the dishwasher .... explain to me simple things.

[Tortington]

i was reading the other thread about soda crystals

and soeone mentioned somethng about salt.

the dishwasher we have was left in the house when we bought it -

i stick tesco own tablets in the tablet drawer thingy.

an i supposed to do something else?

i usually wash stuff by hand actually as the dishwasher is shit.

You need to fill it with salt usually a srew top in the bottom of the dishwasher, and also rinse aid usually found next to the wear you put the dishwasher tablet in.

You can buy dishwasher cleaner, a bottle you put in your cutlery basket and run an empty cycle - may need it if it's not working properly.

you need to put salt in, normally in a thingy at the floor of the dishwasher, and also rinse aid, whcih in ours goes in the small screwy thing next to the place you put the powder (sorry for the 'technical' terms.....not feeling too well and so brian is mushy).

dishwashers don;t work well with all three things loaded in.....but salt and rinse aid only normally need doing once every 5wks or so.

dshawashers don;t work well without all three.....

Blimey - I've used our dishwasher for 3 years and never put salt or rinse aid in I had no idea

It works perfectly ok though

i need o put salt where?

why do i need to do this

are the plates in it at the time?

it this salt as well as the cleaning tablet?

is this salt - your bog standard saxa variety?

i have lived here for months! no wonder the thing is shit

here was i vertain that they were overrated!

tell me more

be specific and pretend i am from mars.

what the feck is rinse aid

why do i need

rinse aid

salt

and the tablet

? eh eh?

this is v. complicated

is there a drawer for the salt?

McDreamy, the dishwasher cleaner is a right rip-off. A cup of white vinegar thrown in does exactly the same job.

Some tablets now contain rinse aid and salt as well as the detergent so you don't need to fill them separately.

You don't need to add Salt or Rinse Aid if you use a '3 in 1' tablet but you will need them if you use normal tablets or liquid

The salt generally goes in the bottom of the machine. Pull out the lower drawer and you should be a round cap that you can unscrew. Salt is special dishwasher salt, def not Saxa, Supermarkets do their own brand.

Rinse aid not strictly necessary, but you may get white powdery marks on glasses if you don't use it.

Well I only use tablets and then a cleaner once a month and mine works fine. But I'm in an area with very soft water so it doesn't get clogged up with limescle (which is what the salt is supposed to prevent).

The rinse aid just stops glasses etc getting smears on them because it helps the machine to dry the dishes. So if you're not too worried about that then I wouldn't bother.

Take the lower drawer right out. On the floor of the dishwasher on the left is a lid, unscrew that and pour a load of salt in then replace lid (salt helps soften the water). Next to the compatment you put your tablet should be a flip up compatment, here you add the rinse aid (this helps keep glassware shiny and smear free). Also in the bottom of the dishwasher should be a filter which needs to be unscrewed periodically and cleaned and rinsed to get rid of any food bits. Also run it periodically empty except for one of those cleaning packs, and rinse plates etc first before putting them in.

There should be a basket type thing (filter)in the bottom of the actual machine that you can lift out, check to see how much gunk in it. that might be why it not washing clean.

I find the 3-in-1 tablets aren't sufficient, but then we live in a hard water area.

..oh and I only use bog standard tabs, not the ones with added this that and the next thing (mostly because they're so farkin expensive).

right.....as your dishwasher is working shit, than I would say that you will need the salt and rinse aid.

salt.......pull out the tray at the bottom of the dishwasher......on the floor, need the spinny thing, there should be waht looks like a screw top sticking up, unscrew that and pour in (dishwasher) salt., then put the lid back on, and the tray can go back in.

on the door of the dishwasher is the flip thing where you put the tablet/powder. next to that should be another flip thing, or a small screwtop thing......unscrew and pour in the rinse aid.

as and added thing, before you use it again, I would buy one of those dishwasher cleaner things that go upside down in the cutlery basket and run that thru too, to give the inside a proper clean, and it sets the salt and rinse aid stuff up.

right.....as your dishwasher is working shit, than I would say that you will need the salt and rinse aid.

salt.......pull out the tray at the bottom of the dishwasher......on the floor, need the spinny thing, there should be waht looks like a screw top sticking up, unscrew that and pour in (dishwasher) salt., then put the lid back on, and the tray can go back in.

on the door of the dishwasher is the flip thing where you put the tablet/powder. next to that should be another flip thing, or a small screwtop thing......unscrew and pour in the rinse aid.

as and added thing, before you use it again, I would buy one of those dishwasher cleaner things that go upside down in the cutlery basket and run that thru too, to give the inside a proper clean, and it sets the salt and rinse aid stuff up.

thank you!

well- goes to show how unobservant i am, i didnt even notice the flip up compartment next to the tablet bit.

righto - salt!

and white vinager.

no wonder its bloody shit - limescale terrible round here.

you down south custy??

we are too (dorset)......bad here too

Are you in Wilts Custardo? The water is very chalky round there. When we go to my mums the tea and coffee tastes so different to our house.

not that far from you, west sussex.

i filter my water for a brew and i rinse the kettle out at least once a week. its bloody awful, - so different from getting lovley water off the pennines oop north - now theres a proper brew

I also inherited a dishwasher which worked for a month and made me think "wow, what have I been missing out on" then overnight stopped working properly. I had to learn how it worked and now it's great again (no more snotty stuff in the bottom of the glasses and mugs)

Salt sits in water reservoir at bottom of dishwasher, round screw in plastic thing, top up each month ish as much as you can pour in. You do need special dishwasher salt. It's job is to supply the water jets with softened water, so the jets don't get "furred up" with deposits and fail to let water through properly. ESSENTIAL!

Rinse aid may or may not make your glasses sparkle without water stains on them, more a matter of personal preference.

3in1 tablets only provide salt after the water has been through the jets, so you may get some clogging up over time and reduction in performance.

MOST (ok 2/2 in my sample) dishwashers that aren't working properly also have stuff in the jets - unscrew multiple plastic bits and eventually the arm things that spin and spray water around will fall off and you can wash them. Pay attention to which bits fall off first because you do need to put them back in the same order (and same way up!). In my 2 machine sample I found random small clear discs of polythene stuck in the jets which needed tweezers to remove them (I think these are added features from the manufacturers which get stuck over time meaning you buy a new dishwasher quicker, but I could be wrong).

Load it up, put in dishwasher powder/tablet, switch it on and welcome to the world of realising that dishwashers can work and are fab. Good luck.

snap with the kettle custy..........I filter too and the kettle still gets crusty.

I also find we go thru more shampoo etc. the few times I have gone 'oop north', the amount of shampoo I am used to using, goes really frothy and takes forwever to rinse out!

We have virtually zero limescale here (not needed to descale kettle in 5 years so far!), and the all-in-one tablets are fine. I buy quite expensive ones whenever they are on offer. Fairy are my current favourite. They were on a BOGOF offer in Morrisons a few months ago, and I found some £1 off coupons in a leaflet, so I bought a years worth

I do use the Finish dishwasher cleaner monthly, but will be trying the white vinegar trick next time as I hate the nasty chemical smell it has for a few cycles afterwards. That said, it does work fantastically well.

Hope you get it working, custs. Then you will know the true joy of a working dishwasher.