6 Tips to Make your Dishwasher More Efficient... for free!

Are your dishes still dirty even after you think you did everything right? Or maybe your electric or water bills are astronomical and you're trying to cut where you can. Here's 6 tips to make your dishwasher your friend again. Let me know what works the best for you!

Here's the tips!

1. Run a bit of hot water before you turn on your dishwasher. Your faucet is more efficient than your dishwasher. It will save you time and electricity. It won't take as long for your dishwasher to get to workin'.
2. Turn it up! Turn the heat up on your dishwasher. If you don't have your manual anymore, I've had luck in doing a search on Google for your dishwasher manual. Here's the manuals for Whirlpool, Bosch, and GE. If you have one of those, the head-start is yours for the taking. It's best if the temperature is set to 125 degrees.
3. Citric Acid- Do you have hard water? I do. I used to have white spots on all of my cups and plates... and I would hand wash them to get them to disappear. (So much for a dishwasher at that point, amiright?) Well for a while I found that my hard water could be combated by Lemi Shine. Have you heard of it? I used to pay $15 at my local grocery store for a 24 oz bottle of that stuff. It seemed worth it until I saw the ingredients. Simply one ingredient.... Citric Acid. So I found THIS on Amazon, 5 pounds (a.k.a 80 ounces!) for 16.99. Seems worth two more dollars to get 3 times more!
4. Vinegar Reset- About every other month (or whenever you can tell your dishwasher is a little laggy or smelly), pour a cup of White Distilled Vinegar into the bottom of the dishwasher and run as normal. You could also put a little vinegar in the soap compartment during this reset so it comes at two points in the cycle. I've also heard that essential oils like lemon and grapefruit are great for this purpose, and I bet it would smell amazing after a treat like that!
5. Clean the bottom- Just like a little baby, you need to check out the bottom on this thing. (not several times a day, but maybe several times a month!) It accumulates little food particles that didn't get wiped off well enough. I have long curly hair so sometimes I even see the food particles were strangled by my stray hairs. Really gross. I've heard people with pets say that they always have pet hair in the food trap in their dishwasher! When your dishwasher can drain properly, it will clean more efficiently. Win-win situation... cleaner dishes, less energy used!
6. Did you know vinegar was going to be on this list again? It is. Stop spending buku amounts of money on rinse aid. Vinegar works just as well, if not better! It's better for the environment, doesn't hurt or stain your dishes and definitely cheaper!
1. Here's my favorite citric acid brands. Hard water or not, it will help your dishwasher work more efficiently... and it is also the main ingredient in those trendy bath bombs!

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Did you see anything that you are going to try? Do you have any tips for making your dishwasher more efficient? Let me know and I'll add it to my list!