If you use all in one dishwasher tabs....

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Do you need salt and rinse aid as well?
Probably a daft question but I'm never sure

We use Aldi powder, keep salt full and put vinegar in the rinse aid bit. Normal wash setting. Always squeaky clean glasses and dishes. The branded stuff is a waste of money.

We are in a hard water area & only use the all in one, everything comes out shiny clean- however we are putting a full size tablet in a half size machine so maybe that makes a difference

Neither, soft water area. I used to use salt but it made sod all difference and instructions say we don't need it anyway. I use finish quantum tabs because they are good and cheap in Costco.

How does using rinse aid make the contents drier?

How does using rinse aid make the contents drier?

all surfaces can be graded in terms of "wetability". It's to do with the surface tension at a molecular level between the edge of a patch of water and the surface. If a surface has low wetability then water will bead-up and run off much quicker than a surface with high wetability (which would be able to have a thin film of water all over or have loads of tiny droplets rather than a few big beads that run off). That's the main factor if the water is pure H2O but of course in dishwashers the water is never going to be pure and a chemical addition to the water could also help the water to bead-up and run off quicker too. So without ever having studied rinse-aid myself I expect they either reduce the wetability of the surface or decrease the wetting ability of the water.

Wow. Thanks!

I have been doing it wrong for years!

I just open the door when the cycle is finished to allow the dishes to cool. Whilst they cool any excess water dries off. Never used rinse aid.

We never bother and the stuff comes out clean. Only problem is it's often a bit wet, but apparently that's common with eco tablets, not due to the all-in-one-ness.

Oh, should have RTFT

Opening the door is the worst thing you can do! The residual heat and insulation from the wash dries the dishes faster with the door shut.

mirokarikovo I love that explanation! Thank you. I was thinking about this and don't know any of the chemistry and was wondering how it all works. Very Cool.

Lead - our dishwasher opens itself at the end of the cycle for 15mins, so I'm not sure it's that terrible otherwise the manufacturer wouldn't do it (Miele)

Which? rate Aldi and Tesco above the expensive brands.

in a hard water area yes you need salt, the filters/expensive bits of machine can get very damaged without the required salt (long term impact).

I don't bother with rinseaid, don't know what I might be missing there, but I do know that no rinse aid doesn't break the machine.

Never used salt anyway - I think that depends what the water is like in your part of the country.
We do put a bit of rinse aid in every now and then - but then I vary with the 'all in one' tablets and the cheap as chips ones.

Artandco that's cool! Mine is quite old though, yours may be a newer fandangoed one which is why mine says to keep the door closed. And mine is Bosch.

Opening the door is the worst thing you can do! the worst? How so? I have had dishwashers since the 80's (albeit those early ones were my parents) and no one has ever come to any harm by opening the door

Good. That's great, reality

I bought a new dishwasher last week and for the first time ever read the instructions. It said you don't need to use the rinse aid but do need to use salt if you use the all in ones.

I also asked the dishwasher installers as we have a water softener so I had hoped we wouldn't need to add salt but they recommend we still add salt.

In an extremely soft water area - so never use salt (for one, I tried it once and ended up getting rusty cutlery, and second my current dishwasher manual specifically states not to use salt if your water is below a certain hardness).

Do use rinse aid though, as it makes a massive difference to how dry plastics come out.