Over the past 6 months my dishwasher has steadily stopped washing my dishes well. It started with the glass cups, leaving food on the inside, then got worse and worse until two weeks ago when nothing was coming out clean and was actually dirtier than when it when in. Then to top it off, it started leaking like crazy! Arg! This happened in our old home and we ended up selling our home with a brand new dishwasher.
Well, we just financed a fence for our new home and I did NOT want to tack on another $450 to our Home Depot credit card. So, what's a gal to do? Clean baby clean.
Steps to giving your dishwasher a tune up and possibly even stopping a leak:
1: Clean out the filter on the bottum of the dishwasher. I wore gloves for this. *gag* The cover should come off pretty easily with the removal of a screw or just a little leverage of a butter knife. *Caution: Don't force it. It will be pretty easy if it's meant to come off .Clean everything out well and replace cover.
2: Check all of the holes where water sprays out. Water is usually recycled from the bottom so food and even soap granuals can clog the holes. I even found a shard of glass from a cup that broke a few months back. I used a skewer to clear the holes out.
3: Clean out the steam vent on the door. Once again, gloves. *gag* I was SHOCKED how dirty this was and I am fairly certain that this is what was causing the leak. It was full of gunk and wasn't allowing water to drain off properly. Thus, the leak. The cover on the inside of the door should be easy to remove with a butter knife. *Caution: Don't force it. It will be pretty easy if it's meant to come off. Clean it out. Replace cover.
4: Last step. This one is easy. Run the EMPTY dishwasher with a 1/2 cup of CLR cleaner. (found with the cleaning supplies) This helps to remove anything you missed in steps 1-3. And just to be safe, run again to be sure all the cleaner is gone.
That's it! Easy, takes about 15 minutes, and you will be amazed at the difference. No more leaking! :)
Leave a comment if you try it and it works for you. I know it saved me money and time!
Well, we just financed a fence for our new home and I did NOT want to tack on another $450 to our Home Depot credit card. So, what's a gal to do? Clean baby clean.
Steps to giving your dishwasher a tune up and possibly even stopping a leak:
1: Clean out the filter on the bottum of the dishwasher. I wore gloves for this. *gag* The cover should come off pretty easily with the removal of a screw or just a little leverage of a butter knife. *Caution: Don't force it. It will be pretty easy if it's meant to come off .Clean everything out well and replace cover.
2: Check all of the holes where water sprays out. Water is usually recycled from the bottom so food and even soap granuals can clog the holes. I even found a shard of glass from a cup that broke a few months back. I used a skewer to clear the holes out.
3: Clean out the steam vent on the door. Once again, gloves. *gag* I was SHOCKED how dirty this was and I am fairly certain that this is what was causing the leak. It was full of gunk and wasn't allowing water to drain off properly. Thus, the leak. The cover on the inside of the door should be easy to remove with a butter knife. *Caution: Don't force it. It will be pretty easy if it's meant to come off. Clean it out. Replace cover.
4: Last step. This one is easy. Run the EMPTY dishwasher with a 1/2 cup of CLR cleaner. (found with the cleaning supplies) This helps to remove anything you missed in steps 1-3. And just to be safe, run again to be sure all the cleaner is gone.
That's it! Easy, takes about 15 minutes, and you will be amazed at the difference. No more leaking! :)
Leave a comment if you try it and it works for you. I know it saved me money and time!
Comments
Visit me!!!! http://diymathqueen.blogspot.com/
Also, I think your blog is absolutely yummy and I'd like to follow but don't see the GFC widget soooo... I guess I'll be adding you to my Google Reader!
I'd love to have you stop by my blog when you get a minute. Thanks so much for the yum factor {not on this post} and the gag factor {ON this post}.
Babblin' Brooke
Thanks for the tips! :)
(I'm a new follower for more super brilliant ideas!) x
natalie
Found this on Pinterest, btw! Thanks for the tips!!
Oh also, I have a septic so I don't like using too many chemicals if I can avoid it, but a cheep way to clean the inside of the washer is to put in a pack of unsweetened kool-aid lemonade or orange. It's got to have the citric acid. It makes the inside squeaky clean! Even with hard water!
...Adding to my To-Do List since I took off from work today!!!
Looks like we have the same exact dishwasher (from the inside at least!) but mine is almost 20 years old and I know it's never been cleaned because I'm the only one who's ever owned it. I was SCARED to look in there...and it was pretty nasty. It took me forever to get that filter basket off though...I finally realized there was a screw in there - VERY rusted and it was extremely difficult getting that out. Once I did, I still had a hard time getting it off, but I finally succeded. I can just tell a difference already because the actual inside of my dishwasher is even cleaner! My husband was very impressed...so thanks so much!!!
Any suggestions would be appreciated! I'm sure cleaning like you suggested will make a huge difference.
We have REALLY hard water and horrible lime scale tgat builds up on everything. My poor electric kettle has large chunks of lime that you can break off if not cleaned for a month and we only use filtered tap water in it.
I pour a pack of tang in my kettle and fill with water, I boil it and then let it sit overnight... Dump out and rinse in the morning... It sparkles!!!
Jacque
Found you on Pinterest!
Budget Earth - Do Method Method Cleaning Products Work?
I don't have time to try this until the weekend, but who knows...sounds like it may be worth it to stay up late tonight just to clean the sucker out!
Try it - it's cheap and you will gag with a smile while you remove all the junk, because you wi know you are a genius. Tell the man you just "fixed the DW"... No big thing. He does not have to know it took 2 hrs and a whole lot of cussing....
I hope you don't mind, I linked to your post on my blog. (I am new to blogging, so I hope it wasn't poor etiquette to not ask your permission first.) Cheers!
it.
was.
gross.
Had a Jet Dry Dishwasher Cleaner and used it instead of CLR (that I did not have on hand). This is now a monthly chore...that thing has not been cleaned in ohhhhh 8 years!! I didn't know it needed to be!!
Thanks!
**I know we're NEVER supposed to put our hands in the disposal, so this must be done carefully. Better yet, turn the power breaker off.**
Every dishwasher has a hose that goes from the dishwasher into the drain (through the disposal if you have one.) If you put your hand just barely into the disposal you can feel a small hole on the side. Make a loop with the wire hanger and try to pull gunk out, or at least loosen it so it can be forced out when running your next wash cycle.
Mine was completely clogged forcing the rinse water back into the dishwasher, GROSS!
Be careful not to push the gunk into the hose - or be prepared to remove and replace the pipe clamp holding the dishwasher hose to the disposal.
Thanks so much, I plan to walk over to me neighbor's house and show her how to do this. She has the same DW as mine!
My dishwasher's filter is part of the spray assembly, so I was loathe to take that apart. But I did open the steam vent and was blown away at the amount of paper in it. Sheesh.
Just ran the dishwasher (with Borax for those keeping tabs at home), and it didn't leak AT ALL. Thank you so much!!
I've seen a really dramatic improvement in how dishes look from adding (left-over) lemon juice, or white vinegar: just splash a 1/4 or 1/2 C. into the bottom of the washer before you press 'start'. Your dishes will really sparkle.
We had a problem with our dishwasher being REALLY (REALLY!!) noisy. It sounded like a heavy duty diesel engine or something. Up close.
I took out all the easy-to-take out filters and such (and found gunk as described) and then I went a bit further: unscrewed a cover or two (take pics to guide on reassembly if you decide to try this) and found an olive pit lodged in an intake to the pump. It was like the story of Andy and the Lion, and pulling the splinter from the lion's paw: presto, huge problem solved by removing the tiny little thing. If your machine has become much louder, you might find something lodge deep inside that can be removed and then you'll be back to living happily ever after.
Hope these help.
Thanks!
Thanks for the help.