Apparently pre-rinsing confuses the dishwasher or something. Not doing it leaves me with residue all over the other dishes though 🤷
- use powdered detergent, the cheapest available. NOT PODS
- Buy rinse aid.
- fill the rinse aid compartment
- fill the given soap cup all the way AND the prewash. Sometimes the prewash is just an indention in the little door flap for the soap cup. If you dont have one, just sprinkle like 30% of the amount of powder you put in the cup.
- if theyre still coming out with residue, consider cleaning/descaling the jets, the filter, and try putting less dishes in.
- if that all fails, read the manual. The dishwasher company wants it to work. They know how it works. They wrote a guide. Look up something like “whirlpool washomatic manual” or whatever is printed on the front of it/inside the door. Mine has a sticker with instructions.
Ive dealt with 5 dishwashers that “dont work” and after kindly instructimg the owner over the course of maybe 15 minutes, they save 30 mins a day washing dishes. Still less water/energy (water heater) to run twice than handwash once.
Also run the tap on your sink until the water turns hot, then start the dishwasher.
A majority of the gunk removal happens during the pre-wash cycle. Hot water greatly helps with this.
fill the given soap cup all the way
One thing I’ve learnt from this thread is that this isn’t necessarily right. Its size allows for people with hard water, but if your water is soft then by filling it all rhe way you are likely using too much, which can lead to residue on your dishes. For soft water, half filling is apparently often plenty. Which is another reason to use powder not pods.
Powdered dish detergent and running the water until it gets hot before starting the dishwasher seem to make a difference for me
My dishwasher somehow checks how dirty the water is after the first rinse and adjust ms the washing time accordingly, so getting ketchup and sauces from the plates before makes it run shorter.
That may save some time but I don’t think it’d save water. Dishwashers don’t constantly add new water. Itll add water for a rinse, wash it out, and then more water for the clean. I’m sure some dishwashers do a third cycle as well
Residue is a sign of too much soap in the dishwasher. Try reducing the amount of soap. Also, it massively helps to put a little bit inside the chamber and not just the soap compartment. The dishwasher has two washes, pre-wash and main wash, and without soap, pre-wash will be almost useless. With soap, it will drastically reduce the necessary amount of soap in the main wash, meaning no more residue for you.
You mean detergent right?
Apologies for the youtube link but this guy fits in nicely with the lemmy crowd and made a 40min video about optimal use of dishwashers and detergent. He does promote a specific powder detergent… but its from a good company 👈👈😎 and backed with science.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DAX2_mPr9W8&pp=ygUhdGVjaG5vbG9neSBjb25uZWN0aW9ucyBkaXNod2FzaGVy
You mean detergent right?
Without double-checking your pedantry (or language barrier) via web search, isn’t “detergent” a type of soap?
Hmmm I wonder who it could be.
On an unrelated note, down with blue Christmas lights.
“This guy”!? How dare you disrespect Alec like that! :P
If you’re nerdy enough to be on Lemmy, you’re likely nerdy enough to already be a fan of Technology Connections; just sayin’.
Lmao you right, I was being a little too casual. Gotta put some respec on his name 😂
Alec Watson puts out some top notch content
Also very fair point but happy to spread the word just in case
lol fair enough
Someone else posted a video that covered this. Some dishwashers (not mine) have a pre-wash spot for putting the soap. In the video, the guy had his spot actually on top of the soap door, so it would be measured but falls straight in with the dishes when you close the door for the pre-wash. He said in the video to just add a tablespoon of dishwashing powder on the door or in the bottom if yours doesn’t have a prewash spot.
I have learnt a lot from that video and all the comments here!
It’s also worth seeing if the dishwasher you have heats up the water or if it just pulls hot water from the boiler.
You’ll be able to tell by seeing which pipe connected to, if it’s connected to cold water then you’re okay, you’re not American and you can relax.
People who saw the TC video reading this post:
Gotta run that water till its hot, and use the powder, brother.
Again with this America-centric view
Oh you (rest of the world), with your 220vac everywhere and your “yeah electricity can heat that up” attitude.
I’ll give you the gift of super advanced technology!
Don’t let it fool you. I know a robot in disguise when I see one.
We can have 220-240vac 60hz in America by going across the two hot legs…we just don’t because reasons.
I think the 220vac is just Europe, isn’t it?
Just a note: Australia and NZ are ‘officially’ 230v but are in reality 240v.
We were historically 240v and nothing actually changed at an infrastructure level, just the standard which says we’re at 230v -6%/+10% (which allows for up to 252v, ie. 240v +5%, the old standard)
Europe is 240V too
220, 230, whatever it takes.
Learn something new everyday, thanks mate
Ah yes, Dishwashers and their operation. The quintessential americana. Surely no one else in the world has dishwashers but America.
Username checks out.
My dishwasher doesn’t use hot water, it’s got an heating element.
He’s poking fun at our anemic half phase electrical system. In places with 220/240V electrical is the norm, electrical heating elements are more powerful so there’s no need to get the water warm using the kitchen tap before running the dishwasher.
If you haven’t cleaned your filter recently I will recommend you double check it. It’s probably not it, but it’s an easy thing to check
Also refill the dishwasher salt!
Another tip is to pop out the spray arms in the machine, and clean and decalcify them.
(If you wondered “what’s dishwasher salt”, you probably have a lot of blockage in the spray arms, and get less pressure as a result)
Not all machines can use dishwasher salt and not all areas need it. It’s apparently for built in water softening. In the US for example areas with hard water typically have whole home water softeners.
I live somewhere with soft water so dishwasher salt isn’t needed. I used to live in Ohio where the water is generally fairly hard, and there every house had a water softener. That said if you don’t have a water softener or soft water (or you just get mineral buildup in places with water) check if your dishwasher has a salt compartment
My water is pretty soft at less than 25 ppm, but it still significantly improved my wash results by adding dishwasher salt and cleaning the spray arms, so I dunno.
As someone who never reads manuals. This.
That dishwasher isn’t designed to be self-cleaning – it needs help. Clean the filter regularly. Maybe every other load depending on how you pre-wash.
Same vibe for a lint filter in your washing machine. I think many people check the dryer lint trap, but the washer also has one. And the dryer vent hose will collect lint.
There are air filters in your furnace, probably, that need to be checked too, not just the intakes in a few rooms; and the AC drain line needs to be cleaned occasionally or it will back up and make a water mess.
There are just a thousand maintenance tasks that we are presumably supposed to just know, but no one told us, and can become serious problems when they are ignored. As the world becomes more complicated, there are only more of these.
lint filter in your washing machine
TIL… where would this be?
My front-load washer had a panel on the bottom that exposed the filter. It got clogged with a hair tie and pet hair - the washer wouldn’t drain and I had to do it manually. Was quite a pain.
I found this article showing common places, but also TIL that maybe not all washing machines will have one.
TY for the link! I looked all over on my unit and couldn’t find jack. Just the normal fabric softener and bleach receptacles. will check out the link.
“It’s probably not it”? After 30 years of dishwater experience I am convinced that it’s always the filter.
Yeah right like if my dishes aren’t coming out right that’s the first place I look.
It’s pretty simple, really…if it’s draining too slow and the dishwasher doesn’t realize it, it’s gonna spray dirty water far later than it should band.
Where my washer seems to struggle is shit that dries on real good. Parfait is probably the worst. Which is funny, because e’rybody loves parfait.
Ok fair, it’s almost certainly a factor here, but may not be the only cause
Obligatory Technology Connections video insert
To the top. Was looking for this linkeroo
I tried the powder thing. Couldn’t get the hang of it. Back to pods and I’m more than satisfied. I trust Alex implicitly, it’s clearly an “operator error,” but that’s where I’m at.
I’d be curious to know how you’re washing in a way that makes you feel pods are better.
I used to be a pod person (ha), but after alwx’s video, I experimented and found that by adding powder to the door (along with the actual soap part, obv) and running the hot tap before starting the load makes them come out great (most of the time - oatmeal is my nemesis).
The hot water was the big thing for me. I don’t see a noticeable performance difference between the pods and the powder, but the pods are easier with a small enough cost difference over time that it might as well be zero.
But the hot water is clutch.
I did the usage cost at my house, The powder was less than half the cost for what I use and my local prices.
But half of what? Half of cheap is still cheap.
Half of cheap is cheaper. Shit compounds when you have a handful of these savings.
Bingo, I buy dry goods in bulk. Soap, rice, flour… cost so little to produce even buying the smaller bulk packages can save a significant portion of your grocery bill. The only stuff I buy from the grocer is perishables and frozen.
A $7 box of pancake mix costs about $1 to make from bulk ingredients.
A 1.30 box of rice-a-roni costs a little over 0.50 cents to make.
Mac and cheese, same deal,
If you can stash a few large bags, or split the cost with your neibors/fam you can cut out a huge chunk of your food cost, end up with stuff that’s healthier and tastier and not locked in to 1 of 4 flavors.
Making pancakes looks like this:
get out a spoon, any small/medium spoon. n heaping spoonfulls of flour, n-2 heaping spoonfulls of sugar, a pinch of salt, 2 if you’re making a more than a few cups. 1 level spoon of baking powder. (2 if you’re feeding an army) Add water and stir until it comes off the spoon in ribbons. Too much water? add a level spoon of flour and mix until it comes off in ribbons.
For waffles, add some oil, another spoon of baking powder, a few drops of vanilla extract.
rice-a-roni is just rice and spaghetti, lightly browned in oil the boiled off with bullion, maybe some light veggies.
50% is 50% it scales linerally.
82 Cascade pouches at bulk cost me $30 75 oz of Cascade powder costs me $6
that’s $0.09 per wash for powder and $0.37 cents per wash for pouches.
I don’t really consider $30 to be cheap… and it turns out it’s 1/3 as much not 1/2
How often do you use your dishwasher?
I use mine about 2-3 times a week, so if we go with 3 that’s saving like 40 bucks a year, assuming perfect measurements and no spilling of the powder. That’s not enough of a difference to fret over.
It was purely me not getting the hang of the amount of powder. I also have a lot of plasticware (kids), and so it amplified the residual issue.
The problem is that I have zero issues with pods. I out in pod, turn on, close door, and that’s that. It’s the lack of problems, and the fact that powder requires some fine tuning, that had me lose interest in it.
And I basically scrape food matter off plates and load them in. Only time I ever rince is when we have lots of tiny food matters on plates and it’ll be a pain in the ass to scrape each individually into the garbage, where a jet of hot water will blast them into the strainer ezpz.
So yeah, I’m running the dishwasher daily, and for me I need the path of least resistance.
I used powder for years and it worked okay. However I was always cleaning my filter and the inside of my dishwasher seemed a bit grungy. On a whim I decided to try one of the most expensive pods. The difference was night and day. My dishwasher looks much better, and now when I clean the filter there’s barely any gunk. Some of the pods definitely have more effective product (enzymes?) that the powder doesn’t have.
Were you using the expensive powder?
I was using Cascade Complete powder.
You made it before me sir!
Some things you can just put in, some things need a long soak and a steel wool scrub.
Fond on stainless? Baked on protein? Ancient debris? You might need to do it manually.
I don’t know, man, just put it through and if it doesn’t come off, LEARN what you can and can’t like a normal human being, jesus.
A good way to start, if you’re an infant, is to soak all your dishes for like 6-12 hours, and inspect to see what comes off easily and what doesn’t.
All this talk about soaking or not soaking is like mormon young adults trying to bend the walls that skydaddy built.
I have an old (must be 20yo) budget bench dishwasher and never have any issue with anything not being clean. Never done pre-wash and often overpack it.
It is still possible to get dried stuck on food not washed off. If items are dirty and very dried, they need an option for longer pre-wash.
I was ready to riot if I didn’t see TC in the comments.
I was ready to be perturbed on his behalf, awww.
I was shocked that I had the opportunity to post it, to be honest.
It’s funny cause i was just talking about this video the other day with someone who didn’t know you have to run the tap hot before starting the machine. It’s just such a good video.
That depends on how far from your machine your hot water heater is, and if your machine compensates for water temp with a heating element or discharging cold water until the temp increases but as a general rule: yeeuh
It also only matters when your dishwasher is hooked up to warm water in the first place. (In Germany) I’ve only ever seen them connected to cold water.
Even if yours has a heating element it’s a good idea to preheat the water. This is covered in the TC video
I wonder if this could be done by the dishwasher with a temp sensor and program at the start of each load (run until hot, drain, start wash). i assume it would hurt their water efficiency claims to dump a bunch of water down the drain at the start of the wash though
It doesn’t have to, just put a heatig element in it. Most dishwasher I’ve seen only hook up to cold water, so running the tap is not going to do anything.
US dishwashers often do have a wimpy heating element. It gets used if you have a setting for extra hot water or a sani-rinse cycle. It wouldn’t be a big deal to have the dish washer heat it’s own water, but it would require either running a 220V circuit to the machine to make it practical or put up with a very long wash cycle.
Though frankly, washing in cold water is fine as long as you scrub well enough. But you do need to do the rinsing in very hot water to finish the job.
Edit to add - I didn’t explain the extra heating to the water well enough. The wimpy heating element doubles to do extra heating of the water and is used for the drying cycle.
If you run the tap hot first you get hot water in the pre-wash cycle. A lot of machines don’t use the heating coil for the pre-wash.
That was fantastic, thanks!
Some of the key things were to put separate powder in for the pre-wash (mine doesn’t have a separate pre-wash section as far as I can tell), and to not put so much detergent in. We have soft water, and apparently that means if you fill the thing up (or use a tablet/pod) then you might be using too much detergent which means it might not all come off in the final rinsing stage.
mine doesn’t have a separate pre-wash section as far as I can tell
Then you can just dump the pre-wash detergent directly in.
Yeah I got that from the video, just throw it in since it’s the first cycle anyway.
I never pre-rinse and I never have any problems. Not using pods and adding soap to the pre-wash cup as per the manufacturer instructions made the real difference.
Used to have issues. Alec has solved them all for me. Great video.
Using regular dish soap for this will end up in a disaster.
Edit: Lol, what kind of idiot downvoted this. Go ahead, use regular dish soap in a dish washer, and PLEASE report back. XD
Detergent = soap but you’re right, regular dish soap does not belong in the dishwasher and will result in a huge mess.
I can report back since my ex did it once. Suds came out of the dishwasher while it was running, otherwise no big deal. Worked fine afterwards, didn’t develop any leaks or anything.
She also used liquid hand soap for laundry once, smelled a bit funny and might not have gotten as clean as otherwise, but otherwise nothing bad happened
That’s not a typical reaction. Either there was only a non existent amount of dish soap or the thing wasn’t left running long enough for it to be really bad.
It almost always results in suds being EVERYWHERE and the same thing happening over and over again if the dish washer isn’t cleaned properly afterwards.
I suspect it was a fairly small amount since, despite being an idiot in general, she at least knows that dish soap suds a lot. She’s washed dishes by hand at least 5 or 6 times in her life I know for sure (mostly she has her men do things like that, she’s got no time or energy for chores (or a job for that matter)).
I overfilled with regular dishwasher detergent once and triggered the overflow sensor. The dishwasher drained itself correctly, but bubbles in the little tube kept the float locked in the overflow position until they all popped, hours later. The soap residue left in the sensor bubbled up for several cycles afterward, repeating the problem. You can, theoretically, unscrew it from its mount and tip it forward to make the bubbles pop faster but that sounded like a recipe for disaster.
I cannot imagine what dumping regular-ass dishsoap would do to my dishwasher, but based on the above I’d probably just put a round in it and look for a new one.
Pre-rinsing is the hill I’m willing to die on.
I’d rather pre rinse then always be cleaning all that rotting food out of the filter.
If I don’t pre-rinse, no matter how clean my filter is, I end up with little bumps of gunk on all my plates and bowls. You can’t see them, but you sure as shit can feel them. There’s no way I will ever stop pre-rinsing
Look up the turbidity sensor
It has a purpose when cleaning by hand
Skill issue.
Tips I’ve learned that helped:
- use detergent powder instead of pods. It let’s you experiment with different amounts and dial in the right amount for a run. Generic is fine, they all do about the same amount of work.
- Run your faucet till hot water comes out, it makes it so the pre-rinse has more ability to soften crud on the surface of the dishes.
- pre-rinsing the dishes isn’t necessary for cleanliness, but scraping food bits off will mean your debris filter fills up slower so you don’t have to do the gross task of emptying it as often.
- add detergent in the dip on the door. This gives the pre-wash yet again more ability to attack food bits on the first cycle.
- USE RINSE AID. I helps the dishes dry at the end of the wash.
Running your faucet only makes sense if your dishwasher is also hooked up to warm water. (In Germany) I’ve only seen them connected to cold water.
It’s an American thing. Our dishwashers get hot water from the line, there is a heating element, but it is not very powerful due to our lower output electrical sockets.
I’ve heard other countries have washers that are powerful enough to heat their own water, which is why they are attached to the cold water supply.
Do your dishwashers not have different temperature programs? Tap water is generally set at 65ºC here. My dishwasher has a 45ºC program, a 50ºC program, etc. Depending on how dirty your dishes are you can use lower-temp program to save energy. They even make dishwasher pods specifically for lower temperatures. If it always takes in hot water it would need a way to cool it down.
Not for washing. Usually there will be settings like quick wash, normal, heavy and “pots and pans”. There is a high temp and low temp option, but that is for drying the dishes.
It’s not like you need to follow commercial requirements like DIN EN 17735, but that feels so weird to depend so much on the faucets temperature. I can just click a button and get a 70c+ wash or whatever, I wouldn’t get that high from my faucet…
Interesting. Why? Do the dishwashers there require only using cold?
In the US, it is always meant to be connected to the hot tap. The first rinse cycle doesn’t heat the water (or doesn’t run long enough for the heater to make it hot, anyway). It depends on the hot water from the line to be maximally effective that first rinse. And once drained and refilled for the wash, the water will get up to temp eventually, but it’s more effective if it starts hotter.
Much the same reason as electric kettles not being as popular in low-voltage countries as in Europe - with higher domestic voltage, the appliance itself can heat the water it uses in a timely manner.
Of all the things. Like what the fuck Germany.
We have 230VAC (on all outlets) instead of your guys’ puny 120V, so our dishwashers aren’t handicapped out of the box and can heat their own water properly. I feel like having to run the tap before doing dishes is an L for the US, not Germany/Europe?
For a country that’s all about doing things big, they sure whimped out on their electrical system
In our defense we were very early to having one and everyone was afraid of electricity at the time
I was gonna say in our defence most of us can’t be trusted with high voltage
Electricity in the usa is not weaker than Europe. Since the voltage is half as high, it just takes double the current to do the same work. A heater running 220v at 5 amps and a heater running 110v 10 amps will work exactly the same.
Wat? We have 230v also. We have both 120v and 220/240.
For stoves and ovens, not dishwashers.
It can be for anything you like. Dishwashers, dryers, heaters, hot water tanks, ac units, ovens, stoves, welders, car chargers, air compressors, hell, I’ve seen 220v coffee makers. If an appliance needs 220 it can be supplied.
A lot of houses are older than the concept of central heating or running warm water, so there are some homes that don’t have central warm water, but instead small heaters under the kitchen sink/next to the bathroom, which might or might not hook up to dishwashers
- Run your faucet till hot water comes out, it makes it so the pre-rinse has more ability to soften crud on the surface of the dishes.
Why would this matter? Dishwashers aren’t connected to the hot water line.
Seems like some American dishwashers are connected to the hot water line. Probably because the power available from a standard electrical outlet can’t heat fast enough.
I use the “warm up the water” time to rinse dishes as I load them. Seems silly to say “Don’t rinse your dishes but do run your water until hot.” Block that sink and use that water!
There’s a debris filter? Uh oh….
I, uh, have to hand wash all of mine so
i rent a house that does not have a dishwasher and i hand washed everything for a while.
i bought a small countertop dish washer, it’s like 2x2 foot or so. you have a house that you stick on the sink tap.
it’s large enough to handle like 3-4 days of dishes, uses less water then hand washing by a lot, and saves so much time, takes not much power.
i just load it up, put some soap inside the trap and some outside, run the water through the pass through until hot and let it run. it cost me about $250 when i got it. it’s been running well for 5 years now
