De-liming dishwashers?

[maytagbear]

This Elxux-idaire is my first dishwasher with a "stainess" steel tank.

I am one of the very few in this building to use his/her dishwasher, and fewer still, to use one more than once a week.

Depending on kitchen activity, I run the dishwasher 3-7 times a week.

The sump area, especially around the door and filter, is beginning to look rather milky.

Is white (spirit) vinegar enough?

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[launderess]

White vinegar

Has always worked for moi!

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homeguides.sfgate.com

 

[spacedogb]

Citric Acid

I like to use citric acid. You can either get food grade citric acid off amazon or lemishine from Walmart. I aslo have used white vinegar before. All give good results

 

[thomasortega]

Thanks to my husband I discovered Lemishine.

That product is WOOOOOOOONDERFUL!

And you don't need too much. I put 1 pod (Cascade) in the main wash dispenser and just fill the small gap between the pod and the dispenser wall.

My dishwasher is a few months old, bought brand new and it was starting to have that horrible limescale ring on the bottom.

Now the bottom is just like new and the difference on the dishes is also impressive.

 

[foraloysius]

I prefer citric acid too. I had great experiences in the past.

See reply 14 and 15.

https://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?15015

 

[appnut]

I use Finish Booster and put a little bit of it in the detergent dispenser along with the pod.  I use LemiShine dishwasher cleaner once a month too. 

 

[rolls_rapide]

Personally, I've never understood why US dishwashers don't have an integral water softener. Surely manufacturers have been in the market long enough to realise the benefits of the device?

But then, maybe that's the whole idea - to allow the machine to breakdown quicker, so it gets repaired or replaced sooner.

 

[appnut]

KitchenAid marketed a model with built in softener 4 or so years ago but only about a year or so.

 

[lakewebsterkid]

Water mineral buildup

Vinegar works well. Lemishine does too! In order to prevent the issue from getting worse I recommend using STPP in the dispenser with your regular detergent. About 1 tsp is fine. The Bosch is around 7 months old and has zero mineral build up as a result.

 

[askolover]

It looks like the acid in Lemishine would react with the alkaline detergent and deactivate each other. 

 

[appnut]

Lemishine would react with the alkaline detergent and deacti

That's why I do my approach.  Lemi-Shine dishwasher cleaner once a month and use Finish Booster with my detergent.  I prefer using the specific dishwasher cleaner separate as it does a better job. 

 

[thomasortega]

Lemi-Shine

Please be aware that are several different products.

The Lemi-Shine BOOSTER does NOT interact with the detergent negatively. (it's not even supposed to be used together with the detergent according to the directions.)

I use together (pod and lemi-shine in the main wash dispenser) and the results are always FANTASTIC!
My water is absurdly hard. I ran out of lemi shine and ran the dishwasher for about 5 cycles without it. the bottom turned white.

I started using it again, in two washes it was clean again.

 

[deltablu]

Regarding integrated water softeners

I don't know about other areas of the country, but in this region, the water is pretty hard no matter where you get the water from. Municipal supplies tend to have 20 to 30 grains hardness and rural is much worse. My parents' well is 75 grains hardness. Anyway, the point I was getting at was that almost every house has whole house water softening, making the integrated softeners redundant. Back when we used to sell Fisher and Paykel products, we could get their dishdrawers with integrated softeners but never had any demand for them.

 

[mark_wpduet]

This is what I've always done

About once per month, I used 2 packets of the Kroger brand sugar-free Lemonade powder. I hate lemonade (I don't buy it to drink) It's cheaper than Lemishine but it's loaded with citric acid. I pour 2 packets in the main detergent cup and run the empty machine on the longest cycle. The dishwasher is spotless when done.

 

[sfh074]

Active ingredient .....

If the active ingredient in Lemi Shine appliance cleaner is citric acid, how about this stuff? We use it when we can tomatoes and is like $1.99 for like 8 ozs for the store brand. I'm guessing the citric acid component in Lemi Shine appliance cleaner is probably small compared to all the other ingredients in it.

We have semi-soft water here but we do get a white film in our dishwasher over a period of time and looking at it today, it's time to clean it again. I normally use the Lemi Shine when needed, but never paid attention to its ingredients before this conversation. If the active ingredient is citric acid, I'm going to try a teaspoon of the canning variety as below and check back here if it works. We just canned 12 pints of tomatoes and I know we have plenty of this stuff on hand at the moment. Seems like the wife even bought the Ball brand variety this time, which must have been on-sale, for us to not buy the store brand.

[this post was last edited: 9/22/2018-11:30]

 

[sfh074]

Checking back ....

Ok, so I went ahead and ran a cycle to clean the dishwasher with citric acid and here are the results. You can see the amount of this stuff I added to the despenser and ran it on normal wash and then let it dry. I love when a plan works out.

So maybe one thin dime to clean the dishwasher this time?! As you can see the white film is totally gone. Besides, I was out of Lemi Shine at the moment and .... I see what I'll be using from now on!

BEFORE

AFTER

And as usual, "Your mileage may vary" so I imagine depending on your hard water issue, you may have to use more or run it twice to get the same results. As you can see, we don't have a ton of dissolved solids in our water.

Cheers!
Bud - Atlanta

lol, can you image Paris Hilton doing laundry ....

[this post was last edited: 9/22/2018-11:33]

 

[DADoES]

 
I haven't done DW deliming in years since switching to one of those phosphated detergents that can still be had.

 

[sfh074]

Brand ??

And what brand might that be, DADoES??

 

[DADoES]

 
Cascade Institutional powder which was renamed as Cascade Fryer Boil Out (same formula).

There's also Bubble Bandit which I haven't tried but has good word.

May be others.