Come talk to me about dishwashers, rinse aid and salt and all the other garb please

[shinyshoes]

I will proudly be the owner of a new dishwasher hopefully next weekend..

I've never owned any luxury kitchen appliance like this. I have loads of dishwasher talets at the ready, but what is rinse aid and dishwasher salt?? Do I need it, and how often do I need to use these thing , realistically (no doubt the instuction booklet wiil tell me to use these things daily, thus incurring exorbarant amounts of money).

Thanks hugely

Salt and rinse-aid can be bought cheaply just don't go for the big brands, try Aldi or Lidl maybe. They are important - prevent streaks and stuff staying wet in the dishwasher once it's finished. But some dishwasher tabs include the salt and rinse-aid action (and a whole load of other stuff which I've never understood) in which case you don't need to buy them separately, just use one tab per wash.

Oh and every once in a while it is worth doing a clean with a dishwasher cleaner - comes in a little bottle which you run through on the longest cycle with the dishwasher empty.

The dish washer has a salt dispanser in the bottom - you fill it every few weeks with special dishwasher salt, Finish dishwasher salt is expensive but Tesco etc all sell their own brand which is much cheaper Tesco is about 99p for 2kg. Rinse aid goes in a dispenser in the door and makes you glasses sparkle, again you fill it every now and then. The dishwasher will have lights on the front to show when they have run out. Again you can use own brands which work just as well.

So I definately need them then!. I have bought Fairy platinum dishwaher tablets, they have all liquid inside, look very yummy and I have also bought finish dishwasher tablets.

I will go get the other things then.

Do you get what you pay for in the way of tablets, could I buy cheaper and it still make the plates etc clean?. What about a roasting tin after sunday lunch, could that go in there or will it make eveything greasy?

These may sound like silly questions but I have no clue

if you remove the worst of the grease, the detergent and hot water should be able to cope, might want to use a hotter wash to make sure it doesn't have a chance to block the tubes though.
We have a dishwasher, but I still wash oven trays by hand because they won't fit in with all the saucepans and the crockery.

I tend to buy 'good' tabs - Finish or Fairy are 'good' and go for cheaper versions of the other stuff.

Oops, are you supposed to still use salt and rinse aid then? The tablets I buy say they have it included so I haven't been bothering. We live in a hard water area though - any wisdom anyone? The stuff is generally dry after washing but sometimes can be a bit damp, especially plastic or metal things. And if I leave anything the wrong way up, scummy smelly water with bits of food in it collects in it.

We use Ecover tablets cut in half - they seem to clean just as well as a whole one & it makes the box go further . We did try Tesco own brand eco tablets but they stripped the designs off some glasses so didn't buy them again.

...oh and we use white vinegar instead of rinse aid - works just fine & at a fraction of the cost!

I use salt but not rinse aid and only buy Tesco Value Tabs

Chuck in everything including the most filthy of roasting tins and all come out sparkling after 1/2 hour wash. Fantastic!

Friend of mine was horrified I don't rinse crap off the plates before loading. IMHO doing that is a waste of time.

We use value tablets too. Less than half the price and do the job.

And, my to my mother's dismay, I don't rinse the plates etc first either.

Hmm, we don't rinse them and our dishwasher got blocked and flooded recently. I thought that was why so I insist on rinsing now - do you find this a problem at all?

We don't rinse...I see it as a total waste of water...but we do scrape things thoroughly to remove as much of the food as possible. Cleaning the filter isn't a fun job!

My Miele died a death four months past it second birthday. It was blocked somewhere and was going to cost £400 plus VAT to fix. Repairman said to me always rinse plates, etc., off before loading and use seperate tablets, rinse-aid and salt not the all-in-one jobbies. They are apparently the equivalent of using 2-in-1 shampoo and conditioner. Ok, but not great.

Was a very expensive lesson to learn so must admit I am a lot more careful of what goes in the dishwasher now. In fact, I've found it works out cheaper using the seperate items anyway.

Agree with Franke - Finish or Fairy tabs but use own brand salt and rinse aid.
I run the dishwasher once a day on a normal wash, usually after our evening meal and I find I need to re-fill the salt about once a month. My old dishwasher was over 10 years old when it died and only needed salt evety 8-12 weeks, so I guess it depends on the brand etc

My dishwasher only works properly with the liquitabs. Bloody thing. Cheapo salt and rinseaid though.

Ok, it's boring but here goes, Which magazine or Good Housekeeping said that for the best clean ever you have to use the separate components so rinse aid, salt and then detergent and use the hot setting.

BUT they did say that if you use an all in one tablet etc that they did do a good job of cleaning. I think it depends what you put in.

If you don't rinse your plates etc (I don't) then you need to remember to empty the little filter basket thing in the bottom of the dishwasher where all the crap gets caught.

We use fairy all in one so no rinse aid or salt. Ours is a bosch and we put it on the eco 50 wash every night.

Everything comes out clean. I have mermaid roasting pans and so they can't go in the dishwasher equally some of my pans are just too big so also don't go in so I hand wash them.

Therefore my dishwasher is never tested to the extreme despite being a very good make.

You do need salt and rinseaid. You can go for Supermarket basic brands. You put the salt into the base of the machine, and the rinseaid into the container on the door of the machine. It may have a dial you need to set the first time depending on your area's water hardness. This is expressed as a number - you can get it by ringing your water authority. The machine will probably have indicator lights on the front which come on when you need to top up either the salt or rinseaid - I find this is only about every 10 weeks or so.

I don't rinse my plates, but do get rid of all the bits before putting them in the dishwasher - quick wipe with a bit of kitchen paper. Also check the filter after every wash.

The which? report I saw on dishwasher tablets said that the very cheapest Tesco 'value' tablets came out joint top or maybe a close second to v expensive Finish ones, so I always get those. (£1.72 for 30 - 6p each, compared to 34p each for the most expensive Finish ones) I also have a dishwasher deodoriser that clips to the shelf, and every so often run a cycle with one of those dishwasher cleaner things.

I use waitrose own brand tablets, salt and rinse aid. I find that even using the multipurpose tablets if I don't add salt my pans don't always come up sparkling - not sure if it is relevant but I live in a very hard water area. I really don't think it is worth buying anything other than supermarket home brand though.

We have quite hard water and have never bothered with rinse-aid. The glasswear looks fine, I don't think it's necessary unless (maybe) you display the glasswear (in which case it's probably not for daily use, anyway).

The salt is necessary to keep topped up as directed, machine can get damaged without it, iirc. I get the salt from Lidl. Check the website for water company in your area to find out how hard your water is and what to set the dishwasher hardness level to (I got wrong advice from our local shop on this, btw, was good thing I didn't go with their advised settings).

Best value is supermarket's own dishwasher powder, not tablets. I can use less powder than a tablet would call for, some people get away with using half-tablets, too, which can save money. Lidl powder was best buy for us, but they don't seem to stock it any more (?).

i have CDA dishwasher over 4 years and still working great , but recently my rinse aid light stay ON even if its full, after wash all my glass and cutlery look grey (cloudy) i have change dial from 2-6 still same problem

Hang on everyone - whether you need salt depends on how soft your water is! We're in the NW and have very soft water so no dishwasher salt is required. Lots of dishwashers have a gauge you set for water hardness so the correct amount of salt is used. This will affect how quickly you get through salt.

We use Aldi's Magnum dishwasher tablets. I once bought some fancy Fairy ones on special offer, but they tainted all the plastic and silicone stuff washed in it, which was horrible and took ages to get rid of. Never use separate rinse aid.

NW here too, we use half an Aldi magnum tablet and everything comes out sparkling.

There is currently rinseaid in the machine as I found a bottle at the back of the cupboard and put it in. I haven't noticed any difference.

I put a hot cycle on with soda crystals every now and then to clean it.

The three top Best Buys in Which are Fairy Platinum, Lidl W5, and Aldi Magnum.

It's your choice to pay 40p per tablet or 10p per tablet.

The others are not as good. Ecover is among the worst.

Yes you do need salt for the water softener, even if you buy an all-in-one tablet. Supermarket Own-brand salt granules are exactly the same as Finish brand salt granules. I find Aldi rinse aid works fine as well.

p.s.

Finish Classic Powder is also a Best Buy, though it is both more expensive than the Lidl or Aldi tablets, and not as good.