Dishwasher - 3 in 1 tablets

[John]

My dishwasher is currently using three in one tablets and both my Salt and Rinse Aid Empty indicator lights are on. Will any harm be caused by having no salt in the machine?

[Huge]

No.

[Nick]

Mine doesn't wash properly without salt, i.e. The cups still look dirty after the wash.

But I have very hard water.

[Si]

In message , John writes

Is your mains water hard or soft? You may not need to use salt but if you're in a hard water area you risk your machine getting scaled up.

See .

Rinse Aid is your choice.

[dennis]

Put the salt in.. the tablets can not replace the salt whatever they say. If you don't the water softener will cease to work and it won't clean as well.

[Mathew Newton]

If the dishes are coming out clean, and there's no scaling inside the dishwasher then it'll be fine.

We're in a medium-hard area and find the tablets fine (extremely good actually, and less than 10p/tablet from Lidl)

Mathew

[chris French]

In message , "dennis@home" writes

I think this depends on the water hardness. They obviously don't replace salt, in that that is used to regenerate the inbuilt water softener in the dishwasher.

But the chemical put in to 'soften' the water (brain not working I can't remember what it is - same as Calgon I guess) could well suffice in areas where it isn't too hard.

We've always lived in hard water areas, so I've always used salt and usually just standard powder as that seems cheapest

[meow2222]

Salt is needed for consistently good results, running without can in some cases cause much bigger problems, so put salt in. Its not worth trying to save =A31 and ending up with trouble.

NT

[Stephen Howard]

We're in a hard water area here, and I never use salt in the dishwasher ( just the 3-in-1 tablets ) - and my glasses come out just fine.

Mind you, every six months or so I give the machine a good old clean out by placing two cups of vinegar in the machine and setting it on a full cycle. If you have any dirty glassware around at that time it can go in with the vinegar.

Regards,

[dennis]

Do you really believe that? Look at it logically.. you put the tablet in and it washes.. then it rinses.. then it rinses.. then it rinses.. then it rinses again. Just what do you think they put in the tablet that survives to the last rinse? If it does survive say six rinses, how much is left on the dishes of one that only does four rinses? No it's bull, at best it softens the water for the wash and not the rinses and you need soft water for the final rinse.

[chris French]

In message , "dennis@home" writes

Not bothered about it TBH :-)

We live in a hard water area and I use salt.

[Andrew Gabriel]

There is certainly a technique to retain a checmical and release it in a second hot cycle (final rinse). I've no idea if the tablets do that though -- I don't use them.