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Rinse aid is completely unneeded if you properly maintain and use your dishwasher. I never use any, and my dishes are completely spotless. 30 years old dishwas
by RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y ago
Rinse aid is completely unneeded if you properly maintain and use your dishwasher.
I never use any, and my dishes are completely spotless. 30 years old dishwasher, super hard water.
Specifically, you should:
- always fill the salt of the dishwasher's water softener once it's empty. It cannot soften the water if it doesn't get cleaned by the salt. If the water is not softened you will get spots. EDIT: Apparently US folks often have dishwashers which don't soften the water. Ugh. In Europe I haven't even heard that such a thing exists! :|
- configure the dishwasher to your water hardness.
- do NOT use detergent which is advertised as "you won't need salt". This is garbage for lazy people. It cannot properly replace the water softener. Think about it for a moment: The detergent is meant to fully dissolve during washing so you won't have it on your dishes after the final water cycle. The only way it could affect the softness of the water in the final cycle is if it did NOT fully dissolve in time. So there are two factors to be optimized which contradict - stay long enough to soften the water, but not long enough to leave remainders on the dishes. It will never work properly.
- This is not related to rinse aid, but you should know it: Clean the sieve regularly, at least every week. It will get ultra nasty with gunk if you don't. If you have no time for cleaning it, buy a second one, switch them once one is dirty and put it among the dishes so the dishwasher washes it like a dish.
- casion 4y agoFill the salt? Configure for water hardness? I've never heard of either of these things before. Certainly not things on my, relatively fancy, dishwasher.
- RjQoLCOSwiIKfpm 4y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher_salt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher_salt The water hardness setting determines how much the water softener tries to soften the water. If the water isn't soft enough, it will leave spots on the dishes. Hence people use "rinse aid", so the improperly softened water would drip off before it leaves spots. If the water is properly softened it contains no calcium etc. which could cause spots on your dishes.
- yamtaddle 4y agoDitto, no clue what either of those mean. Never, ever heard of adding salt to a dishwasher, certainly. Not in new ones, not in ones from the bad ol' days when they used way more water but actually worked.
- djpr 4y agoI have a new one (a few years old) and yes there's a compartment for salt. My previous one did as well. I'm in Europe (Spain) if that helps. I don't go to any special store to buy them, any old Lidl or other supermarket has it. Where you from where this isn't a thing?
- yamtaddle 4y agoFrom other comments it's looking like this one of those US/European divide things, with compartments for salt being uncommon on US dishwashers except for a few rare higher-end models/brands that are likely common to both continents (due to low volume in the US not justifying a localized version, I'd guess). I'm middle-aged and in the US and this thread is the first time I've heard of adding salt to a dishwasher.
- Macha 4y agoSeems to be not quite EU/US. At least in Ireland we don't have salt compartments either. Maybe an anglosphere/not division?
- cricalix 4y agoAnecdotes are not data and all that. The dishwasher in my house is a NEFF, and it has a salt compartment. Came with the house, built-in unit. So yes, some Irish houses have dishwashers with salt - sample size 1.
- esskay 4y agoReally odd that it differs so close to neighbouring countries. Here (UK) I've never seen a Dishwasher without a salt hole, and there's often several well know brands of salt in the supermarket (no idea why, its all the same stuff). I wonder if its based on average water hardness in the area. I'm in the north of England and our supply comes out of Buxton Springs (yep the same as Buxton bottled water) and is extremly soft so despite filling the salt it never asks for it to be refilled again as its not needed. When I used to live in north London I'd be filling it up once a month as the water there is extremely hard - so hard that it'll kill your kettle within a year if you don't keep on top of descaling.
- quantified 4y agoUS consumers are easier to sell to, perhaps.
- astrange 4y agoExcept for the various ethnic groups who are very proud of not using their dishwasher at all.
- Scoundreller 4y agoThey use it alright (as a pantry/place to store dishes).
- teekert 4y agoI’ve never seen a dishwasher without this :) But I think most people here in the Netherlands never set it up correctly and go for “all in 1” tabs. I never do, always set it up correctly. I do feel I need rinse aid to not have that nasty feel to the glasses.
- colechristensen 4y agoIn the US we have whole home water softeners when necessary, in the EU they’re built in to dish washers. Just small differences in water treatment and quality.
- spfzero 4y agoMiele has it. It's a reservoir with a twist-cover at the bottom of the dishwasher that you fill with salt whenever the dishwasher tells you its time. Seems to be about once a quarter.
- Vrondi 4y agoApparently in Europe and some other countries they don't do whole house water softeners?
- herbst 4y agoInterestingly enough as normal as salt containers are in dishwashers as 'uncommon' are house wide water softeners to me. I know a few people who have a single outlet for osmosis water, I use a optional water filter in the kitchen outlet for drinking water. But nobody I know is softening their whole water supply. Why soften toilet water? Why soften cleaning water? Garden water? Well for the last 2 I guess it depends on how hard it really is
- saaaaaam 4y agoSoftening toilet water means there’s less limes SLE build up in the bowl and around the rim which means the toilet is easier to clean. Softening cleaning water means your clothes come out - well, quite literally softer. And last longer.
- jasonhansel 4y agoMy dishwasher doesn't have a salt compartment or any sort of water-softening features; in the US, I haven't heard about this feature. Apparently it's a UK thing?
- denimnerd42 4y agoI know Miele has a water softener feature. That's the only time I've heard of it in the US.
- pdq 4y agoThere are a few Bosch models with dishwasher salt dispensers, but it’s extremely rare in the US. It’s a great idea, given most municipalities have hard water.
- swader999 4y agoYeah I need it with my well water. But generally we just put up with spotty dinnerware. If we have guests over, we'll wash whatever by hand before.
- denimnerd42 4y agointeresting.. I got a Kitchenaid but maybe I would have gotten a Bosch. I wanted a Bosch but they were on tremendous backorder compared to the Kitchenaid in 2021.
- mauvehaus 4y agoFill the salt? I'm not sure all dishwashers have a receptacle for that. Ours doesn't, and I'm pretty confident that I've never had one that did across several states in the US and one place in Belgium. Is the salt for doing a softening process that substitutes for a whole house softener if you don't have one? We live in a place with hard water and have no softener in the house (you should see our electric kettle when we haven't cleaned it recently). Recently the accumulation of what I assume to be mineral film has gotten a bit noticeable on the dishes that go in the dishwasher.
- cj 4y agoMy dishwasher has a "salt" light that lights up when the salt is low. The dishwasher is also 30 years old. Miele G 680 SC from 1992. Living in New York. Perhaps adding salt was more common in older models.
- spfzero 4y agoI have a new-ish Miele which has it. Good thing too, because we have really hard water here.
- seszett 4y ago> and one place in Belgium. You might not have paid attention to it because your didn't know about it, but I don't think there are any dishwashers in Belgium that don't use salt, at least for the last twenty years or so.
- mauvehaus 4y ago1) Thanks for the reminder that I'm getting old :-) 2) IIRC, that house had a whole house softener.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- PragmaticPulp 4y agoFor everyone confused by this comment: In some countries you might find dishwashers with a sort of built-in water softener: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher_salt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher_salt It's not common in the United States. Some all-in-one detergent packets might contain some amount of dishwasher salt, though.
- cvoss 4y agoIn my limited experience in the several places I've lived in the US, only one had an issue with water that was hard enough to need addressing. Most residences there had a dedicated household water softener, so even there the dishwashers didn't need to do their own softening. Here's a nice map [1] [1] https://homewater101.com/articles/hard-water-across-us https://homewater101.com/articles/hard-water-across-us
- nerdponx 4y agoAnother anecdote from the USA: I've only ever had problems with hard water in a house that got water from a well. Never had a problem with municipal water (although there are other contaminants in that).
- rubidium 4y agoNice to be #1 in something. But that explains a lot.
- someweirdperson 4y agoFrom that link [1 above]: "An overwhelming 85 percent of the USA has hard water, so the likelihood that you live in state or city with hard water is high." For a random location. Comparing the water hardness map with a population density map it seems that most are living in areas with soft water.
- mauvehaus 4y agoI'll give you an upvote for that little dive into Wikipedia. For those who haven't already swum as deep, the article on ion exchange resins[0] is also worthwhile. Turns out they are used for reprocessing spent nuclear fuel as well as softening water. Plus a few other things. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion-exchange_resin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ion-exchange_resin
- jiveturkey 4y ago> - always fill the salt. rinse aid is for hard water. restaurants probably tend to not treat the water and the commercial dishwashers they use probably tend to not have a provision for salt. they operate very differently than your residential dishwasher. So yes, completely unneeded if you have soft water. Most dishwashers don't have a provision for salt. Also completely unneeded if you don't mind spots.
- literalAardvark 4y agoI have hard water and a dishwasher with a softener. The plates are dramatically cleaner if there's salt in the softener, no matter what detergent i use.
- codetrotter 4y ago> Apparently US folks often have dishwashers which don't soften the water. Ugh. In Europe I haven't even heard that such a thing exists! I've only come across this in Spain so far. Never seen in Norway. But maybe I just haven't been paying attention. Then again, the water in Norway in :chefskiss:
- SV_BubbleTime 4y agoClear European give away.
- insane_dreamer 4y agoHave never used rinse aid even once.
- xfitm3 4y ago> 30 years old dishwasher, super hard water. This is the real key, modern dishwashers have so many limitations in an attempt to reduce water and power usage they do an awful job. I wish there was more information on how to disable these features.