From the old dishwasher to . . .

Betcha thought I was going to say, " . . . to a new one!" Uh uh.



No, now we have a big hole where this one was. The new one was delivered today. Dh is fully capable of installing it. However, there was a crack on the side of the door that I didn't notice when it was delivered! So back it goes and we'll try again tomorrow. Luckily delivery (and redelivery . . . ) was included. I'll bet that dishwasher has been in more homes than just mine and Lowe's is just hoping someone will miss the crack and install it, then decide to just keep it rather than uninstall it and return it. I'm not impressed.

Anyway, I hope tonight was the last time to wash dishes by hand for awhile. The old dishwasher had a valve that stuck and didn't let enough water into the tub so everything came out with a heavy white film on it. It took about 10 days of handwashing before the dishes started to look good again. I'd really like to try getting that result from an AUTOMATIC dishwasher, not from the appendages at the ends of my arms.

Dishwashers

Dh, the girls, and I went dishwasher shopping on Saturday. Ours leaves a white film on everything and doesn't get dishes very clean. We had a repairman out to take a look and he determined a water valve is sticking and therefore not enough water is getting into the tub. A repair is $100, but the dishwasher is a cheap one and we decided we'd rather spend some money and get a good new one.

I've always liked Bosch dishwashers because they do a great job. HOWEVER, Bosch currently has a snazzy detergent door . . . that I can hardly operate. I realized I'd be opening and closing that little door practically every day and if I had trouble with it daily, I'd grow to hate the dishwasher. So thanks to a poor detergent door design, I marked Bosch off my list.

After look at all the different brands and models and comparing prices, I think we've settled on the KitchenAid KUDS30IVWH in white. Yes, white. I know most people are putting in stainless steel these days, but the other appliances in our kitchen are white, so we are going to do away with the stainless steel one we have now and go back to white.

My favorite feature of this dishwasher is a power scrub in the lower back. You place a dirty dish, like a casserole dish or cake pan, at an angle facing the lower back wall. A bunch of jets are supposed to BLAST the pan clean. That would be really helpful for me with the way I cook!

The only rub in this whole thing is that the US government and the State of Arizona are offering rebates for EnergyStar replacement dishwashers "sometime" this month. The rebate will be either $75 or $125 and I'd really like to get that, so I'm waiting to see what happens with that since the rebate is not retroactive.

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.