Dishwasher/Water Smells

yram_slim

Can anyone help with an odd problem I have now I have moved house? Whenever I take clean stuff out of my dishwasher I cannot put it straight away as it usuall has an unpleasant, what we call, "fish pond" aroma clinging to it. Sometimes this happens with stuff handwashed in the sink also. I have had the water board out to check, they say there is nothing wrong with our supply, I have tried various products designed to clean dishwashers etc. but the problem still persists. I have had Bosch on the phone, they "don't know" what the problem could be, Proctor & Gamble have not an idea what I am on about but surely I am not the only one with this problem? The plates etc definitely smell and the only way to eradicate it is to rinse everything in a warm white vinegar rinse before drying and putting away. I have used the lemon fresh products, but I don't want my plates smelling of lemons - I don't want them smelling of anything!

Over to you brainboxes! (P.S. there is nothing wrong with our drains - it's not that sort of smell!).

Uniscots97

No idea sorry, but bumping this to see if someone else can help. Only thing I thought of was that something is caught in the drain that although isn't blocking it is causing the smell?

poppie,s_dream

get some soda crystals from your supermarket they are usually with the washing powders put a cupful in your machine and run it empty on a high temperature i do this with my washer once a month and don't get the smells any more i assume a dishwasher is similar . do this at least monthly hope this helps you

yram_slim

Thank you for that tip. I do use soda crystals as an excellent de-greaser. To be honest, I've tried everything in the dishwasher - I've even run it on a cupful of neat bleach! I just think its the water, but as I say, the water board can find nothing wrong. It's got me demented as sometimes I think the stuff's ok, then after going into the cupboard for a cup or a plate, there's that horrible smell again! AAAArgh

squeaky

It could be dirty water hanging about in your internal pipework in the kitchen, especially if the outlets for the dishwasher and your sink combine into a single before they go outside.

Try:-

A short wash program (or even just a prewash if your machine does one) with plenty of soda crystals.

Top up your sink as full as you can (with the plug in ) and again put a good dose of soda crystals in it.

Wait until your dishwasher starts to empty out the wash water and *then* pull the plug on the sink.

That way you should flush both pipes at the same time and not have mucky water being pushed from one to the other. Leave your nice clean soda water sitting in there for at least a couple of hours. Overnight if you can manage it, before using sink or dishwasher as normal.

justmumcookcleanertaxi

Hi do you have an outside tap? After Mr Justmumcookcleanertaxi fitted an outside tap we noticed a funny smell in the kitchen and the coffee always tasted "different". Turned off the hose at the stoptap for the hosepipe inside the house. mine was located under the sink and everything went back to normal. just worth a try???

yram_slim

Thank you to all who replied - I will try the soda in the sink tip.

I notice someone else has also posted a comment about smelly dishes (it's actually not the dishwasher that smells, just the dishes when they come out!)

M.S.

hot.chick

Did we ever get a solution to the smelly dish problem?

I have the same problem - I can't bare to eat off them, but I seem to be the only one that can smell it???

emg

This is probably a red herring but I get this problem if I have had a meal involving eggs. Makes everything in the dishwasher smell disgusting and I really can't bear it. If I have washed up by hand then everything that has been in the water smells too. Sometimes it smells ok when just washed but then when it dries out it's horrible again. I've noticed it on cups at motorway services too and been unable to drink out of them. None of my family seem to notice it too much but I seem to be hypersensitive to it. I love eggs but actually avoid using them because of the thought of everything smelling afterwards.

Ishtar

We've had this since we moved! We'd been washing up by hand as the dishwasher needed a bit of plumbing in before we could get it working things started smell awful. We also found that the water was greasy in the sink - before we started putting the pots in.

I've given the plugholes a good dosing with washing soda and hot water - we put the greasy sink down to a less than clean previous owner, but have now given it a good scrub with Astonish which has removed most of it.

Now that the dishwasher is working, the problem seems to have gone away, apart from the occasional waft of 'eggy' water from the plugholes! More washing soda required, methinks.

D.

kippers

We had a problem with a smelly dishwasher last year too. You could smell a horrid fishy/eggy smell even when it was running. We tried everything, dishwasher cleaners etc even bleach and nothing worked.

I had been using those tablets that have 3 in one (ie soap, salt and rinseaid). Through sheer fluke i couldn't get then one week so i bought cheaper tablets without salt and rinse aid, so as precaution i topped the salt up and as i was doing it the most vile smelling water came out the place i was topping the salt up! I ran the dishwasher empty on the hottest wash and that cured our smelly dishwasher!

I now top the salt up regularly and buy Mr T's economy tablets (i only use half of a tablet per wash) and i've not had the same problem.

:j :j :j :j :j :j :j :j