Dishwasher care: rules and means

Like any house­hold item, a dish­wash­er needs care, oth­er­wise its ser­vice life will be sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced, and the device itself will not be able to cope with its func­tions 100% with­out prop­er atten­tion. At the same time, in order to prop­er­ly care for him, you do not have to put a lot of effort.

3 golden rules for grooming

An impor­tant nuance in car­ing for a dish­wash­er is the fre­quen­cy, as well as the fol­low­ing tips:

Rule #1

The device must be wiped with a damp cloth both inside and out. This rule can eas­i­ly be made a habit with dai­ly use of the dish­wash­er: as soon as the machine has com­plet­ed the wash­ing cycle, you should remove clean dish­es from it and imme­di­ate­ly start wip­ing:

• It is impor­tant to thor­ough­ly wipe the appli­ance doors, as dirt can accu­mu­late there and cause prob­lems with open­ing and clos­ing the appli­ance.
• You can just walk with a damp cloth on the type­writer, or moist­en a cloth in a mild soapy solu­tion and then wipe the device.
• If the dish­wash­er is made of stain­less steel, then to care for it you will need a spe­cial clean­ing agent, on the label of which it will be indi­cat­ed that this prod­uct is specif­i­cal­ly for the stain­less steel appli­ance.

Rule #2

The mesh fil­ter of the machine should be washed week­ly. For this work, you need to get the bot­tom bas­ket, unscrew the screws, and then remove the fil­ter. It is washed in ordi­nary water with­out adding any prod­ucts.

In the same way, the blades of the wash­ing show­er should also be cleaned, but this should be done when the dirt in the form of scale and food debris has already been cleaned.

Rule #3

The door seal should be cleaned every 6 months. For this, a spe­cial tool is used, which is usu­al­ly sold in a store with house­hold chem­i­cals, or in the store where the device itself was pur­chased. The choice can be made in favor of prod­ucts from Fin­ish.

Com­pli­ance with all these three rules will guar­an­tee that the machine will serve for a long time and prop­er­ly. This is the very min­i­mum that the device requires.

Dishwasher care products

Con­ven­tion­al­ly, all dish­wash­er deter­gents can be divid­ed into three groups:

• Tablets is most in demand among dish­wash­er users. One tablet con­tains all the nec­es­sary com­po­nents for com­plete care of both the dish­wash­er and the dish­es.
• Pow­der less con­ve­nient to use, since you have to inde­pen­dent­ly mea­sure the required dose of the prod­uct for one wash­ing cycle. But, finan­cial­ly, this option is more afford­able.
• Gel is a liq­uid pow­der, that is, the com­po­si­tion of these two prod­ucts are iden­ti­cal. There are gels that are sold in one total vol­ume, and again it will be nec­es­sary to inde­pen­dent­ly cal­cu­late the dose of the drug. There are also gels that are enclosed in cap­sules designed for one cycle of the device.

In addi­tion to these basic dish­wash­er care prod­ucts, it is rec­om­mend­ed to use oth­er prod­ucts that have a nar­row action:

• So that after wash­ing there are no smudges on the dish­es, and it shines like new, it is rec­om­mend­ed to use con­di­tion­er. It is used at the final stage of wash­ing. It is enough just to pour the rinse aid into the depart­ment for this prod­uct and the machine itself will cal­cu­late how much it needs to be used. Check the rinse aid indi­ca­tor in the draw­er once a month.
• If, when open­ing the dish­wash­er, it exudes an unpleas­ant odor, then you need to use a spe­cial fresh­en­er for dish­wash­er. Fresh­en­ers are attached to the upper bas­ket, and its action lasts for 60–90 wash­ing cycles.
• To soft­en the water and pre­vent the for­ma­tion of scale, it is rec­om­mend­ed to use a spe­cial salt for dish­wash­ers. You can learn more about this tool from the fol­low­ing video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BN5BZtJWSIE

How to deal with scale, mold and rust in the dishwasher

The appear­ance of scale, mold and rust over time are inevitable prob­lems, even if you fol­low the rules on how to care for a dish­wash­er. The fact is that these prob­lems require a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent approach than just pre­ven­tive clean­ing of some parts of the dish­wash­er.

The fight against scale

To get rid of scale, you should turn on the machine in oper­at­ing mode, but do not load dish­es into it. First you need to fill it with one of the fol­low­ing means:

• bak­ing soda;
• cit­ric acid;
• table vine­gar.

After the wash­ing cycle is com­plet­ed, it is worth clean­ing the dish­wash­er of the dirt that has sur­faced, and then start­ing anoth­er oper­at­ing mode with­out any means.

You will see the recipe for clean­ing the machine with vine­gar and soda in the fol­low­ing video:

Mold control

If mold has start­ed to col­lect in the dish­wash­er, then the prob­lem is too high humid­i­ty. To avoid this prob­lem or elim­i­nate mold that has already appeared, you must act in this way:

• After each work­ing cycle of the appli­ance and remov­ing dish­es from it, the machine must be left open for a while so that the mois­ture evap­o­rates nat­u­ral­ly.
• If mold has “attacked” most of the dish­wash­er, then you can clean it with a dish­wash­er deter­gent with a bleach­ing effect.

Rust control

The appear­ance of rust may be due to some met­al object for­got­ten in the type­writer, for exam­ple, a small spoon, an old knife or a dessert fork. Then, to elim­i­nate rust, you need to elim­i­nate the cause of its appear­ance: remove the stuck object.

But, some­times the appear­ance of rust is due to the life of the device and insuf­fi­cient care for it. In this case, the algo­rithm of actions is as fol­lows:

• If rust has formed on the coat­ing of bas­kets for met­al objects, then you should buy a sealant paint designed for dish­wash­ers. If there is already too much rust, it is bet­ter to com­plete­ly replace the bas­kets with new ones.
• Rust can form due to hard water. If there is a lot of iron in the water that is sup­plied to the machine, then it makes sense to install spe­cial fil­ters for the dish­wash­er before sup­ply­ing water to the appli­ance. The cause of hard water can also be old rusty pipes through which water flows. In this sit­u­a­tion, the best solu­tion is to replace the pipes.

Preventative dishwasher care

The most com­mon cause of a dish­wash­er fail­ure is a block­age in the drain sys­tem. To avoid this, just fol­low a few tips:

• The very first time after buy­ing a machine, you should check how it works — do not load dish­es into it, but sim­ply turn on the machine, pour­ing a spe­cial clean­ing agent into it.
• Before turn­ing on the machine again, you should make sure that there are no food residues from the pre­vi­ous wash in it, and if there are, then they must be removed.
• Remem­ber the rules for load­ing the wash­ing machine.

Video: 20 dishwasher care tips

In order to improve the qual­i­ty of wash­ing dish­es, as well as to avoid the occur­rence of var­i­ous mal­func­tions, you must be able to oper­ate the appli­ance cor­rect­ly. A spe­cial video tells how to achieve 100% func­tion­al­i­ty of the dish­wash­er and at the same time not bring it to break­age:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUIT6ixqu18

Do not neglect the tips on the oper­a­tion and care of the dish­wash­er, since it depends on this how long it can last. Just a few manip­u­la­tions in a month, and the dish­wash­er will remain as good as new.