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TC have a wonderful presentation, but like all YouTube channels, should be taken with a grain of salt. TC made a fair share of errorenous claims, some of which

TC have a wonderful presentation, but like all YouTube channels, should be taken with a grain of salt. TC made a fair share of errorenous claims, some of which they addressed in follow up videos (definitely not all). One example they never addressed was in their dishwasher video where they explained how a dishwasher worked (which was good) and then pushed to stop using capsules in favor of soap powder. Using powder requires more maintenance because you'll have to buy special salt and run your dishwasher with it but this was never mentioned in the video. The capsules have this so you don't have to add anything else. If you followed their advice blindly, you could damage your dishwasher. Ask technicians what to use and they'll all say the capsules are better for your appliance. Always trust professionals over YouTube videos.

codewench 4y ago
The salts issue was actually mentioned in a follow up video [0], with the note that only homes with specific water types (excessively hard water if I remember correctly) will require them. [0] https://youtu.be/Ll6-eGDpimU?t=2099 https://youtu.be/Ll6-eGDpimU?t=2099
- styfle 4y ago
  It seems odd to account for hard water in one appliance but not another. I’ve lived in places with hard water and most people have a water softener right next to their water heater so that all water to all appliances in the house is softened.
  - ornornor 4y ago
    He says in the video only 1/4 of US homes have softeners. Every dishwasher I’ve had in Europe has a salt compartment. I can’t remember the ones I had in the US to have a salt compartment. I’d wager the powder and pods in the US have some salt in them to make up for that?
whatisthiseven 4y ago
Honestly I dislike TC because he rambles and is too verbose. I don't know why he has recommended so much here.
- ornornor 4y ago
  Because he digs deep in topics that I find interesting. I don’t find the rambling annoying, personally.
- exhilaration 4y ago
  He's great but you gotta watch him at 1.5x or faster. Pretty much all YouTubers become 500% smarter and more interesting at that speed. Turn on captions if you're having trouble keeping up.
tialaramex 4y ago
"The capsules have this" is only kinda-sorta true as is "special salt". Lets do "special salt" first. What you need is Sodium Chloride. Commonly: salt. The manufacturer tells you to buy "dishwasher salt" but all that is, is a bag of salt. Why not say just "salt"? Well, the table salt you might buy comes in lots of fancy and/or tweaked varieties which are not ideal for the machine, yet they are more expensive. Instead of buying ten smaller packs of "Genuine Himalayan Rose Salt" for $1.50 each, you should buy the same amount of just regular sodium chloride labelled "Dishwasher salt" in your supermarket in one packet for like $1. As well as irrelevant or potentially undesirable minerals to make it pink (for some reason) salt for food might have a packaging stabilizer, an ingredient added to make sure it doesn't stick together, and iodine salts because sometimes humans don't eat any iodine and if they don't their thyroid gland doesn't work properly which is bad so some public health authorities have local salt tweaked to fix that (salt is chosen because it's really easy). So yeah, TL;DR it's literally salt, it's not special. Now, do "the capsules have this". Well, they all say they solve this problem, but of course they say that, a manufacturer isn't going to advertise their product and say "This product is pretty bad really, you probably shouldn't use it". Every manufacturer of "flushable" toilet wipes says their wipes don't cause sewer blockages. The blockages happen. Maybe all the other brands are lying except yours? Here's why they don't really solve the problem, what your dishwasher wants from salt is a source of ions to re-charge its water softener. Sodium Chloride is (if you remember chemistry class) Sodium ions and Chlorine ions, the softener wants the Sodium ions, it will swap them with the ions from the hard water, softening it. But how much softening is needed? With bulk salt in the machine you don't care. Once a month (or even once a quarter) check the salt, if it's low fill it back up, done. But in a capsule there must be enough softener for each load, or else it gradually gets worse. Now, it can happen you live somewhere that the water is exactly as hard as the capsule manufacturer decided water should typically be, and for you they work perfectly. Most people don't.
- ornornor 4y ago
  Is it really table salt in big chunks? I didn’t realize… I’ll dig up the MSDS tomorrow but if so I guess I’ll just refill the dishwasher with coarse salt next time I guess rather than the dishwasher variety.

codewench 4y ago

The salts issue was actually mentioned in a follow up video [0], with the note that only homes with specific water types (excessively hard water if I remember correctly) will require them. [0] https://youtu.be/Ll6-eGDpimU?t=2099 https://youtu.be/Ll6-eGDpimU?t=2099

styfle 4y ago
It seems odd to account for hard water in one appliance but not another. I’ve lived in places with hard water and most people have a water softener right next to their water heater so that all water to all appliances in the house is softened.
- ornornor 4y ago
  He says in the video only 1/4 of US homes have softeners. Every dishwasher I’ve had in Europe has a salt compartment. I can’t remember the ones I had in the US to have a salt compartment. I’d wager the powder and pods in the US have some salt in them to make up for that?

whatisthiseven 4y ago

Honestly I dislike TC because he rambles and is too verbose. I don't know why he has recommended so much here.

ornornor 4y ago
Because he digs deep in topics that I find interesting. I don’t find the rambling annoying, personally.
exhilaration 4y ago
He's great but you gotta watch him at 1.5x or faster. Pretty much all YouTubers become 500% smarter and more interesting at that speed. Turn on captions if you're having trouble keeping up.

tialaramex 4y ago

"The capsules have this" is only kinda-sorta true as is "special salt". Lets do "special salt" first. What you need is Sodium Chloride. Commonly: salt. The manufacturer tells you to buy "dishwasher salt" but all that is, is a bag of salt. Why not say just "salt"? Well, the table salt you might buy comes in lots of fancy and/or tweaked varieties which are not ideal for the machine, yet they are more expensive. Instead of buying ten smaller packs of "Genuine Himalayan Rose Salt" for $1.50 each, you should buy the same amount of just regular sodium chloride labelled "Dishwasher salt" in your supermarket in one packet for like $1. As well as irrelevant or potentially undesirable minerals to make it pink (for some reason) salt for food might have a packaging stabilizer, an ingredient added to make sure it doesn't stick together, and iodine salts because sometimes humans don't eat any iodine and if they don't their thyroid gland doesn't work properly which is bad so some public health authorities have local salt tweaked to fix that (salt is chosen because it's really easy). So yeah, TL;DR it's literally salt, it's not special. Now, do "the capsules have this". Well, they all say they solve this problem, but of course they say that, a manufacturer isn't going to advertise their product and say "This product is pretty bad really, you probably shouldn't use it". Every manufacturer of "flushable" toilet wipes says their wipes don't cause sewer blockages. The blockages happen. Maybe all the other brands are lying except yours? Here's why they don't really solve the problem, what your dishwasher wants from salt is a source of ions to re-charge its water softener. Sodium Chloride is (if you remember chemistry class) Sodium ions and Chlorine ions, the softener wants the Sodium ions, it will swap them with the ions from the hard water, softening it. But how much softening is needed? With bulk salt in the machine you don't care. Once a month (or even once a quarter) check the salt, if it's low fill it back up, done. But in a capsule there must be enough softener for each load, or else it gradually gets worse. Now, it can happen you live somewhere that the water is exactly as hard as the capsule manufacturer decided water should typically be, and for you they work perfectly. Most people don't.

ornornor 4y ago
Is it really table salt in big chunks? I didn’t realize… I’ll dig up the MSDS tomorrow but if so I guess I’ll just refill the dishwasher with coarse salt next time I guess rather than the dishwasher variety.