Dishwashers - do you need rinse aid and salt??

[wickedfairy]

Hi, we have our first dishwasher, it has been in about 6 months. The dishes are starting to come out not completely clean and the glasses are water marked. We just use one of the Lidl tablets (although occasionally the little flip drawer doesn't open, which would explain the not completely clean dishes but that's another story, I suppose....)

We live in Nort West (South Manc area) and DH says we don't need rinse aid/salt because the water is not hard. I have no idea, but we're certainly lacking something!!

Can someone please advise? I am not from around here, so have no idea what the water is like and even if I did, I would have no idea about the whole dishwasher thing anyway! Advise would be most gratefully received . Thanks!

this tells you everything you need to konow. Basically, salt is to soften water and rinse aid is to stop streaks, I think. So you probably need rinse aid even if you are in a soft water area.

I use rinse aid and salt even when using an all in one tablet - it seems to keep the dishes cleaner/sparklier. I use own brand salt/rinse aid as it is much cheaper than the branded stuff. We are in Scotland and the water is soft so I adjust the machine so that it limits the salt/rinse aid used in each wash

Have you cleaned the filter out and cleaner the rotor arms? (our filter is unscrewed from the floor of the machine and I wash it in hot soapy water. We can remove the rotor arms for washing too)

I'm from your area, and the water is soft. So I don't bother with salt but do use rinse aid. Agree with advice above regarding emptying filter.

You need rinse aid and salt unless you're using all in one tablets.

I would guess from the other responses that you can skip the salt if in a soft water area, though.

I've never used salt (our water is lovely here).
Rinse Aid, dh puts some in every now and then, but not religiously.
I use the Aldi 'ordinary' tablets (5p ish each) for about 3 washes then I do the 4th wash using one of their 'classics' (about 10p each, they are thicker and are supposed to include everything). Might something like that work for you ?

Thank you all - very helpful! Looks like we need to get some salt (with the dial set to low) and some rinse aid in addition to our tablets!

Thanks for helping out - it's appreciated

The salt cleans the resin in the dw water softner. There are very few regions in the uk where you don't need salt according to my dw manual.

A couple of bags of dw salt is cheaper than a broken machine so I still add it.

The all in one tablets don't have the same action as adding salt to the machine.

We live in a hard water area, we use branded dishwasher tablets, Tesco own brand rinse aid and salt. Our glasses come out streaked and horrid looking, I know they are clean but I apologise every time I give them to someone. We also use a proper dishwasher cleaner once a month. Sorry to hi jack the thread but how can we get lovely clear glasses etc?

I don't use anything other than fairy all in one, and generally as long as machine clean they give good results, better than own brand, and I do use own brand stuff when I can. I wait until half price and get loads. Were half price in sburys last time I looked.

do they come out cloudy? A link further up the thread gives this info:

CLOUDY GLASSES?

You can determine the cause of cloudy glassware by soaking a glass in vinegar for 5 minutes. If the cloudiness is removed it is due to hard water deposits; make sure the salt reservoir is topped up. Do not worry about over-filling it.

If the cloudiness is not removed, it is a permanent condition known as etching. In this situation, use less detergent and stop pre-washing. Dishwashing detergent needs a bit of soil to work on, otherwise it will tend to foam up.

(we had to throw away some glasses that had gone permanently cloudy due to etching - they were cheap glasses though)

Thanks Vodka, will try the vinegar test tomorrow. I think it may be due to the "etching" thou. May be it was just timing, but we never used to have streaking with our old dishwasher.

I get great results with the Fairy liquitabs. My Dad swears by the cheap Aldi ones and gave me a few to use but I wasn't impressed. I buy cheap glasses as I find you do get the cloudiness after a couple of years or so and I don't mind replacing them when they only cost me £2 for 6 in Asda!

Re the detergent drawer not opening sometimes, when you stack the dishwasher note which part of it is near the drawer and make sure you have nothing which would stop it flipping open.

Use whatever value/basics/economy/smart price tablets your supermarket stocks, and then add salt and rinse aid, and you will have sparkling glasses. (Unless they are etched, as described above)

Personally, I never put glasses in the dishwasher, for that very reason!

Ecover rinse aid is amazing. Everything comes out sparkling.

I don't use salt but I'm in Scotland and the water is lovely.

All in one tablets are not as good as separate salt and rinse aid.

If your house already has a water softener, which also supplies the dwr, you do not need to put salt in the dwr's miniature softener.

Magnetic or electrical field water conditioners don't work.

If you live in an area where there is very little calcium in the water you can turn the regenerator right down low and the dwr will use very little salt (in Bosch and similar the adjuster is usually a little blue dial in the top left corner of the door frame. Otherwise, read the instructions).

I have never lived in an area where there is no calcium at all in the water, but I am willing to believe that they exist.

Thanks again everyone! Still getting used to having a dishwasher, so am slightly clueless in that department!

Will get myself down to the shops - have already cleaned out the filters, etc today (they weren't too bad, as I do them fairly regularly) but then I put the dishwasher on the hottest cycle with a tablet and empty - hopefully that will give it a bit of a once-over!

You do need salt and rinse aid even with the 3 in 1 tablets.

Agree with Valium!

The cloudiness in glass wear can be damage to to the laquer glaze they put on glass, if it gets etched you might as well replace the glass.

I use the all in one liquid tablets, they say that they are effective without salt in 95 percent of households, and we don't have a problem. We also use dishwasher cleaner once a month. By we I of course mean 'I'

Oh okay, what's the point of them then?

the all-in-ones allow the tab maker to charge more for them, could that be it?

And there may be some people who think it is less effort.

I just got a dishwasher for the first time two weeks ago. where the hell do you put the rinse aid??

I didn't even knw about rinse aid where do you put it?

it depends on make and model. There is very often a round cap close to the tablet compartment, with a transparent eye next to it. You open the cap and pour rinse-aid down the revealed funnel until it is almopst full. You will observe that the eye is dark when full and pale when empty.

if this fails, you can probably find the instructions on the makers website