Why isn't my dishwasher working?

[hotCheeseBURNS]

I bought it second hand about 6 months ago so don't have any instructions or manual or anything.

Everything (especially mugs and glasses) comes out complete with a crusting of gritty stuff. A while back I asked my mum and she said we had to put salt in it so we did that but it's still not cleaning properly!

Salt, salt and more salt!

Top up each month ish as much as you can pour in. 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!

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).

Wash your filters.

Lol at the bits falling off Will get dp to unscrew them all tomorrow morning! Thank you madrush.

Filters? What filters? Where are they?

Ours was doing this too. Unscrewing and cleaning the arm things has seemed to have solved the problem.

The filter is at the bottom of the machine. It comes out easily.

In the floor/ bottom where the drain is.
Take them out, soak in hot water, scrub, return to machine.

Agree with salt, but also rinse aid.

Yes, is the arms, if they get blocked it doesn't work. Look at the little holes and see if they're all blocked up.

Salt.

Rinse agent.

Secret agent

Thanks everyone for your help.