We moved back in October into our dream home. Over the last two months we couldn’t figure out why our dishes weren’t getting clean, clean.
The first thing we tried was a Cascade dishwasher cleaner. It didn’t make a noticeable difference.
Then we tried scrubbing the dishes and essentially prewashing them before putting them in the dishwasher. We tried adding vinegar and when that didn’t work, name brand rinse aid (and then more and more rinse aid). Still barely a difference.
While we weren’t thinking about replacing the dishwasher, we weren’t sure what else to do.
As part of my January deep cleaning (some people have health-related resolutions, I have cleaning-related ones), I scrubbed the inside of the dishwasher.(In case you want to follow along I’m using the Apartment Therapy January Cure assignments.) It wasn’t until I took out the filters that I finally understood why our dishwasher wasn’t working that great.
The filters were caked in so much sediment and who knows what else that it looked as if they were installed with the cardboard packaging still attached.
It’s obvious the previous owners never cleaned the filters as the owner’s manual recommends.
After boiling vinegar and soaking the filters for about half an hour, I had to scrub then with the firm brush, rinsing regularly.
The scrubbing seems to have been worth it because after the first load with cleaner filters, our dishes were cleaner, the drying time was less and we didn’t go through half of the rinse aid!
As for the rest of the first weekend challenge, I went with a fruit bowl and I only have two more floors to clean.