Dishwasher Film Around Town, posted by Stacey, a resident of the Amberwood/Wood Meadows neighborhood, on Feb 12, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Heard through the grapevine...
Everyone is experiencing a white film on the dishes after a run through the dishwasher. We've had a little bit of this ourselves. Apparently the City water department is aware of this problem and working on it. Anyone have more information?
Posted by Ann, a resident of the Birdland neighborhood, on Feb 12, 2009 at 4:29 pm
The film on our dishes has been extreme in the last week. I have been going crazy washing by hand and have a repair person coming out tomorrow. I thought our fill line must be clogged.
Posted by frank, a resident of the Pleasanton Heights neighborhood, on Feb 12, 2009 at 4:49 pm
This morning I spent a lot of time troubleshooting the dishwasher, but all appeared to be working. Yet a powdery deposit was all over everything. It wipes off easily, fortunately. My wife called the water department and they admitted there were lots of complaints and that the deposits were calcium in the water.
Posted by dad, a resident of the Del Prado neighborhood, on Feb 12, 2009 at 8:27 pm
Wow, thanks for the heads up. I thought it was my machine so I added more rinse agent and that helped but it's still not perfect. I thought I was going to have another project on my hands.
Posted by Grace, a resident of the Highland Oaks neighborhood, on Feb 13, 2009 at 11:12 am
We'd been experiencing the thick film for the past few months, and tried cleaning the dishwasher with vinegar cycles, cleaning it with the Jet-dry dishwasher cleaner, switching liquid detergents and using the high-temp cycle; none of those worked one bit. We have a water softener system, but there was no difference even when it ran out near the end of the month. Finally, I tried switching to the Cascade powder-gel combo tablets which drop into the detergent compartment and that solved the problem right away.
Posted by Liz, a resident of the California Reflections neighborhood, on Feb 13, 2009 at 11:35 am
My repair person said the tablets use too much detergent for many low water machines. We use half of the detergent that we used to, but we always use Jet-dry.
This current problem has apparently only been the last couple of weeks. For my home it has been extreme for two weeks.
Posted by Mr. Cheney, a resident of the Downtown neighborhood, on Feb 13, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Hi, My wife & I own Valley Plumbing Home Center, Inc. in Pleasanton and are techs deal with problems like this a lot. Some of what has been said above are great solutions. Vinegar is good at breaking down the minerals and could be very helpful. The amount of soap that is used can cause problems when you change from an older dishwasher unit to a newer unit you need to follow the instructions on how much detergent to use. The person with the water softener should have it checked to see if it is working properly. If you have a softener it should help this out a lot and you may just notice it a little bit. With a softener you use less soap in general all around. We do installs of softeners and filtration systems if anyone is interested. The city should have, if they knew ahead of time, warned everyone involved about what they might see. This makes everyone understand the problem with the water before it looks bad. Also giving them insight as to how to deal with it before it's a problem. Keep the problem solving info coming.
Posted by Julia, a resident of the Vineyard Avenue neighborhood, on Feb 13, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Valley Plumbing is the most trust worthy business in town. They are always helpful with troubleshooting to avoid a service call and they are very fair when they do come out.
Posted by Al, a resident of the Another Pleasanton neighborhood neighborhood, on Feb 13, 2009 at 8:19 pm
What a relief to read about the film. Just shows how our minds work: I was sure this was the resuult of some personal character deficiency of mine. But I did think to pour a Tb of vinegar into the wine glasses, wash it around with my fingers, and rinse for a perfect fix. Nevertheless, I still thought I was causing this via my lack of attention to some essential household mystery. Thank you, PW!
I agree with Julia -- I had two plumbers work on a leak unsuccessfully for hours and days, and finally I called Valley Plumbing. They used some kind of sonar detector to discover that the leak was under and inside the concrete pad -- the builder (25 yrs ago) had not installed a 1 cent part that would have prevented the corrosion of the copper pipe. No other plumber had a clue. And they discovered this FAST. Thank you, VP!
Posted by Debi S, a resident of the Verona neighborhood, on Feb 16, 2009 at 10:56 am
The online article in The Weekly Express ends with tips to fight hard water. All the tips were relating to the bathroom use of water. Last time I checked the dishwasher was in the kitchen.
Posted by Ruth, a resident of the Danbury Park neighborhood, on Feb 16, 2009 at 6:05 pm
I scanned the other posts and didn't see the product I have found. I looked at a lot of web sites when I couldn't do anything with the white stuff in my dishwasher, even after several washes with vinegar on the sanizing cycle, and I discovered a product called Lemishine. They sell it at Safeway on Santa Rita, and maybe other Safeways. It is a citrus based powder that appears to be completely natural and safe. I looked it up and asked my brother-in-law about it because he works for Clean Water Action and knows about this kind of thing. Anyway, it has instructions for cleaning the dishwasher on the web site. It can also be used for other things. They recommend powdered detergent, but I have been using liquid Cascade Complete and it is fine.
Posted by Ruth, a resident of the Danbury Park neighborhood, on Feb 16, 2009 at 6:07 pm
I scanned the other posts and didn't see the product I have found. I looked at a lot of web sites when I couldn't do anything with the white stuff in my dishwasher, even after several washes with vinegar on the sanizing cycle, and I discovered a product called Lemishine. They sell it at Safeway on Santa Rita, and maybe other Safeways. It is a citrus based powder that appears to be completely natural and safe. I looked it up and asked my brother-in-law about it because he works for Clean Water Action and knows about this kind of thing. Anyway, it has instructions for cleaning the dishwasher on the web site. It can also be used for other things. They recommend powdered detergent, but I have been using liquid Cascade Complete and it is fine.
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