The cycle finishes but dishes come out wet — water pooled on mugs and containers, damp glassware, or a machine that seems to have stopped drying as well as it used to.
Models with Dynamic Dry pull moist air out with a fan and vent; when the fan or vent door fails, steam stays inside and condenses back onto the dishes. A clear, testable, fixable fault.
Condensation drying depends on a hot final rinse. If the heater or its relay fails, the water never gets hot enough to evaporate — often accompanied by an HE code or longer cycles and poor cleaning.
On TrueSteam models, a failed steam generator affects both wash quality and the final-rinse temperature that drives drying.
A long cold-water run to the kitchen, or a failing water heater, robs the final rinse of the heat the drying process depends on.
If the control board reads temperature wrong, it quietly shortens or skips the heated portions of the cycle.
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
HE | Heater circuit error — water not reaching temperature |
tE | Thermistor (temperature sensor) fault |
"LG dishwashers don't dry" is half myth, half real fault. The condensation design genuinely needs rinse aid and smart loading — but a machine that used to dry and stopped has a measurable problem: we test the heater, thermistor, and Dynamic Dry fan with meters and fix what actually failed, with factory parts.
LG uses condensation drying: a hot final rinse plus rinse aid makes water sheet off and evaporate, and Dynamic Dry models add a vent fan. It's more energy-efficient and gentler on plastics than an exposed heating element — but it depends on rinse aid being filled.
That history matters: it points to a failed component (heater, thermistor, vent fan) rather than the design. That's exactly the case worth a service visit, and it's usually a one-visit repair.
Mostly, yes — plastic doesn't store heat, so condensation drying can't fully dry it. Angle plastics on the top rack and expect a shake-off; wet glass and ceramic, on the other hand, mean something's actually wrong.
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