---
title: "Clearing the Filter and Glass Trap on an Electrolux Dishwasher"
description: "Electrolux dishwasher filter cleaning takes five minutes and no tools. The filter twists a quarter turn; the glass trap lifts out beside it. Do it twice a year."
url: "https://electroluxmiami.support/blog/clearing-a-dishwasher-filter/"
date_modified: "2026-09-11"
Category: "Maintenance & Prevention"
---


# Clearing the Filter and Glass Trap on an Electrolux Dishwasher

Electrolux dishwasher filter cleaning is five minutes with no tools, and it is the single highest-value thing anybody does to one of these machines.

## Where it is and how it comes out

Pull the lower rack all the way out. In the floor of the tub, usually towards the back, there is a cylindrical filter with a handle or a pair of gripping points molded into it.

**Twist it a quarter turn, then lift.** Anticlockwise on most models. If it will not move, the reason is nearly always that it is being pulled upward rather than turned — and pulling is how the retaining tabs break.

Beside it or underneath it is a flat plate. That is the glass trap, and this maker names it specifically in its own article about error code i40 rather than lumping it in with the filter, which tells you how often it is the part that matters.

## What to do with them

Rinse both under a hot tap. Use a soft brush on the mesh if there is a film on it — in this county's water there will be, and the film is scale rather than food.

Look into the empty sump while they are out. Standing water there with the filter removed is the piece of information this whole exercise produces: it means the problem is past the filter, and that is the difference between maintenance and a repair.

## Refit them properly

This is the step people hurry, and it undoes the job.

The filter has to seat fully home before the quarter turn locks it. A filter sitting proud looks fitted and lets solids straight past into the pump, which is precisely what you have just spent five minutes preventing.

Run a cycle empty before judging anything, so that whatever was loosened during the cleaning goes out rather than back onto the next load of plates.

## Why it fills faster than it used to

Two reasons, and neither is the machine.

**Nobody pre-rinses any more**, because manufacturers now ask people not to — the sensors in a modern dishwasher use the soil to decide how hard to work, and a load of pre-rinsed plates gets a short cycle it does not deserve. More solid food therefore reaches the sump than older designs assumed.

**The water here is hard.** Scale forms on the filter mesh and gives everything else something to cling to, so a filter in Miami loads faster than the same filter in a soft-water city.

Those two together are why this is a twice-a-year job here rather than an annual one.

## What it prevents

i40 is one of only three codes this maker publishes for its dishwashers, and it is the only one of the three that reports something actually wrong. Its published cause is a clogged filter or sump.

A real share of the "it will not drain" calls we take end at these two parts, in five minutes, with no charge worth making. Doing it yourself twice a year removes the call entirely.

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**[Read full article: Clearing the Filter and Glass Trap on an Electrolux Dishwasher](https://electroluxmiami.support/blog/clearing-a-dishwasher-filter/)**