From the Owner's Manual (see step 45 on page 24):

DRAIN REQUIREMENTS

■ Make sure to connect drain hose to waste tee or disposer inlet above drain trap in house plumbing and 20" (50.8 cm) minimum above the floor. It is recommended that the drain
hose either be looped up and securely fastened to the underside of the counter or be connected to an air gap.
■ Make sure to use an air gap if the drain hose is connected to house plumbing lower than 20" (50.8 cm) above subfloor or floor.

As quoted above, you do not need an air gap if you loop the drain hose up to the underside of the counter. If the dishwasher is not draining, the first thing to check is that the hose is not clogged or kinked. Does the dishwasher drain into a garbage disposal? Check that the plug was removed where the hose attaches to the disposal. More ideas.

I'm in my house in Los Angeles at the moment, and so I won't be able to check the hoses under the sink until I get back to Cathedral City next week, at the earliest. I don't know what I will be able to see until I get there.

It would be very nice not to need an air gap, but it would be even nicer not to have to worry about the dishwasher draining onto the kitchen floor.

I am pretty sure that the DW there does drain into a garbage disposal, but I cannot be sure from here.

I do have very hard water, and so that might be part of the problem, but I do use rinse-aid and Cascade Platinum in Cathedral City. I use a non-scented DW pod for my dishwasher in L.A. because Cascade Platinum leave a horrible scent on the dishes, but this does not happen in Cathedral City.

Lars, you might have to get an air gap to meet code when you remodel whether you need it or not. (Some cities in CA still require it. Mine won't budge.)

And the caps from different air gap makers are mostly interchangeable so if the HG one doesn't work, you can probably just put its cap on a cheap air gap.

Put your air gap where you want a soap dispenser, then elimate it after inspection. There are millions of perfectly-draining dishwashers across the country without air gaps. Except California apparently where the state knows what's best for everyone.

Washington too. :(

I would rather have an air gap than a soap dispenser - I have one in L.A. and it stopped working, as it gets clogged.

I will go ahead and have an air gap installed, although I have not yet decided whether I want to get an inexpensive one. I think I might as well spend the extra $20-25 to get one that exactly matches the finish of the faucet, although I do not really think that it is worth the extra cost, although that is rather minimal.

I have no problem with requirements for air gaps - I just wish that I already had one.

The lack of air gap probably isn't the problem though.

I had a ton of leakage problems with a KA dishwasher I had installed a few years ago. Pretty sure it was a Whirlpool. The first of a series of irregular, unpredictable, and undiagnosable leaks was caused by the float valve. It wasn't malfunctioning, but it wasn't screwed in tightly enough. (It went downhill from there.)

Anyway, is it still under warranty? I'd get someone to look at it. Even if it's off warranty.

What I mean about water flowing onto the floor is that during the cycle, water leaks out and makes a puddle on the floor in front of the DW. When I unload the dishwasher, I notice there there is standing water (a small amount) at the bottom, and so I remove the filters and clean them. When this first started happening, I noticed a very small amount of food debris on the filters, and so I cleaned them and ran the drain cycle again, which removed most, but not all, of the water under the main filter at the bottom.

Once I started making sure that the dishes were reasonably clean before I loaded the DW, I have not had a problem with the puddles, but I still run the drain cycle at the end of each washing.

The DW says that it is okay to leave small amounts of food on the dishes, but I have not found this to be the case.

I don't completely wash the dishes before loading them, but I do scrub them to remove almost all of the food or whatever might be left on them.

I have a Bosch DW in L.A., and I have no problems with it, except that I have to use fragrance free DW pods because otherwise it leaves unpleasant scents on the dishes which interferes with the taste of the food. I use Method Dishwasher Packs, and this gets the dishes as clean as Cascade does and does not leave the nauseating scent that Cascade does. I can use Cascade in the Whirlpool, and it will not leave the scent. If I use Cascade in the Bosch, I have to run an additional rinse cycle at the end, but it is just easier to use Method instead.

"... I notice there there is standing water (a small amount) at the bottom, and so I remove the filters and clean them."

"... and ran the drain cycle again, which removed most, but not all, of the water under the main filter at the bottom."

It's normal for some water to remain in the machine's tub sump area under the filter screens. All dishwashers do that, the pump cannot push 100% of the water up/out the drain hose. It shouldn't be enough water to see in the tub at normal view without removing the screens.

Have you removed the toe kick and checked for water in the drip/overflow tray, which obviously there shouldn't be any. The machine is sensitive to proper leveling to avoid water leaking out of the tub at the engineered overflow drip channels which drain into that tray beneath. The detection float in the tray should 1) prevent the machine from filling and 2) possibly turn on the drain pump in event of an overflow.

The dishwasher is going to get removed, temporarily, when we replace the cabinets later this month, and so I should be able to check at that time. I don't think I can remove the toe kick at this time, but I will check next week when I go back to meet with the cabinet supplier.