How your dishwasher works and how to use it most effectively

T.C.

T.C.

The Living Force
FOTCM Member
This video popped up in my feed and I clicked on it and I'm glad I did. I learned a lot and got some great tips from it. I think the presenter is excellent. The video is so cool that, even though it's just about using your dishwasher, I thought it was worthy of sharing here on the forum.


The presenter's tips, which he explains in detail:

1) Clean your filters.

2) Before starting the dishwasher, run the hot water tap until the water is hot.

3) Use the detergent compartment in the door, including the pre-wash section of it (I didn't even know I had this pre-wash section or why it's there).

4) Use cheap powder or gel/liquid. How much depends on how hard your water is and how dirty your dishes are.

5) Use a cheap rinse-aid.
 
Annoyingly most dishwashers in Australia no longer use a hot water inlet (they used to). So turning on the kitchen tap until the water runs hot before turning on the dishwasher doesn’t apply to my situation.

The other tips though are very good. I have been using the pre-wash section for very dirty loads for quite some time.
 
T.C. said:
The presenter's tips, which he explains in detail:

1) Clean your filters.
Click to expand...

This is super-important. I have never seen a dishwasher outside N. America that has a food chopper. So clean that filter once a month, and you'll be not-too-grossed-out and very happy with dishwasher performance.

T.C. said:
2) Before starting the dishwasher, run the hot water tap until the water is hot.
Click to expand...

Outside N. America, I don't think this applies. European dishwashers also heat their own water (as do washing machines). That's why they often consume up to 2.4kW of electricity: becuz heating water quickly requires a built-in electric tea kettle!

T.C. said:
3) Use the detergent compartment in the door, including the pre-wash section of it (I didn't even know I had this pre-wash section or why it's there).

4) Use cheap powder or gel/liquid. How much depends on how hard your water is and how dirty your dishes are.
Click to expand...

And don't forget salt! When we had hard water here, adding salt thru the bottom 'salt hatch' made a HUGE difference. Usually, you can also program the unit so it knows how hard your water is (to optimize salt usage). Once we got the water softener, our water is now less than 1 degree hardness on the French scale, so I told the dishwasher hardness = 0, and stopped adding salt. VOILA! Still have shiny clean dishes!

T.C. said:
5) Use a cheap rinse-aid.
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If you have super-soft water, you don't need rinse aid - but only if your water is super-softened. The softer your water, the less rinse aid you can use (just do some tests). Rinse aid amount per wash is also sometimes adjustable - see your user manual.

And finally, I will definitely second his comment about not rinsing dishes before you put them in. I know so many people who do this, and it's really ridiculous. Dishwashers do a WAY better job of rinsing plates (even with cold yet high-pressure water) than you could ever do in a sink with a trickle of water (to save water/energy, of course).

If you do the math, an electric dishwasher that heats its own water will cost way less and use way less water than washing all those dishes in hot water in a sink. On top of that, almost all modern dishwashers are computerized with 'dirt sensors'. So unless you got a super-cheapo one, chances are it's automatically adjusting wash time based on the dirtiness of the dishes.

Great video!!
 
T.C. said:
This video popped up in my feed and I clicked on it and I'm glad I did. I learned a lot and got some great tips from it. I think the presenter is excellent. The video is so cool that, even though it's just about using your dishwasher, I thought it was worthy of sharing here on the forum.


The presenter's tips, which he explains in detail:

1) Clean your filters.

2) Before starting the dishwasher, run the hot water tap until the water is hot.

3) Use the detergent compartment in the door, including the pre-wash section of it (I didn't even know I had this pre-wash section or why it's there).

4) Use cheap powder or gel/liquid. How much depends on how hard your water is and how dirty your dishes are.

5) Use a cheap rinse-aid.
Click to expand...
I wasn't going to answer this, but there is another point of view.

Point one, it's obvious.

Point two, there is no such possibility in many countries, the dishwasher heats the water.

Point three, obvious.

Points four and five, do it yourself and your local appliance repair technician will be very happy.

There are breakdowns in which the dishwasher stops working simply due to excess foam and the electronic reader reads the issue as the water pump not working and not emptying the water, when this is not the case.
 
Lilou said:
I have used Seventh Generation, but was a bit miffed when I found out it was purchased by Unilever. Be sure to keep an eye out for changes to the product ingredients.
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What do you use now?
 
Scottie said:
If you do the math, an electric dishwasher that heats its own water will cost way less and use way less water than washing all those dishes in hot water in a sink.
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Probably depends on how many dishes your household uses, I think? We have 4 people here and I usually use 1 small sink of hot water per day for the dishes, unless something elaborate or messy has been cooked! Can't imagine a dishwasher would use less than that.. But maybe I'm wrong - I am very out of touch with the tech, haven't lived somewhere with a dishwasher in 20 years.. I like washing 'em by hand, it's very relaxing, like my little evening meditation time. edit: measured our sink - it's about 12 litres/2.6 gallons.
 
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T.C. said:
1) Clean your filters.
Click to expand...
Dishwasher has filters!? 😅 Ups...

T.C. said:
3) Use the detergent compartment in the door, including the pre-wash section of it (I didn't even know I had this pre-wash section or why it's there).

4) Use cheap powder or gel/liquid. How much depends on how hard your water is and how dirty your dishes are.

5) Use a cheap rinse-aid.
Click to expand...
When I had a dishwasher, I didn´t even know there is a pre-wash section or a salt or a rinse-aid section until 1 year after using it and then accidently talking with a friend about the topic. 😅 My dishes cleanliness improved massively when I started to use salt and rinse-aid.

I don´t have a dw any more, but back then I usually simply rinsed dishes a bit before putting them in the dw; also I run the dw only once a day in the evening, so rinsing helped the fat and stains go better off in the wash. For pans and stuff, I would pre-soak them and then put them in the dw moment before starting it. In that way, 99% of the time all dishes were perfectly clean.

I noticed about cheap tablets and stuff; here in Europe, there is a German company called DM and they have double as cheap products - which are also (most of the time) better than the advertised ones. I paid double less money for both tabs, salt and rinse-aid than I would for advertised brands and it worked perfectly fine - in most cases even better.

Tnx for the video and the tips!
 
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