How come my dishwasher leaves grime on dishes?

How come my dishwasher leaves grime on dishes? - Selective Focus Photography of Pasta With Tomato and Basil

There is this wierd coating on almost all of my dishes after having washed them in the dish water. I am using an automatic detergent (powder), highest how water setting.

More details:

Only some dishes get this coating. It seems like they are more dirty coming out than going in. The coating is like... white/clear. I can use a sponge, soap and warm water to remove it. Overall it feels like none of my dishes are being cleaned at all and I am just washing everything by hand now. This seems to have gotten worse and worse.



Best Answer

This is (most likely) a hard water issue. There are trace levels of minerals (calcium) in the water and when it dries the minerals are left behind. This leaves a white film that is not dangerous but is unsightly.

There are commercial products that will help with this. 'Jet Dry' is the most common of these and I have found that it works quite well. There are competitive brands out there which report to do the same.

You may also need to "clean your dishwasher" (sounds odd, I know). Again I point you towards a commercially available product, CLR. Basically you put some CLR in your empty dishwasher and run it. The exact instructions are on the bottle.

(This is not a paid endorsement of either Jet Dry or CLR)




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Why is my dishwasher leaving dirt on my dishes?

If your dishwasher is not self-cleaning, it most likely has a manual filter, designed to trap food debris. When the filter becomes clogged, the dishwasher continues to recirculate dirty water, resulting in small bits of stuck-on food and potentially smelly dishes.

How do I stop my dishwasher from leaving residue?

Put 2 cups white vinegar in a glass or dishwasher-safe measuring cup on the bottom rack. Then run the dishwasher through a complete washing cycle using an air-dry or an energy-saving dry option.



Why is My Dishwasher Not Cleaning Dishes Properly?




More answers regarding how come my dishwasher leaves grime on dishes?

Answer 2

There are a few solutions:

1) You could try loading fewer dishes (if it's food-related residue) or 2) Add a liquid rinse aid to the wash cycle (your dishwasher should have a separate compartment for it).

Answer 3

As Cos Callis mentions, it's likely a water chemistry problem that a good water treatment company should be able to diagnose for you for free. Hard water is from hard elements like calcium.

What we had was this odd white film and sliminess around faucets; it never hardened into calcium, what happened to us was this:

  1. We live close to the ocean;
  2. There are too many people living in our area for the aquifer to keep up;
  3. The excessive draw on the freshwater aquifer causes salt water from the ocean to leach into the aquifer;
  4. The local water authority adds chemicals to help the aquifer;
  5. Those chemicals cause the white slime described above;
  6. Culligan adjusted the resin bed in our water softener to counteract the chemicals that our county water authority added.

Either way, this is a free test that someone like Culligan will do for you.

By the way, one way to tell if this is your problem is that Jet Dry did little to nothing to help us...

Answer 4

I had a friend who had something like this happening, and it turned out it was because of a change in the formula of the powdered detergent she was using (I think it was a reduction in phosphates). What happened was that she suddenly got a white residue on everything in the dishwasher after buying a new box of the same stuff she'd been using for years. The manufacturer had changed the formula to comply with regulations, and hadn't got things quite right.

If it's the same thing, you might try switching to a gel detergent--apparently they don't have the same issues.

Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Images: Lisa, Daria Shevtsova, ELEVATE, Foodie Factor