" when u send it thats all hey do!?

Awesome Pro Fixer, January 2011

Thank you! the 45' angle worked!
my dishwasher is no longer driving me crazy!

:-)

Madelaine., January 2011

45 degree angle worked a treat. Thanks. Saved us a lot of time, money and unnecessary stress.

Michelle, December 2010

pull it out from wherever it is and remove anything thats in their such as baskets filled with dishes (almost broke a lot of stuff) then tilt to 45o angle. water should come out then clean that up. after that i recommend leaving it for 5 mins just so it can dry up a bit put every thing back in turn it back on and hey presto it should be working again

Josh, October 2010

We followed HandyHubby's direction and had to pull the yellow flood light cable off and on to trigger it back to normal. It was difficult (and smelly due to mice) to get into all the wiring but it fixed the F1 issue and only one beep was heard. It was more trying to put the doors back into place. We got there in the end with persistence and pursuading husband to become a temporary electrician.

Happy now, August 2010

all i did was tip the washer on an angle to tip all the water out and use alot of towels to dry ...... waited 5 mins and turned it on ch ching it works thnx other comments for the tip

lester, June 2010

Thank you to handyhubby who mentioned 'the vertical screw hidden from view', we didn't know it was there. We've just replaced the springs for the door.

Anne, March 2010

Fantastic Advise! Same thing worked for me! Last time I called the real estate agent to get someone out to fix it, I had to wait 3 weeks for them to get around to it.Had to wash the dishes..Oh God ,that was worse than paying $100 .Tipping it has completely fixed the problem!

Helen of Earlwood, February 2010

I have a dishwaher that displayed the same problem. The F1 fault code is water in the bottom safety tray which is located in the very bottom of the machine ( behind the kick panel). The tray has a water sensing switch which brings up the fault code if the swich gets wet. On my machine it turned out to be drain causing the problem. Water from the sink was flowing down into the trap underneath the sink and then back up the dishwasher drain pipe which is connected to the trap and then back into the dishwasher. After the dishwasher had finished pumping water remained trapped in the dishwasher drain pipe. It appeared to be some sort of capillary action causing water to back flow in the dishwasher. I used a drain break to allow an air break to occur once the dishwasher stopped pumping.

Grant from Brisbane Australia, February 2010

Thank you so much for the tip for tilting the dishwasher 45 deg. I had tried everything and being a Nautilus, there was not the option to soak up the water in the base.

Anne, January 2010

Just turn it off, mop up the water in the base and just like magic it works without costing a cent.

julie, December 2009

Many many thanks people. Drying inside and the 45' angle drain worked a treat. REMEMBER to have towels ready. Lots of water. Saved me the call out and repair bill and the misses is over the moon. Thinks I know what Im doing! Now what other answers to household problems can I find here??? LOL

Chris masters, August 2009

Well my one started with the F2. Fixed that one and then U1. and then F1. Pulled out draw and dried base.
Fixed. Thank you to all that helped.

Lance

Lance Bradey, August 2009

i had a loose screw one that holds racks slider wheels in mine, water must have dribbled in hole to set off F1. Tighten scew, put dishwasher on side and bingo, its working

Damian, June 2009

Fantastic ! Thank you. Now my husband thinks I am a handywoman !!! No phoning up F and P and having to pay them lots of money. The mess on the kitchen floor was worth it !

Melly, April 2009

F1 stands for first degree Fraud, which Fisher and Paykel committed when they unleashed this piece of cr*p on an unsuspecting public

over it, March 2009

Here's the correct answer for our Nautilus 1 door two tray dishwasher:
The F1 display and continuous beeping means that the flood switch is activated. It could be activated because of water (just being damp won't do it). Or it could be activated because a naughty mouse built its nest underneath the piece of coolite foam that activates the switch (which is what happened to us).
1) Unplug the dishwasher from the power point
2) Remove the cover plate under the door - there's a vertical screw on each side hidden from view. Don't remove the centre screw as it's just connected to an earthwire lug.
3) Remove the earth wires from the two lugs
4) Remove the second plate by lifting it up and pulling forwards. It's got the wiring diagram on the inside.
5a) The flood switch is on the bottom of dishwasher, with black and yellow wires attached.
6a) If the bottom of the dishwasher has water in it, locate the plumbing problem and fix it, then dry it out.
6b) If there's junk wedged under/around the switch or float foam, then remove it all.
6c) If you know how, you can remove the switch and test that it works with a multimeter.
7) Plug the dishwasher back in temporarily, and check that it just beeps once like it's supposed to. Then unplug it again.
8) Replace the first cover. Reattach the two earth wires. Replace the second cover.
9) Plug in the dishwasher, fill it up with the dirty dishes and wash them.

HandyHubby, February 2009

thanx for the tips.... pulled the d/w out of its hole and then turned the switch back on and hey presto!! (i figure it got pushed back too far and blocked the drain pipe)

Kurt, January 2009

I think all you have to do is release any blockages in the drain pipe. My brother in law had this happen when he maoved it to a new house. Told him to pull it out from the wall a bit and pull any pipe that may be jamed in behind the dishwasher into the cupboard. Fault cleared. Try this before tipping it over and having a big mess.

WOODY, December 2008

I was having a huge problem and posted it earlier - I bought the dishwasher on ebay and my good luck was that the seller came to fix the problem.
It was all about the drainage. He made the hole on the outlet hole under the sink much larger - not the one from the dishwasher but the one on the u-bend - and I haven't had a problem since. It was a bad installation that's all.
Not a great dishwasher but adequate.

Rose, December 2008

very simple, thanks for the heads up.

Brendon S, November 2008

I've done all the above and it works for 5 minutes - then the whole problem starts again. I haven't had a successful load of clean plates yet - only a very wet kitchen floor. What's the permanent fix?

Rose, November 2008

it worked thanks so much :)

Lauren Perth WA, November 2008

Brilliant. Took all of 10 minutes. What a money saver... Even got to clean the mouse poo out from under it, ($10 says the service man wouldn't have done that. Thank to all who supplied this fix. I live 15 minutes from the Fisher & Paykel plant in Brisbane, and I still couldn't get an answer in person. "You need to book a service agent" was the responce. This one saved me big $$$... Thanks again...

Garry - South East Brizzie, September 2008

Fixing this is a 5 minute job - you need to dry out the flood sensor.

1. Empty the bottom drawer and remove any excess water.
2. Remove it from the runners - depress the clips in the bottom side corners just behind the front fascia, pull it forward 2 inches and lift.
3. Put it on its side, carefully, without damaging the cables and wires and slide the runners back in.
4. Dry out the bottom of the machine with a cloth or kitchen towel.
5. Dry the flood sensor inlet for two or three minutes with a hair dryer - this is the small raised bit about one third of the way from the left hand side and half way between the front and back.
6. Carefully put the drawer back on the runners and push it all the way back in until the catches click home.

I'm just a customer, not connected with F&P. This works for me. Its a drag but not a major problem.

Hope this is helpful.

Simon, September 2008

Brilliant... But to build on this, you can simply pull out the bottom draw and using a towel (or two) soak up the water in the base of the unit (not in the bottom of the draw, the base of the unit underneath the daw). 30sec latter, all fixed.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Ben, September 2008

Just tried this and just pulling it forward a foot fixed it
thanks

Leanne, September 2008

I am yet another success story. Disconnected the power cord and drain hose so I could pull my D/W out from the bench, lent it over 45% to the side with a couple of towels on the floor, put everything back in place and hey presto, dishes being washed and wife thinks I'm a legend!

Wayne from Adelaide, September 2008

Seems I was luckier than most, just the act of pulling the whole washer out seems to have fixed the error .. must be something in the motion?

Richard, August 2008

Thanks heaps for the answer. I rent but didn't really want the agent taking a month to get someone over to fix it. Great fix, no complaints other than the wet socks!

CS, August 2008

Thanks for the answers - we had the same fault on our dishwasher earlier today. Tipped it to 45 deg and no water came out, but found the drain tube blocked with some rubber gasket. Removed and runs ok.

Tom, August 2008

You are a legend....tipping it at 45deg to drain the water works. Thank you

Martina, June 2008

Great - another $100 saved thanks to your tip!

Emma, June 2008

The 45º worked a treat - just remembr to have a towel ready to catch the water. We had left on to drain all the water -couldnt see any int he base. Switched off all electrics at the mains - didnt turn off the F1 - read this solution here (tilt to 45º) and fixed in less that 2 minutes - saving huge $$$$$$$$ -Thanks

Jnch, June 2008

Hi,thanks for that it worked a treat further investigation showed that the kitchen plumbing has been starting to back up and with several sinkfulls of pots done on the same night I think water was forced back into the dishwasher as it could not get away fast enough.

gary, April 2008

Worked perfectly - 45 degrees to the side and a couple of towels for the floor.

Thanks!!

David, March 2008

Thanx heaps it works :)

Vicky, February 2008

Thanks for the tip, It is the long weekend and I heard the noise and the F1 display. I was thinking to myself here is a trip to Bing Lee tomorrow

Edward, January 2008

Thank goodness for the net. I was worried that I'd have to arrange an emergency call out (on a long weekend here in Melbourne) but my neighbour dropped by and we searched the net together.
HINT: Siphon as much water out as possible using a hose before tipping it over so that you only get minimal spillage. Cheers

Dani, January 2008

I concur with the fix in the thread. Cleaned every thing up, tipped it on its back (watch out for sharp edges) and observed some water leak out. Connected evrything up and it works like a charm so far.

rob shearer, January 2008

Hey Guys, we also had the same problem, just by sheer luck we happened upon your solution. Thank you very much, it was the absolute answer to our problem. Cheers

Ron and Jess, January 2008

Thank you for the info!! My husband just tipped it up as you've said and turned it on and it's stopped beeping! you've just saved him a new kitchen as thats what I was asking for seeing as the dishwasher had broken, he'll be wagging his tail all day now.(as a bonus he's even mopping the floor! I'll be paying for this one for a while!)

Jo, December 2007

cheers - another happy punter !!!

jas, November 2007

Greg, your a champion, this saved me a lot of headaches.

Tony, October 2007

Thanks heaps as we are just about to have people over for dinner and i hate dishpan hands.

peter, September 2007

Many thanks, this fixed my problem too...

vinnie05, July 2007

Fantastic. Thanks for the tips. It worked perfectly well for us too. Lots of water on the floor though... My girlfriend thinks I'm a handyman now;)

Craig, July 2007

I think that the flood code dosent clear unless you tip it, because..... most washing machines and dishwashers use a pressure operated switch to sense water level, essentially this is a small tube usually clear, that leads to a switch with 2 wires going to it. it uses the pressureof the smalltube filling up to activate the switch. after a flood, i think the tube stays blocked. tipping it over allows the small tube to drain, hence allowing the switch to deactivate

wish i hadnt bought one of these, July 2007

To all who wrote on this, thanks.
Saved me a day of messing about after I had the dreaded F1 and never ending beep.
I think the start of the problem in my case was I also found the water outlet at the drain end clogged such that it would allow low pressure but not high pressure flow. I suspect the reason for the two 8mm holes (mentioned in Greg's post)is to allow emergency egress of water in case of outlet pipe blockage. If this case it seems logical the base will flood
I tipped to 45 degrees, mopped the floor, cleared gunk from the outlet and had a G&T. Seems to be working OK now

Peter, June 2007

Thanks to the previous suggestions I just dragged my dishwasher out and tipped it sideways and allowed the water to run all over the kitchen floor ( a small price to pay ) when I pushed it back and connected the power the F1 had gone and it was happy as Larry. Thanks guys

Bet selby, April 2007

Thanks guy's the 45 degree and worked great took me about 2 mins to get it working again

Richard Kneebone, January 2007

I also had problem with F1 (flood code) on my Nautilus dishwasher and I followed this advice above, though could not find the float mentioned. But I did tilt the machine 45 degrees on its side and drained out all the water that was sitting inside the bottom of the cabinet. Put it all back together and seems to be working perfectly. Seems that so long as the flood water is sitting inside the bottom part of the cabinet, it will not clear the F1 code. But once it's drained and the float mentioned above registers that, the code is clear. Saved me a $100 callout fee!

mark Farrelly, July 2006

Hi,
F1 means that your dishwasher is flooding the sensor/float in the middle on the bottom. I've been stuffing around with mine and undid the screws on the right hand side looking at it from the back. I peeled back the wadding on the base at the side and back a bit, tipped it to 45 degrees and drained it out. I then put it back together. Ipushed the float up and down maNUALY FROM UNDERNEATH TO ENSURE IT WAS FREE TOO.
I couldn't work out why it was leaking but I read on the net that someone had success by plugging the two 8mm holes either side down the bottom near the door hinging mechanism at the front with rubber plugs and silicone. I did this though it seemed odd-the holes must have a purpose. I tightened any internal cabinet screws I could find and let it rip. Touch wood it seems to be working

GREG, April 2006

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