How needy is your dishwasher?

[Bakerposs]

Mine seems to demand salt and rinse aid weekly?
I also have to regularly (like more than once a week) clean the arms and the filter.
It still regularly punishes me by not properly cleaning things but ‘burning’ on the mess so it then needs scrubbing. Or by not draining properly so I have to dig around in the water to get the filter etc.
we do scrape the plates etc before putting them in but dont rinse them. Is this where we’re going wrong?

We don't get limescale in our area so we don't need salt but we do have to put rinse aid in quite regularly, if you don't the dishes really don't get clean properly. Still a million times better than having to wash everything up though

Ours is about 8 years old now. It’s a Miele but the most basic model they did at the time. I almost never clean the filter (although when I check it it’s always fine).

after experimenting with different brands I only use fairy dishwasher tablets as I find they are by far the best. Better than finish.

we are in a very hard water area and it Asks for salt every couple months. Asks for rinse aid about once a week now which is an increase in the past so I suspect there’s a leak now.

when you first get a dishwasher you need to set it for your local water hardness - your water company website will tell you the number to use.

scrape plates don’t rinse. The dishwasher will work out how dirty the contents are and if you rinse if disrupts that.

Ah, thanks @LattePatty I might need to reset the water hardness on mine. We are in a very soft water area but I'm pouring salt into the stupid thing morning, noon and night.

Are you using an aggressive drying cycle? I do run regular maintenance washes but don't fill up salt and rinse aid more than every month or two
Unlike the poster above, I run eco washes all the time!

Mine never asks for salt but I find I know when it needs it as the glasses go all weird. We use white vinegar for rinse aid.

You shouldn't rinse,detergents need food particles to cling on to and work.

We've got a Fisher Paykel double drawer dishwasher so the filters, salt and rinse aid reservoirs are quite small. I've got into the habit of cleaning the filters/arms weekly and then topping both up. It does feel like a demanding little beast but to be fair, it works brilliantly as there's just 2 of us at home. We've usually got one drawer washing/clean and then you can stack the dirty into the other. So there's never anything on the worktop waiting to go in. We also use Fairy tablets as they are the best. I've got them on subscribe and save on Amazon.

Not normal.

I also have to regularly (like more than once a week) clean the arms and the filter.
Never cleaned arms.filter is once every 3 months or so.

Not needy at all. I have never used salt or rinse aid. Run it through with dishwasher cleaner once a month or so and give the filter a rinse.

same as this, but we are in a very soft water area.

Use all in one tabs. Scrape clean but don’t pre-rinse dishes. Stick a dishwasher cleaning tab in every month or so. Never had a problem!
It is a nice Bosch dishwasher though.

This would be my husband’s dream. He would like to have 2 dishwashers but I pointed out we don’t have a very big kitchen so wouldn’t be the best use of space …

Not needy at all, it’s a Bosch and we live in a soft water area. It needs rinse aid maybe once every couple of weeks, but I can forget for weeks at a time, salt hardly ever, clean the arms probably once every two years and the filter out once a month.

He's pretty needy, I have to talk to him, give cuddles and words of encouragement.

(The dishwasher is my husband)

I love this!

Clean out the filter regularly, but otherwise never use any salt or cleaner stuff. Never use eco setting either. It’s only a couple of years old, but as with clothes washing, eco settings are just a complete waste of time, money and I swear end up being less eco friendly than just running theses appliances on a normal cycle.

Have you adjusted the salt intake for the correct level of hardness of your water?

Mine sometimes doesn’t clean properly but it still does a better job than I do.

I’ve jusy given ours its first deep clean in 12 years. otherwise dishes in, tablet in, switch on, wait, remove clean dishes

I've had my dishwasher 10 years and have put salt and rinse aid in it precisely zero times. We live in a soft water area though, which I assume makes a difference.

Check the manual as there is normally a setting for how much rinse aid and salt it releases per cycle. You can adjust it because it needs to be set differently for hard/soft water. Maybe this is set wrong and that's why it is always running out.

Not rinsing is OK, but if there is a large amount of sauce left on a plate or like a dollop of mayonnaise, scrape it off with a knife before you put it in the dishwasher. Sauces are often very fatty and that will clog everything up.

It's a myth that detergent can't work unless there are food particles. That doesn't make any sense. There will always be food particles because rinsing doesn't actually clean dishes, and anyway most of the action of a dishwasher is pressurised water jets and high temperature water. The detergent helps but it's not the only way the machine is cleaning the dishes. The reason not to pre rinse is that it's inefficient because you're using loads of extra water which is unnecessary, and it makes it environmentally unfriendly. Dishwashers are designed to handle plates which haven't been rinsed.

TBH I really dislike my dishwasher, it is a Beko, I wish I had waited a day or two for delivery and gone for a Bosch/Siemens one. The Beko has this stupid "cornersense" arm on the bottom which can't be easily rinsed through so it gets clogged all the time and then it gets desynchronised from the corners so it bashes into the walls making a noise and squirts water at the door seals which then leaks out. Worst feature ever and I don't even especially remember our old dishwasher having a hard time cleaning stuff in the corners, so I'm irritated that I fell for the marketing of it. Although mainly I bought it because our Beko dryer is good and it was the only one we could take away that day with a stainless steel interior, the other ones in our budget including the Bosch had a plastic base which I didn't want.

It goes through phases of seeming to drink rinse aid and everything comes out with this horrible soapy coating on it so I think something about the bit that releases the rinse aid must get clogged up or stuck or something and release too much. I wonder if these kinds of parts are better quality in the more reputable brands.

Mine is about 16 years old and never had salt or rinse aid in it. Very occasionally run one of those cleaning bottle things through but I’m talking less than once a year! It washes absolutely fine and never had an issue with it. OH has one that’s crap though, half of what goes in his comes out still dirty!

I use the tablets so have set the salt and rinse aid on a low setting, salt lasts months and rinse aid a few weeks, hard water area so need a bit with the tablets

Curious question for people who have low maintenance dishwashers:

Is it an expensive/high end model?
Do you wash EVERYTHING in it or do you hand wash some items and only put certain things through the dishwasher?
Do you have a big family or are you e.g. 1-2 adults?
Do you think you eat more/less/average amount of things like meat, cheese, sauces containing a lot of oil or greasy/oily pans?

TBH even when we did have a Siemens one I had issues with needing to deep clean it constantly, which I put down to it being older, approx 10+ years and not very well cared for by the previous owner, and I am wondering whether people who barely ever need to do this either have one which is designed much better to avoid these issues (I would then consider paying more to get one which does) or whether it's more related to the fact that we abuse ours by shoving everything into it and being 5 people who often eat separately so we have a lot of dishes, pans etc to wash and IMO my DH uses an insane amount of grease/oil in everything, which we do mostly pour into kitchen paper and in the bin, but I suspect it gets into the dishwasher in higher than average quantities anyway.

Mine is a Miele, more than 20 years old. I top up salt about once every 2-3 weeks, but we are in a hard water area. By comparison with most here I get ages out of the rinse aid. Probably top that up every 2 months. I don't know where the manual is to check if this is set up properly. I use the cheap aldi or lidl all in one tablets, and use a bottle of cleaner about twice a year. Very occasionally something will have to be rewashed, but not enough to justify the extra cost of the branded tablets in my opinion.

I will now try to be nicer to it so it doesn't act up, coz some of these dishwashers almost sound like they're not worth it.

Actually OP thinking about it, the not draining sounds the most pressing issue with yours. I would look into clearing the drains and be careful with putting anything chemical in. Consider getting someone out to look at the whole set up.

Most dishwashers will drain mid cycle and then run new water, this is to get the worst bits off the plates etc. If it can't drain fully, then it's just washing your stuff with dirty water and the dirty water will be pushed through all of the pipes, spinny arms etc. This might have also been why the previous one refused to run twice in a row if it detected it hadn't drained fully, but over time it would slowly drain meaning that it could then run without error.