Hi guys

I tried to fill up the salt container on my Smeg dishwasher tonight and
to my horror found that it is full of water. The web has not supplied
any answers, so I wondered if anyone has any suggestions please...
Thanks in advance...

"larry" wrote in message
ups.com...
Hi guys

I tried to fill up the salt container on my Smeg dishwasher tonight and
to my horror found that it is full of water. The web has not supplied
any answers, so I wondered if anyone has any suggestions please...
Thanks in advance...


My Hotpoint salt dispenser is always full of water that's how the salt gets
into the wash. I guess this is the first time you have had to top it up -
just pour the salt in and it will displace the water.

Peter

The message . com
from "larry" contains these words:

I tried to fill up the salt container on my Smeg dishwasher tonight and
to my horror found that it is full of water.

It's supposed to be.

The machine uses salt solution to flush the "hardness" previously taken
from the water by the built in softener device. It can't use the salt
dry to do this - it has to be wet. That's why the salt container is full
of water.

They're all like that - but it can be a bit alarming first time.

Add the salt slowly so that the water being displaced doesn't wash the
salt out as fast as you're pouring it in.

Don't worry about all the very salty water now sitting inside the
machine, it's designed to cope with it.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

The message
from "Peter Andrews" contains these words:

My Hotpoint salt dispenser is always full of water that's how the salt gets
into the wash.

The salt never actually gets into the wash. It's used as brine to flush
the water softener. The outflow from that should go straight down the
drain.

This is why DW tablets with "salt action" don't make much sense.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 20:11:37 UTC, "larry" wrote:

Hi guys

I tried to fill up the salt container on my Smeg dishwasher tonight and
to my horror found that it is full of water. The web has not supplied
any answers, so I wondered if anyone has any suggestions please...

I think it usually works like that. Our Bosch spills water from the salt
filler, into the sump, as salt is added. No problem.

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
Avenue Supplies, http://avenuesupplies.co.uk

This is why DW tablets with "salt action" don't make much sense.

This is marketing speak, as they believe that the general populace is too
thick to realise how it works.

The tablets contain phosphates that attempt to reduce the worst effects of
hard water. However, they prefer to call this "salt action", so that people
equate it with putting salt in the softener. Of course, it can't be anywhere
near as effective as a proper ion-exchange softener, so you should continue
to put salt in the chamber.

Christian.

Christian McArdle wrote:
This is why DW tablets with "salt action" don't make much sense.

This is marketing speak, as they believe that the general populace is too
thick to realise how it works.

The tablets contain phosphates that attempt to reduce the worst effects of
hard water. However, they prefer to call this "salt action", so that people
equate it with putting salt in the softener. Of course, it can't be anywhere
near as effective as a proper ion-exchange softener, so you should continue
to put salt in the chamber.

Christian.

And the phosphates contribute to eutrophication. After having
radically reduced the amount of phosphate in laundry detergent to
improve river and lake water quality, it's now being put back in again
by increasing usage of phosphate based dishwasher detergent. It's mad.

Is also a darn sight more expensive than the older method of salt +
detergent + rinse aid. Also, on most dishwashers, you can minimise the
usage of salt by setting the dispenser for the appropriate amount
depending on your water hardness. The three-in-1 tablets cater for
near-on the worst case, and so most people will be dumping an excess of
phosphate into the drain that they didn't need to. It's Calgon all
over again.

Sigh.

Sid

The message . com
from contains these words:

Is also a darn sight more expensive than the older method of salt +
detergent + rinse aid.

Which is probably why plain simple DW detergent is becoming hard to find
'cos all the shelf space has been given over to 17in1 tablets "Removes
even dead elephants without scraping even in hard water areas" etc.

Asda's value brand tablets seem the simplest, cheapest and most
effective at the moment.

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

On Thu, 17 Aug 2006 16:10:52 +0100, Guy King
wrote:

The message . com
from contains these words:

Is also a darn sight more expensive than the older method of salt +
detergent + rinse aid.

Which is probably why plain simple DW detergent is becoming hard to find
'cos all the shelf space has been given over to 17in1 tablets "Removes
even dead elephants without scraping even in hard water areas" etc.

Asda's value brand tablets seem the simplest, cheapest and most
effective at the moment.

£ shops can be a good place to buy rinse aid, and in the past I've got
boxes of 20 tablets that work fine.

cheers,
Pete.

"Christian McArdle" wrote in message
...
This is why DW tablets with "salt action" don't make much sense.

This is marketing speak, as they believe that the general populace is too
thick to realise how it works.

The tablets contain phosphates that attempt to reduce the worst effects of
hard water. However, they prefer to call this "salt action", so that
people equate it with putting salt in the softener. Of course, it can't be
anywhere near as effective as a proper ion-exchange softener, so you
should continue to put salt in the chamber.

An ex-business associate of mine is a chemical engineer for a major
cosmetics company. Being the kind chap that he is he explained all the
ingredients in all the "soapy" products - including the science of
dishwashers. He buys the cheapest dishwasher tablets you can get - and if
it's a particularly nasty load just puts a squirt of fairy liquid in the
base of the machine (the least foaming variety he can lay his hands on) to
act as the pre-treatment. Apparently this is effectively all the
"powerball" and all the other great inventions are - plus it invariably also
leaves the dishes with more of a hand washed finish on the glassware than
just a dishwasher tablet on it's own* In reality this is what the new fairy
tablets are - they have a reduced foaming mix of fairy liquid in the capsule
too - they work quite well IME but are firghtfully expensive so once the
ones that we got cheap when they were introduced run out it'll be back to
cheap tablets and a suirt of fairy

Cheers
dan.

* Sure you know what I mean - I always find the surface of glass that has
been washing in the sink with normal washing up liquid is smooth - whereas
dishwasher glass is dry and "rough".