Dishwasher film?

[rp2813]

Tim

I tried to talk her out of it, but she insisted the machine wasn't working properly. It was also a case of use it or lose it. She lives alone and almost never ran the thing. Then when she'd decide to run a load through, there would be issues.

The machine ended up out on the curb and it disappeared almost instantly. No surprise there. Let's hope it's happily washing away--and doing a *cough* superb job of it--somewhere in the greater metro L.A. area.

 

[jerrod6]

Ok.
I used Finish non phosphate 3-in-1 tabs today in a cycle named Energy Saver(Economy). I have measured the temp of the wash water when using this cycle and found it to be around 125F. I washed dishes with stuck on rice and the results were perfect with the tab.
No rice, no film, no spots. So I think results with non phosphate detergents are going to vary with water conditions.

I guess I should also try using them with burned on cheese - maybe next week.

 

[maytagbear]

Something I saw this afternoon......

Was at the supermarket....the big brand dishwasher detergent powders were phosphate free, but the store brand dishwasher detergents still had phosphates.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[polkanut]

Yesterday, I did an average load in our Whirlpool Gold dw from 2002 using my phosphate laden Hytron detergent, 1/4 cup borax, and Jet-Dry, and the results were very good. Every item was squeaky clean, no film whatsoever.

 

[jerrod6]

I am going to have Au gratin potatoes this week, so will try the non phosphate 3-1n-1 Finish tabs when washing the caserol pan.

I wonder if older DW will have more problems with non-phosphate detergents than newer ones which seem to have longer cycle times?

 

[polkanut]

It's possible an older dw might have trouble cleaning without phosphates. Our Whirlpool takes about 1 1/2hrs on the "Normal" cycle. BTW, our water heater is set @ 130 degrees Fahrenheit, but then the dw heater boosts the temp to 150.

 

[jerrod6]

I am thinking about this because there was a KA from the late 60's in the house when I bought it. It was similar to the one my mother had in 1971, but a bit older than the one my aunt had in the 1960's with the blue wash arm(I loved that machine). Anyway the problem with the KA in my house was that it could not hold the required amount of detergent in the cup, so it had some trouble cleaning. The wash only lasted about 7 minutes so I am not sure this is enough time to let "weaker" detergents work.

 

[westie2]

Not having phosphates is hitting here also. A co-worker came up to me this morning and asked what kind of dishwasher do you this is good to get from Sears, We went throgh looking and I showed him the TT Elite like we have with the Turbo wash. He said the old one (15 years)and ws leaving the dishes and glass thing filmy. I asked if the DW was running as usual and he yes. I asked if it had the power module (Sears) made by Whirlpool and yes again. I said nothing worng with your DW to me and asked when they purchaed last detergent and was last week. It was the same Cascade Complete that they always used he said. I said probally it has no Phosphates. He called his wife and sure enough no phosphates and box was lighter color. My wife and I have a stash built up but haven't seen any here in a month or so, I am taking him a couple of Finish 3 in 1 tabs tomorrow for them to try.

We have already looked into buying the STPP from the Chemical Store and splitting.

He is on well water and we get our city water from a river so both fairly hard water.

I have a feeling more and more folks are going to be buying new DW's and still not getting dishes out they way it used to be.

So sad that phosphates will no longer be in dish detergent here.

Our area here is undefr mandate here to have very small amounts of phosphates in sewer by next year as all our treated sewer flows into Oklahoma. City is spending 29 million to build a new plant which will make our sewer bill 3 times higher than our water bill. My company spent over 19 million for a new treatment for wastewater in SW Missouri to comply.

The creek in my picture will have a 6 mile pipe taking the treated waste water to the head of the creek to flow though town and be more airated befor going into Oklahoma.

 

[retropia]

Preparing for the Post-Phosphate Apocalypse

Here's my latest shopping result. It's enough to do 960 dishwasher loads. However, some may go to family and friends, or traded for gold or ammo from crazed housewives unable to get clean dishes.

Some stocking clerks at certain stores, I've discovered, weren't properly trained to rotate stock on shelves. The one different-looking package has a 2007 copyright on the label, and the rest have 2008 copyright dates.

New, phosphate-free packages were in front, and these were pushed to the back on shelves. That isn't the situation at every store I've checked, however.

 

[rp2813]

Walgreens is selling Cascade + Dawn powder for $3.99 a box with some kind of $1 credit, which I presume is a variation on the CVS card system, without the card, so their logic brings the price down to $2.99. I'm going to go buy a few boxes. It's all still the phosphate kind.

 

[retropia]

Cascade at Walgreens

I also saw boxes of phosphated-Cascade at Walgreens. You buy a box on sale for $3.99 and they give you a $1.00 discount coupon at the cash register to use for your next purchase of whatever. It's a good price for Cascade.

Stocking up on bulk dishwasher detergent powder makes me wary. I think the salts absorb moisture from the air and over time cause the detergent to clump together. One box I recently purchased says to "use within a few months after purchase."

You can manually break the clumps, but it complicates or prevents pouring straight from the box.

I prefer using bulk powder, so I can adjust the amount of detergent, depending on what I'm washing. For multi-year storage, though, the "Action Paks" might be more convenient.

 

[whirlcool]

We have stocked up on several variants of Cascade, all with Dawn and are still phosphated. I am surprised that Sam's still has plenty of stock of the Cascade Extra Action with Dawn in the phosphated version. Several pallets full. We bought a couple of the 110 load buckets. The bucket it comes in is airtight and the detergent itself is in those dissolvable packets anyway. We put all of our stuff in a space bag and sealed it up.

We have found that we can compensate well enough by using Palmolive Lavender non-phosphate gel detergent for everyday stuff like bowls, plates and glasses. But when the baked on stuff goes the DW we use a Cascade tab.

But we ordered a bucket of STTP from the Chemistry Store for the future. Also, the AlmaWin from brighgreenideas.com is sold out.

Did all you guys buy up their stock?

 

[retropia]

I was curious about trying AlmaWin, also, but couldn't find any. The two website stores I found that carried it said they were out of stock.

 

[circlew]

Bought a 5.3 lb. box of Cascade for $6.79 at GFS last night. It is the phosphate version. They had a good stock of it left. As I don't currently have a functioning dishwasher, I put it in a large Hefty One-zip bag to keep for later.

 

[jerrod6]

Finish 3-in-1 tab results with potatoes and cheese

I had the potatoes au gratin Monday. I let the casserol dish sit out until this morning, then ran a load using the tab.

I have used this casserol dish many times for these potatoes and it always comes clean. This time it was almost clean BUT there were 1 or 2 places where the potatoes and cheese were not removed. These were soft and could be removed with a paper towel but I don't consider this dish to be clean if I have to do touch up work after a cycle especially since I used one of the strongest programs on the machine. The burned on crust was compleley removed.

So for everyday stuff the tab worked well, tough stuff - it almost worked. I might try this again in the future but add some STTP.

 

[jerrod6]

Took one before and one after pic

Before:

 

[jerrod6]

After with a bit remaining

 

[rp2813]

Jerrod, those are still some very impressive results. How many hours of washing was that?

Ralph

 

[jerrod6]

I wasn't sure how the DW would treat this, so I timed the parts of the cycle.

Prewash 21 minutes
Main wash 73 minutes
First rinse 8 minutes
Final rinse 17 minutes
Dry 21 minutes

Because I used the tab there was no detergent in the prewash so only the main wash had detergent. Perhaps the results would have been better with detergent in the prewash but that's not how you are supposed to use tabs.

 

[supersuds]

73 minutes. Holy cow, these new dishwashers.

For the foreseeable future, I'm stuck with a 1990-ish BOL Hotpoint that has a non-adjustable 30 minute main wash, only 20 minutes of which takes place after the detergent cup opens. So, with a dishwasher tab, 20 minutes is all I get. Nor can I boost the temp or use steam.

 

[neptuneguy27]

Jerrod

Which program did you use? Pots & Pans, Starch/Cheese? I just received my container of STPP yesterday and had a heavy load to wash in the La Perla. I used some of the new Finish Powder w/o phosphates and added 1 tsp. STPP to about 2 tbs. of detergent. Ran the dishwasher on Heavy Soil and took a peek this morning. I pulled out a glass and it was crystal clear. Normally when I use the Finish Powder my glasses look awful when the cycle is done. Very cloudy and filmy. So I am happy that I have the STPP to add when I run out of my phosphated Finish Tabs. Which will be very soon.

Chris

 

[retropia]

Chris, does your package of STPP say what the percentage is of phosphates?

It might be less than 100 percent phosphates if it includes, say, an anti-clumping agent, or an inert ingredient to help it pour smoothly, for example.

 

[whirlcool]

We received our package of STTP yesterday, so I was anxious to try it out last night.

We had some biscuits and gravy from breakfast yesterday so I made sure I really cooked that gravy into the stainless steel pot well. We also has some bacon I scorched onto a stainless steel pan. Into the dishwasher it all went, not a thing was pre-rinsed or soaked.

We had the pots and pans on the lower rack and all the dishes on the upper rack.

I put in 1 tsp of STTP and used one of those Finish All In One tabs without phosphates. Normally this version of Finish does a mediocre job at cleaning things. I set the DW to Hi-Temp wash and Pots & Pans cycle started it up and went to bed.

This morning I found EVERYTHING sparkling clean. Normally that version of Finish makes the glasses feel a bit sticky, but not today. Everything was crystal clean. Even the pots were sparkling! Not a bit of leftover food anywhere.

The STTP we have is doesn't say the phosphate content on it. But it came from the Chemistry Store.

Tonight we try the Palmolive Non-Phosphated Gel with the STTP to see how that works out.

 

[jerrod6]

"Jerrod Which program did you use? Pots & Pans, Starch/Cheese?"

I used the Cheese Cycle. I guess the newer model combines these two into one cycle but that is the one I used. On my machine the prewash is heated and this is followed by the longer wash which I think uses 168F or 170F water. So far this is the longest cycle on the machine. The next longest would be heavy soil or sani but the sensor wash can also last as long as heavy soil depending on how dirty the dishes are. With the sensor wash if I have lightly soiled dishes the wash lasts about 25 minutes.

My box of Finish powder still contains has about 3% phosphate and chlorine bleach. It seems to work OK although I have never tried it with pots and pans or cheese.

Whirlcool - sounds like STTP might be the solution when washing very dirty loads.

 

[whirlcool]

We were both very impressed with the results. We really don't see a need to hoard any more phosphated dishwasher detergent.

We are almost finished with our last bag of phosphated FOCA. We'll get a bag of the non-phosphated kind (the only type available) to see how the added STTP does with it.

I am wondering if we can now get away with cheap DW detergent and just let the added STTP do the job.

Besides laundry and DW detergent, I wonder what other uses for STTP there are?

 

[rp2813]

I bought 5 boxes of Cascade/Dawn powder at Walgreens today. At least that will hold me over for a while, and perhaps as the complaints continue to roll in, an additive will show up on the market that's easier to get than STPP.

The Thermador is doing such a beautiful job with Cascade/Dawn powder that I don't want to mess with a good thing.

 

[whirlcool]

STTP is used as a food preservative. And surprisingly it is considered about as toxic as salt, vinegar or baking soda. The worst part of it is it can be an irritant if it gets in your eyes.

We did our test last night with STTP and Palmolive Lavender Non Phosphated Gel. Perfect results. We used 1 tsp STTP mixed in with the gel. The load was unrinsed plates & bowls from a scrambled egg/hash brown breakfast that had been sitting for at least 14 hours before washing. While this gel will clean the plates and glasses well, it leaves food on the pan it was cooked in and hardly touches the spatula we used. With STTP everything came out clean.

So tonight I will test with only 1/2 tsp of STTP and see if the results vary.

 

[rp2813]

Allen, it appears that STPP is the way to go when the time comes. You're batting 1,000 with that stuff.

 

[retropia]

If you've got a supply of STPP, I think an inexpensive dishwasher detergent would likely work well. Kroger has a "value" detergent that's really cheap, at $2.19 for 65 oz. I bought a box to try it.

It still has phosphates, at least for now, but it's only two percent phosphates. It works ok for moderately dirty loads, but for anything heavy duty, I find I need to add extra phosphates. (I'm currently using Glass Magic for that purpose, but it's kind of pricey.)

This "value" detergent also has chlorine bleach. The next-step-up generic at Kroger, called Everyday Living (with zero phosphates), instead uses enzymes.

Most current Cascade detergent uses enzymes, I think, but I believe there are still a few varieties that add chlorine bleach.

I normally prefer the enzyme detergent to the ones that add chlorine bleach, because chlorine will stain untreated aluminum.

 

[jerrod6]

All Cascade Phosphate Free by July 1, 2010

Check out cascadeclean.com. P&G states that all Cascade products will be Phosphate Free by July 1, 2010