Dishwaher question....salt or not? Why?

[kenmoreguy89]

Hi all, I was just wondering about the dishwasher salt..... with some dishwashers you have need and they require of using salt, and with others not (especially the older models)....why? With mine you need salt. I've tried to run it without salt this month and when the salt compartment was completely empty glasses and cutlery started to coming out all opaque.... Putting salt they re-start to come out fine. So why in some dishwashers even without adding salt dishes and glasses comes out wonderfully anyway?

 

[DADoES]

 
Salt is for a built-in water softener.  It's used to regenerate the resin bed, same as the regeneration process on a whole-house water softener system.  Salt used in a dishwasher does not get dispensed directly into the wash and rinse water ... the unit does not wash and rinse with salty water.

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Thank you, just wondering why some models does not need it though......

 

[arbilab]

Few models have a built in ion exchange system.

 

[maytagbear]

Until fairly recently,

the phosphate and other chemicals in the detergent softened water here in the States adequately, if not completely, and American dishwasher manufacturers did not really need to add water softening. However, that may change. At least with the upper level machines.

Just my .02

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Okay got it!

Thank you Lawrence, trhat's all clear now!

 

[launderess]

Dishwasher Detergents In Europe

Are probably formulated to work with the "soft" water generated by most all automatic dishwashers sold in the UK/EU.

Few areas of the USA have water near as hard as one finds in the EU/UK, which is why we can use vastly lower amounts of detergents such as Persil. Where water is hard enough American homeowners will usually install whole house water softening systems. Being that most washing machines on this side of the pond historically were top loaders, all that soft water would be needed for washday anyway.

Phosphates were used on both sides of the pond for automatic dishwasher and washing machine detergents. It is just that individual member states and or the EU got round to limiting and or finally outright banning them sooner than what happened here.