Clean Dishes

The EPA, Environment Protection Agency, recently declared that phospates could no longer be added to automatic dishwasher cleanser.  Since then, many people have been quite disappointed in the condition our dishes come out of the dishwasher.  It is not unusual now to pull out dishes that have just come out of the machine and have to re-wash them by hand.  We are some of the people with the problem.  We have changed detergents but still have the problem on a regular basis.  So we decided to try something different yesterday.  We started out by cleaning the machine with a splash of white vinegar added to an empty machine.  (Don't add the vinegar until after the first wash water has been dumped.  That way, the vinegar will have a much longer cycle to circulate through the plumbing, etc.)  After the entire cycle was finished, we loaded the machine with dirty dishes and got it started.  We didn't do anything unusual with the first short wash cycle.  But after the dirty water had drained and the new wash water had poured in, we added another splash of the vinegar along with the soap tablet.  Once the complete cycle was finished, I unloaded the machine.  It had been plumb full of glasses, coffee cups, plates and silverware.  Everything came out perfectly clean with a very shiny finish.

Anyway, this has worked for us.  If you are having he same problem, you might want to give this a try in your own dishwasher.  White Vinegar is cheap.

I am thinking seriously of doing this with our washing machine also.  The same hard water goes through it.  The vinegar should break the hard water deposits in there also which I would think would enable the machine to do a good job even longer.  Vinegar has been known as a great freshener too.  It should keep it fresher and then that would mean that our laundry would be fresher too.  Right?  Our washing machine is one of the new front loading machines.  With them, an occassional cleansing has to be done to keep them fresh.  I think I will try out using the vinegar instead of the cleanser to see how well that works.

VLE-B