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

[Sychnits]

Can any one help me ??
My dishwasher 'salt ' light is on. I have already refilled it with salt . It's still flashing and will not work!
Any ideas ??

[HappydaysArehere]

Ps. Must add never leave your dishwasher on and go to bed. Our Bosch would have burnt the house down if we hadn't had a smoke alarm and been sitting in the next room.

[HappydaysArehere]

I use an all in one tablet but always keep the salt added as we have hard water here. Don't add anything else. Would recommend wiping plates/saucepans with kitchen paper before stacking so that machine doesn't get unnecessarily mucky. Also the odd dish cleaner wash freshens up.

[Greenicicle]

Soft water here too, never use salt or rinse-aid. (NW)

[conkerpods]

I think I've only topped up my salt once in 3 years.
I use all in one tablets. How often should I put salt in if I'm in a hard water area?It seems to be working ok?!

[NotAMammy]

PigletJohn is that Which report still pretty much the same?

[kathkim]

This is fantastically helpful! Thank you!!!

[DaveF333]

Learn how to disconnect the spraying arms (and keep a bit of bendy wire handy) because blocked sprayers are the main cause of inefficiency and it's a simple thing to do yourself (but expensive to get an engineer to do it).
NB Rice (especially brown rice) is just the right size for getting stuck in the sprayer holes so always try to remove before using washer.
PS I have a half-size washer and it has no place for rinse aid --- so I just open it up and lob in a capful of white wine vingear about ten minutes from the end of whichever cycle I'm using (ten minutes before it goes onto drying that is). If your tablets aren't fully dissolving, put some vinegar in early and it will soften the water and help break the tablets down.

[mirpuppet]

PigletJohn Thanks for the update from Which

[RightyTightyLeftyLoosey]

We also use Ecover tablets and white vinegar as rinse aid...all our stuff comes out lovely! at terramum
Do use salt and empty filter often though!

[e1y1]

I love my dishwasher, and would not be without it.

You don't need to rinse plates as that defeats the object of having a dishwasher.

However, what you have to remember is that it is a dishwasher, not a garbage disposal, so you do need to scrape plates of any big food objects, or there would be problems.

I believe, you only actually need salt if you live in an extremely hard water area regardless of using all in one.

Luckily, I live in an extremely soft water area, one of the softest regions in England actually (reward for all the rain we have ).

I made the biggest mistake of my life in my last dishwasher, for some reason I decided to add salt, despite years of faultless performance beforehand. After doing that, all my cutlery came out rusty and non glazed pot (trims of bottoms of cups) had orange spots on them.

So I never made that mistake again, and don't need to use salt (suppose even I wouldn't if I weren't using an all in one).

I found THIS website interesting because I am sad :)

[PigletJohn]

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.

[PigletJohn]

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.

[RaspberryLemonPavlova]

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.

[wowfudge]

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.

[kazikool]

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

[peanutbutterkid]

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 (?).

[ClaireDeLoon]

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.

[JulesJules]

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.

[Fizzylemonade]

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.

[Metatron]

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

[mamijacacalys]

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

[Owls]

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.

[terramum]

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!

[CherryChoc]

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?