Dishwasher trials

How exciting, I know. ;-) Here's the thing--since I've been basically washing the dishes before I put them in the dishwasher, they've been coming out shiny clean. Obviously I don't want to keep double washing, but I do want them clean. At the start the dishes had food on them as well as a mineral film (I think that's what it was anyway). I had already filled the rinse agent dispenser.

Here is what I'm doing now:

water washing dishes first
adding Lemi-Shine to the main dispenser
adding a gel pack of detergent to the main dispenser
throwing a gel pack of detergent into the main body for the pre-rinse

Since starting the Lemi-Shine everthing is coming out without the dull film. I will eliminate steps and products until the results are not acceptable, then come back up just until I'm happy with the results.

Today's load is not being rinsed, just the big stuff is being scraped off. I'll evaluate the results of this washing and go from there. It would be nice if the dishwasher actually is a good one and it was just some odd quirk of the dishwasher the first few cycles. There are so many weird things about this house that scream "delayed maintenance" that it could just be something the previous resident didn't bother to keep up.