Dishwasher

[Foxinsocks1]

We’ve only ever had one dishwasher, got it about 3/4 years ago and it’s rubbish. Dishes still come out dirty with about 1/4 of them needing handwashing after. We’ve cleaned all the components of it and we might then get one clean cycle but then it’s back to being useless. It’s a dishwasher we got from SIL (only 6 months old when we got it) and a brand I’ve never heard of.

We’ve given up using it as it’s more time consuming that hand washing but I’m fed up of the constant dishes by the sink and 4+ washing up loads a day.

So my questions are:

1. What are we doing wrong with this dishwasher?
2. Should we buy a different dishwasher and what brand?

How are you stacking things?
DH is a bit of a pain for overcrowding ours, so it's 50/50 whether I have to redo some, but when I do it it's very rare anything will still come out dirty, normally only if it's particularly stubborn

Have you checked the inside of the rotating spray arms? They can get blocked or prevented from moving by items. Do you use rinse aid? I find it essential, even if tablets claim to be all in one.

So we stack cups on the top shelf and plates and cutlery on the bottom with a space between each plate.

We’ve checked the spinning arms and used rinse aid as well as most brands of dishwasher tablets

Hate my dishwasher but can't afford to replace it yet

Doesn't matter how much I clean the bloody thing and I use expensive tabs rinse aid and top up the salt etc.
Also do a dishwasher cleaner every month.

I don't let it get over filled and yet glasses come out with a scum more often than not aswel as cups 😖

Heavy food laden things get rinsed first before they go in so as not to clog it up.
Still it's shit.

Funnily enough the same make dishwasher causes the same problems for a friend of mine too so I think it's just a shit one.

Next time I will be buying more carefully.

When you spend more time cleaning the item that's meant to clean your dishes and make life easier I think is the time it defeats the object for me

Got the same issue with my shark cordless that I've had a year and cost over £350.

I spend more time cleaning it than it does hoovering my bloody floors

It’s exactly that relieved, it takes longer to clean the machine and inspect dishes, sorting for what needs rewarding than it does to just hand wash. But if some never have this problem maybe I’m doing something wrong or just need a better machine.

We used to have a shit dishwasher. The only thing that helped was rinsing plates first. Now for a hotpoint something or other and it’s so good. No problems at all

Def going to be doing more research and spending abit more next time

There are good dishwashers around. I've only ever had one and had it over 20 years now. I scrape the plates but don't rinse. It's been one of the best time saving devices, particularly when the kids were little. Had a problem with it recently and managed to fix it myself watching instructions on YouTube. It's on every day. I'm expecting it to give up soon but it's still doing a good clean. It's Bosch

Do you use dishwasher salt as well as rinse aid and the tablets? Mine doesn't work without salt.

Have you cleaned out the filter thingy at the botrom? ( i expect you have but just in case..). Sounds like you are doing everything right though .. tempted to ask you to name and shame the brand! ( We've had the same Bosch for about 14 years and its still working fine )

It’s just a shit dw, we had an Electrolux one that came with our new build and it was so shite I bought a Miele instead. Which works really well every cycle.

Try a cheap Bosch one instead.

Why did sil give it away after 6 months?.

Our son inherited one in the flat he bought a year ago. It was a make I hadn't heard of. I managed to find a user guide on-line and it suggested using liquid dishwasher cleaner if tablets weren't getting things clean properly.

Just wondered whether that may help?

We've only had expensive dishwashers (large household, so ...) but still get crap results if the filters aren't cleaned often. Loading is important, but unless it's really bad, you'd probably get patchy results rather than consistently poor.

I used to be able to just use a tablet, but now I'm in a hard water area, dishwasher salt is essential. I don't use a cleaner, but I do wipe over the surfaces every now and again. the spray arms can be checked by pouring water into them and checking it comes out of all holes.

I don't rinse plates, but I do scrape them. It might also be worth checking different cycles. Maybe you need hotter water to dissolve the tablet at the right time?