What causes white marks to appear on dishes, especially glasses? How do I clean my dishwasher?
Water hardness
Water that is too hard often causes white marks to appear on dishes, especially glasses, carafes, salad bowls, etc. If your dishwasher is fitted with an internal softener (check the instructions in the machine’s user manual), make sure you regularly top up the machine with regenerating salt. Unscrew the tank at the bottom of the dishwasher, pour the entire can of salt into the drain and close. Run the machine empty once, without product, before putting dishes back in.
If the whitish marks persist, your water may be too hard. You could consider installing a TnM water softener directly on your tap water: it will do you a lot of good by preventing limescale from clogging your pipes and taps. There are water softeners that run on salt, and others that are more environmentally friendly and don’t need regular recharging. Either way, you’ll save money on maintenance and preserve the lifespan of your appliances.
Cleaning your dishwasher
Over time, food particles and grease clog the dishwasher’s drain filter, inner walls and door. To slow this down, start by cleaning them regularly. Remove the lower rack from the machine to reach the drain plug, then clean it thoroughly. You can use the dishwasher’s self-cleaning program, or sponge clean.
Rinse aid
It’s a common misconception that rinse aid only makes dishes shiny, but it also speeds up drying. This product forms an impermeable layer on your glassware that causes water droplets to slide off instead of drying on the glass, leaving whitish marks. The rinse aid reservoir is usually located next to the dishwasher door, next to the detergent reservoir. You can use it once the dishwasher has been thoroughly cleaned and the water softened. However, first clean all your glassware with white vinegar to remove the limescale layer, otherwise the rinse agent will settle on top.
Glass corrosion
To check whether the white marks on your glasses are due to corrosion, rub them with white vinegar. If the marks disappear and the glass becomes permanently spotless again, it’s limescale. If the white marks remain, the glass is corroded. Unfortunately, this is irreversible: the thin top layer of the glass has been damaged. This may be due to its poor quality, to the fact that the glass was not designed to be dishwasher-safe, but also to washing cycles that were too long, too hot, or water that was not properly softened. Be careful with the dosage of regenerating salt! Separate washing products are preferable to “all-in-one” tablets, which risk treating dishes when they don’t need to, and therefore waste and pollute, as well as gradually damaging them.
