Dishwasher query

I think that's normal. You pour the salt in and it displaces water out of the filler. All of ours have been like that.

Thanks. I am getting confused about this. Does soft water dissolve more salt in a situation where less salt is needed (because the water is soft) ??

Our Bosch dishwasher is fed from the domestic water softener. When first installed, I had these demands for salt. Have a look through your instruction manual and see if the demand can be overridden.

Salt addition to the load during the wash/rinse cycles prevents the formation of limescale on the dishes and interior components of the dishwasher. My instructions tell me how to set the level of that addition depending on the hardness of the water in your area. I assume that the 'water' in the dispenser is actually a saturated solution of salt which is metered into the dishwasher in an amount appropriate to the water hardness where you are.

My dishwasher is an Indesit, but I expect yours will work similarly.

As they say, if all else fails, read the instructions! :-)

When we replaced our dishwasher, I noted the instruction book for the new one suggested looking at the water-provider’s web site to find out the hardness of the water they were supplying. I did so, and a table in the instruction book said how to set up the salt system to match it. It turned out to be zero due to the soft water here, and I set the menu item concerned accordingly. Our dishwasher has never had any salt in it.

Salt isn't added to the load - if it was your cutlery would rust (even the stainless eventually, just like it does on ships).

The salt is used to regenerate an ion exchange resin which pulls out low-solubility calcium ions (from calcium carbonate) from the water - the salt turns it into soluble sodium ions, preventing it sticking to the crockery.

Interestingly, whenever I refill my dishwasher's salt compartment the first wash afterwards puts a generous layer of limescale on everything in the machine. Can anyone explain the mechanism? Is the depleted ion exchange resin eagerly grabbing sodium and dumping out calcium?

Theo

Nor ours. One of the benefits of living in Scotland. Others include: no furring of kettles, soap lathers much more easily and the soft water makes a better cup of tea. (Ironically, my preference is for Twinings Strong English Breakfast.)

We used to have such soft water (Sutherland, on the north coast), that it seriously weakened the copper in the hot water cylinder. It was peaty water, the colour of whisky, taken from a local lochan.

Now, our water is clear, piped in from Caithness, and leaves limescale on the glass shower enclosure.

Yes, the salt reservoir is normally full of water. However, the purpose of the salt is to regenerate the resin water softener. If you are in a soft water area, you do not need to add any salt at all. Either live with a warning indicator on or check the manual (many dishwashers have a way to disable the low salt warning).

I have never used salt in the 30 years that I have had a dishwasher. I just ignore the warning light.

Our dishwashers have a 5 position lever to specify water hardness. The lowest one suppresses prompts for salt.

Thanks. After a Google search, I have now found some instructions. There is a way to set water hardness so I shall try this next.

I don't see that, fortunately. Are you perhaps adding too much salt?

I have another question for the assembled experts: many modern brands of dishwasher detergent, even the ones we get in Lidl, say "with Salt* and Rinse Aid" and if you follow the asterisk it says up to 21 degrees dH. This is apparent the German hardness measure, there seem to be plenty of them. According to Affinity Water our hardness is 18.06 on the dH scale, so we should be ok.

So does this mean that we no longer need to feed the machine with salt and rinse aid as well? I've recently started an experiment to stop doing it: so far we can see no ill effects from having no rinse aid, but I can't see how to work out whether the ion-exchange resins in built-in water softener will get damaged without explicitly adding salt to the salt container.

I fill it up to the top with about 2kg of salt for the light to go out. If I add only 1kg of salt the light stays on. It's a very hard water area.

(it's a 20 year old 'Diplomat' aka Whirlpool dishwasher which is sub-par in a lot of ways)

I'm a bit dubious about all in one tablets, because salt is there for the ion exchange resin and rinse aid is supposed to go in at the end of the rinse. I don't see how a single tablet can do that, especially in the rinse cycle when the tablet is supposed to be gone by that point. I suppose there must be different things in them that do the same job?

The best results I've found have been from Morrisons' Saver tablets (made by McBride like every other own brand) and separate salt and rinse aid. The fancier all in one brands wash worse.

Theo

I agree. Never use tablets. I buy detergent in 10kg tubs, rinse aid in bulk packs, and salt in 2kg packs.

Crikey…I load the dishwasher after the evening meal, add a tablet, the machine self-selects the ‘eco’ function, I press the Go button and shut the door.

Next morning I take out and put away the nice clean glassware, china, cutlery, and the odds and sods.

A bag of tablets lasts three months.

What’s not to like?

In message <vh0tdo$1rvql$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me, SteveW snipped-for-privacy@walker-family.me.uk> writes

Fully agree. We have lived in Aberdeenshire for more than twenty years now, and have never added salt to the dishwasher, with no ill effects.

Tap water in the iron and kettle, too, and no limescale :-)

Well, the expense. And this is a very hard water area - the salt in tablets isn't that effective.

I buy salt tablets in 25kg packs

For the water softener.

Dishwasher often grumbles about needing salt. Dunno why. Its on softened water.

If the salt container is empty, it will bleat.