Clean Dishwasher - East Troy,WI

I agree with the vinegar! It works, but it made my kitchen smell like vinegar and I can't handle that smell very well.

I have somewhat hard water and I don't have a softner...I have to use Lemishine in my dishwasher. I put the lemishine in the hole where you close the lid and add regular dishwasher soap to the 'pre rinse' hole. My dishes come out clean w/ no residue or water spots.

HTH!

I never liked the little blocks or packets, they don't work as well as Cascade Complete gel. Try a vinager rinse in the empty dishwasher to cut any build up water stains and then use the gel dishwasher soap and see if that works better.

I had the same type of problems with a brand new dishwasher... its the water. I have, through trial and error, found the right combonation to get my dishes spotless. I use powder dishwasher detergent, Casscade is usually the best although right now I have the Kirkland brand and it is doing great as well. I also use a product called LemiShine, it is in the same area in a small yellow and green bottle. Dish detergent in the prewash spot lemishine in the closed spot. Just experiment with the amounts of both to see what gets your dishes the cleanest. I only have to use a very small amount of both to have spotless dishes. But as Rachel said run it empty with vinegar that will help too!!

Run it with no dishes in it; pour a cup of white vinegar in the bottom. If there's any kid of build up preventing the machine from rinsing/washing properly, this will take care of it. We rent (not own) our house, and we did this when we moved in because the previous tenants were PIGS!! Ditto for your clothes washer :)

I recently took everything out of my dishwasher to clean it and wow! The drain in the back can come out. Take that out, and gut everything in there. If you get grossed out easily, have hubby do this. Wear gloves also!
Get some of "The Works" cleaner in the green bottle from Dollar General. It is $1 in our town. I got about 5 bottles.
Spray where the water holes are in the arms , and drench where you just pulled the drain cover and cleaned out the mess.
The vent on the inside of the door. Take that off and soak in a bowl with the cleaner.
Leave all of this to soak a few hrs. Put the vent back on the door, leave the drain cover off, and run a pots and pans cycle.
You may have to do this a few times to get it completely clean.
Once clean put the drain covers back on. Run with a bottle of lemon juice or the dishwasher cleaner from the store.
Also, I don't like 'Finish'. I find that Cascade complete gets our dishes cleaner with our water well.
We do clean our water well/pipes with a bottle of bleach down our water well one or two times a year. We let it soak on a weekend we won't be home, then run everything wide open for about 5 minutes when we get home.
Check into water softeners also, you may need one.
Finally, run a dishwasher cleaner or bottle of lemon juice through a cycle about once a month. I run a cycle with The Works pretty regularly also to prevent that lime/rust build up. It is basically a cheaper version of CLR that works better in my opinion!

i had this problem too. Then I realized I had run out of jet dry. When I refilled the little cup the problem went away.

We have to clean the drain filters every few loads on our dishwasher or else it starts leaving white residue on the dishes. If the dishes still seem greasy then either your water isn't hot enough, the detergent is ineffective or the water is not spraying/distributing correctly any more. Running it empty with vinegar could help if the water distribution is due to calcifications in the sprayers.

i use to have problems like this. I used a rinse aid,etc. I changed my dish detergent tocascade complete. They are the 3 in one tabs. The ywork awsom in my opinion.

sounds like your filter is gunked up-you can take these apart an clean them-good luck

Run vinegar through a load. Use only powder or powder packs--no gels or liquids. Scrape, don't rinse dishes before putting them in. This all worked for us.

haven't read other posts yet, but we just used Tang, powder drink mix to clean ours. Put as much in as you would soap and let it run through the empty dishwasher. It was a major help in cleaning ours, Good Luck!

Maybe it's your water. Try getting a whole house filter? Some are cheaper than others. Maybe it's in the pipes?

Be sure your water temperature is hot eough, because even without any detergent, very hot water (which you should use) would get your dishes mostly clean. Put a thermometer in the dishwasher and open the door during the hotest cycle and check the temperature of the water. Make sure any heating coils are working properly. You may also live in a hard water area. If so, nothing will get the dishes clean unless you install a water softener.

You might want to check and see if your water heater is getting the water hot enough. We always run the water in our sink on hot for a short time right before we start the dishwasher, that way the water is already hot when it starts going into the machine. :)

We had a maintenence plan for the first 5 years of our dishwasher, at that last yearly checkup, it was doing the same things you described, I asked the maintenence guy about it and this was his advice:

Use powder detergent (at the time we were using liquid/gel), it distributes more evenly and dissolves in the water better.

Use about half of what the detergent cup will hold/what the detergent directions say to use, even for big loads, too much just leaves residue, He said, remember the detergent companies are just rying to get you to use more to sell more to you....he said the same goes for washing machine detergent.

Don't pre-wash dishes, just scrape off big chunks, and maybe run the plates under some warm running water - no extra soap/scrubbing - the soap needs the food debris to help it activate/do its job better.

Also told us we could run an empty cycle with vinegar or even with CLR, to get the residue on the inside walls of the dishwasher all cleaned off.

Good Luck - these tips have worked great for us!

Believe it or not, I'm going to suggest *not* rinsing your dishes. Dishwasher detergent is made to work against food on dishes, and is not as effective when there's nothing for it to scrub against. Scrape them well, maybe a quick rinse, but your hot soapy water rinse may actually be part of the problem. A vinegar cycle on an empty dishwasher certainly won't hurt, either. Try one load of unrinsed dishes and see if it works. (Also saves water!)