Dishwasher leaving everything "chalky"

minnow

Can anybody shed some light on a problem we are having with our dishwasher. At the moment it won't clean stuff, instead it leaves them covered in a light chalky type residue. Glasses are especially bad.

We've tried adding rinse aid and salt, and used the dishwasher cleaner fluid a few times. No change...

This problem has happened a few times before for a short time, but always cleared after a few washes. This time it seems here to stay. Any thoughts on the cause would be much appreciated.

Thanks

G.MAN

Make sure you are using good quality Salt and Rinse Aid. Lidl,Tesco ,Aldi own brand can cause the prolems you are describing.
Also check your dishwasher to malke sure your salt settings are correct.

coylemj

My dishwasher has a setting for salt of 0-7 i.e. an eight point scale so it's necessary to tell the machine the hardness of the water so that it can set the appropriate level of salt to be used. According to my manual, if the water is too hard then the contents of the dishwasher can be covered in a white limescale deposit which sounds like what's happening to you. You might have that setting too low for the hardness of your water so the machine is not using enough salt in each cycle.

Check your local authority website, there should be a page somewhere giving the level of water hardness in your area, then check the owner's manual and adjust your machine's salt setting accordingly.

My manual says that rinse aid dosage needs to be adjusted up if there are water stains and down if there are streaks, neither of which sound like the problem you are having so it looks like salt is your issue.