Dishwasher products- not cleaning

**sconeonamission** · October 26th, 2009, 10:48 AM

My dishwasher isn't washing!!!! Some are clean, some are not. The ones that aren't look like it's a dirty dish in with clean ones. It's bad. I don't actually use dishwasher powder/ tablets, i use bi carb and then vinegar in the rinse bit. Im so sick of buying dishwasher powder/ tablets, I thought I use a more natural product. Perhaps it's not working... What else can I use coz I want my dishes clean today!!

**Tinks** · October 26th, 2009, 11:10 AM

Have you tried cleaning out the filters and the propellor thingy?

I usually put taht blue finish dishwashing cleaner through mine once a month but if you don't want to use chemicals maybe give it a good scrub and do an empty load with bicarb and vinegar.

**MantaRay** · October 26th, 2009, 11:16 AM

I found the same thing when using bi-carb. I find that it's fantastic for light loads, but doesn't deal with things that are stuck on the dishes. So what I do is use bi-carb only when there's nothing heavy duty to come off (I rinse plates pretty well usually so this is a lot of the time, although that's probably a waste of water too

). Otherwise I use dishwashing powder, or a mix of powder and bi-carb. That seems to work well for us.

**Olive** · October 26th, 2009, 11:25 AM

instead of using the finish dishwasher cleaner i use citric acid on an empty cycle to clean the dishwasher! i just use aldi powder and it last agggggggggges! im talking around 6 months as you only need a tsp of powder and its cheap

**Pandora** · October 28th, 2009, 09:03 AM

Olive -- Does the aldi powder work well?
We use the aldi tablets and sometimes they are better than others.
Also no tablets ever come out of the drawer things properly, so I have taken to putting htem on the bottom of the dishwasher.

WRT vinegar, do you just put it where the rinse aid goes?

**Indadhanu** · October 28th, 2009, 09:39 AM

I found that with bi-carb too, it just doesn't do the job on pans or pots, so on heavy loads we use some actualy powder (actually, its a dishwasher tablet thing, I'm sure they're no good but thats what we use). Vinegar as rinse aid. Actually OT, but since using vinegar as a rinse aid, I'll never go back to any commercial aids, I've never had cloud-free dishes before using vinegar!

**Indadhanu** · October 28th, 2009, 09:42 AM

rayray - yep just in the rinse aid thingy. i have no idea hw to tell if it needs refilling (i'm sure theres meant to be a light or something but there never is) so I just refill once or twice a month, or if things start going cloudy.

**Tinks** · October 28th, 2009, 01:42 PM

It's not actually a light it's the colour of the rinse aid which fades as it gets empty so since vinegar is clear you wouldn't get the same effect. If you take the little cap off the dial should tell you how many washes there are until it's empty too.

I might try vinegar as rinse aid. That's a great idea!