Dishwasher help

Nikkisun

I'm currently using 5-in-1 tablets in my dishwasher but find that if I don't use rinse aid as well then nothing is getting cleaned properly.

Is this usually the case? I thought that the all in one tabs meant that I didn't have to buy rinse aid - doesn't seem very economical!

daska

According to Which! you should also continue to use salt to protect your machine.

greenbee

Have you checked whether you DW has a setting for water hardness, or for rinse aid? It may be that the 5 in 1 tablets aren't suitable for your machine. It might also be worth making sure that your filters are all clean, and giving the machine a degrease/descale with soda crystals & vinegar.

Butterfly_Brain

When I had a dishwasher I used white vinegar instead of rinse aid with any tablet or powder that I was using at the time
Salt should always be used

Ishtar

Have you set the machine up to tell it you're not using separate rinse aid? We used to use the all in one tablets but found we were still buying salt and rinse aid, so switched to dishwasher powder.

For us, it cleans much better than the tablets and you can adjust the dosage without having to fiddle with cutting tablets up. We're currently making 3kg of powder last around 4 months...

Mands

Ishtar wrote: »

switched to dishwasher powder.

For us, it cleans much better than the tablets and you can adjust the dosage without having to fiddle with cutting tablets up.

Another vote for powder here. To find the right amount of powder for you halve, halve and halve again until you find its not working and then go back one step. Running our DW every other day we're using about 3-4 kg a year.

Vinegar for rinse aid, but do keep the last rinse aid bottle as it's much easier to fill up the machine that way :-)

Mands

Nikkisun

Thanks - we still use salt so that's not the problem.

Wasn't aware that I had to tell the dishwasher that I'm not using rinse aid!

Will dig out the instructions and have a look.

Thanks all.

Sunnyday

Another vote here for powder in the dw as the amount can be controlled easily and it`s very economical. I also use salt in the dw and plain old malt vinegar as rinse aid. I think that tablets are difficult to cut and work out much more expensive than powder/vinegar.

Some machines may have setting on them that can be changed but mine dosen`t. I would give powder a try, i use Mr M`s cyclone powder which is around £2 per kg and lasts ages.

HTH
SD