Hi,

I've recently changed from using cold hard water in my dish washer to
hot hard water from the combi boiler, and everything was fine for the
first month.

Now I'm getting extreemly cloudy glasses and even the plates feel
rough. I've topped up the salt and rinse-aid but its not had any
effect. What does work is adding lemon juice before doing an extra
final rinse( which proves its hardness, but 10ml isn't completely
effective and its a pain having to do so. Surely, the dish washer salt
should be removing the hardness.

Is the problem that I'm heating the water before softening it? am I
using the wrong type of salt? or is there something else wrong with the
dish washer?

Ken.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

I've recently changed from using cold hard water in my dish washer to
hot hard water from the combi boiler, and everything was fine for the
first month.

Now I'm getting extreemly cloudy glasses and even the plates feel
rough. I've topped up the salt and rinse-aid but its not had any
effect. What does work is adding lemon juice before doing an extra
final rinse( which proves its hardness, but 10ml isn't completely
effective and its a pain having to do so. Surely, the dish washer salt
should be removing the hardness.

Is the problem that I'm heating the water before softening it?

I don't think that would be a good idea. Why is it set up that way?

am I
using the wrong type of salt? or is there something else wrong with the
dish washer?

Ken.

Hi Joe,

a) Using hot water reduces the cycle time from 90minutes to 45minutes
b) More importantly it reduces the fuel bill as the natural gas used by
the combi boiler is probably about 10 times cheaper than the
electricity used by the dish washer to heat the water

PS: The salt I'm using is Granulite made by British Salt (99.9% NaCl)
which is available from the warehouse at less than 40¢/Kg (I paid £5
for 25Kg).

Ken.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi Joe,

a) Using hot water reduces the cycle time from 90minutes to 45minutes
b) More importantly it reduces the fuel bill as the natural gas used by
the combi boiler is probably about 10 times cheaper than the
electricity used by the dish washer to heat the water

PS: The salt I'm using is Granulite made by British Salt (99.9% NaCl)
which is available from the warehouse at less than 40¢/Kg (I paid £5
for 25Kg).

Ken.

Why would you run hard water through your water heating device and ruin
that?

wrote:
Hi,

I've recently changed from using cold hard water in my dish washer to
hot hard water from the combi boiler, and everything was fine for the
first month.

Now I'm getting extreemly cloudy glasses and even the plates feel
rough. I've topped up the salt and rinse-aid but its not had any
effect. What does work is adding lemon juice before doing an extra
final rinse( which proves its hardness, but 10ml isn't completely
effective and its a pain having to do so. Surely, the dish washer salt
should be removing the hardness.

Is the problem that I'm heating the water before softening it? am I
using the wrong type of salt? or is there something else wrong with the
dish washer?

Ken.


Ken-

Based on my experience with hard water & dishwashers......... in SoCal

I think you're getting a buildup of hard water deposits that sre just
being disolved & re-deposited on your glasses & dishes.

In one home I did not have a water softener (very hard water) & every
few months I would run a calcium / de-lime agent in the diswasher to
get rid of chunks of calcium in the dishwasher.

In the other home I had a water softener that feed the water heater so
dishwasher was fed hot soft water..........never had a clouding
problem.

I would suggest re-routing the water so the water is softened before
being heated.

One further note........very soft water & excessive dishwasher
detergent can set up conditions to etch glass.

Can you remove the cloudiness on the glasses with a de-lime agent or is
it permanent? If permanent it might be etched rather than hard water
deposits.

cheers
Bob

btw what does the salt do?

Strong dishwashing detergents will etch glass fairly rapidly. Try using less
detergent. The etched glass cannot be restored. See CR ratings on dishwasher
detergent, especially the column on etching.

--
Walter
www.rationality.net
-
wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi,

I've recently changed from using cold hard water in my dish washer to
hot hard water from the combi boiler, and everything was fine for the
first month.

Now I'm getting extreemly cloudy glasses and even the plates feel
rough. I've topped up the salt and rinse-aid but its not had any
effect. What does work is adding lemon juice before doing an extra
final rinse( which proves its hardness, but 10ml isn't completely
effective and its a pain having to do so. Surely, the dish washer salt
should be removing the hardness.

Is the problem that I'm heating the water before softening it? am I
using the wrong type of salt? or is there something else wrong with the
dish washer?

Ken.

wrote:
Hi Joe,

a) Using hot water reduces the cycle time from 90minutes to 45minutes
b) More importantly it reduces the fuel bill as the natural gas used
by the combi boiler is probably about 10 times cheaper than the
electricity used by the dish washer to heat the water

I would assume you would heat the water before the washer, but your
statement was:

"Is the problem that I'm heating the water before softening it?"

Why are you heating it before softening it?



PS: The salt I'm using is Granulite made by British Salt (99.9% NaCl)
which is available from the warehouse at less than 40¢/Kg (I paid £5
for 25Kg).

Ken.

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit

Hi,

The reason for heating the water first, is that I don't own a water
softener nor water conditioner, so the only softening device is the one
which is built-in to the dish washer itself.

Trying to remember high school chemistry, I believe that soft water
contains CaHCO3 which when heated precipitates CaCO3. The dish washer's
built-in softener works by some sort of chemical reaction with NaCl. Is
it that the NaCl can only react with CaHCO3 and that by the time its
precipitated as CaCO3 the NaCl can't react with it?

How much lemon juice should one add to UK-size standard 60cm
free-standing dish washer to remove to chalk on the final rinse? 2
teaspoons is not enough, would a tablespoon be required or more?

Ken.

wrote:
Hi,

The reason for heating the water first, is that I don't own a water
softener nor water conditioner, so the only softening device is the
one which is built-in to the dish washer itself.

Oh, I see. That makes sense. What does your dish washer say about
water supply. Does it specify using cold water? Does it say anything about
using hot water?


Trying to remember high school chemistry, I believe that soft water
contains CaHCO3 which when heated precipitates CaCO3. The dish
washer's built-in softener works by some sort of chemical reaction
with NaCl. Is it that the NaCl can only react with CaHCO3 and that by
the time its precipitated as CaCO3 the NaCl can't react with it?

How much lemon juice should one add to UK-size standard 60cm
free-standing dish washer to remove to chalk on the final rinse? 2
teaspoons is not enough, would a tablespoon be required or more?

Ken.

--
Joseph Meehan

Dia duit

wrote:
Hi,

The reason for heating the water first, is that I don't own a water
softener nor water conditioner, so the only softening device is the one
which is built-in to the dish washer itself.

Trying to remember high school chemistry, I believe that soft water
contains CaHCO3 which when heated precipitates CaCO3. The dish washer's
built-in softener works by some sort of chemical reaction with NaCl. Is
it that the NaCl can only react with CaHCO3 and that by the time its
precipitated as CaCO3 the NaCl can't react with it?

How much lemon juice should one add to UK-size standard 60cm
free-standing dish washer to remove to chalk on the final rinse? 2
teaspoons is not enough, would a tablespoon be required or more?

Ken.


Ohh! I thought you were putting the salt in the dishwasher!

Now it makes sense to me!

The salt is to make the recharge brine for the water softener......via
ion exchange a softener echanges Na ions for the hard water Ca & Mg
ions

I used to de-lime my dishwasher ~ every month using CLR (a delimer
available in the states) or you could use a cup of white vineger in
the rinse.

SInce you've got a built in softener you may have etched the glasses by
the water being soft

cheers
Bob

Hi,

The dish washer manual says its OK to heat the water up to 65C and the
boiler output is only 60C, so thats OK.

However, I posted the same question on sci.chem and Ron tells me that
I've probably broken the softener by forgetting to keep the salt topped
up :-(

Thanks for the amount Bob: 1 cup of white vinegar.

Ken.

Banjo wrote:
Hi,

The dish washer manual says its OK to heat the water up to 65C and the
boiler output is only 60C, so thats OK.

However, I posted the same question on sci.chem and Ron tells me that
I've probably broken the softener by forgetting to keep the salt topped
up :-(

Thanks for the amount Bob: 1 cup of white vinegar.

Ken.

Ken-

I doubt that the softener is broken.......

The ones I've had contained little resin beads, the beads contain the
ion echange material. The salt is used to make a brine solution to
"re-charge" the beads.

With no salt in the system you'd be "re-charging" with fresh water. I
have a little more faith in the robustness of the softener that running
low on salt won't kill it.

Let us know how it all works out......whether it was a hard water
problem or was the glass etched by soft water & detergent.

cheers
Bob

Hi Bob,

The dish washer is working again. It appears to require about 5-10 full
cycles to re-charge the built-in water softener after you've neglected
it enough to completely run out of salt. :-)

Thankyou to you and everyone else who helped.

Ken.