Water Softener/Dishwasher Question

[♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪]

We have really hard water that requires a water softener (first for me), and it's used for everything throughout the house. We bought this house less than a year ago, and the dishwasher is not very old. However, it seems like it doesn't clean the dishes very well. It always feels like there is a film on the dishes that I have to rinse off. I can't tell if it's because of the soft water or if the dishwasher isn't working properly. I have run an empty cycle a couple of times with the special cleaner, but it doesn't seem to help much.

Does anyone else with soft water have this problem? I wish I could put a camera in there to see if the nozzles are plugged or something.

[LadyNymeria]

We're on well water and have a whole-house water softener system too. Our dishwasher seems to work fine though. I've never noticed a film on our dishes after a running the dishwasher.

It almost sounds like it's not rinsing enough after the wash cycle.

[nuggetrn]

Usually it is hard water that causes things like spots and plugged nozzles, not soft. Are you regularly adding salt to the softner/are there any issues with the softner itself?

You can also try adding something the the dishwasher like that jet dry rinse aid stuff. Do you do that already or just use detergent?

[♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪]

Apr 26, 2015 9:43:07 GMT -5 LadyNymeria said:

We're on well water and have a whole-house water softener system too. Our dishwasher seems to work fine though. I've never noticed a film on our dishes after a running the dishwasher.

It almost sounds like it's not rinsing enough after the wash cycle.

That would make sense. I'm trying to decide if a repairman could really fix anything or not. Might be worth a shot.

[♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪]

Apr 26, 2015 9:44:15 GMT -5 nuggetrn said:

Usually it is hard water that causes things like spots and plugged nozzles, not soft. Are you regularly adding salt to the softner/are there any issues with the softner itself?

You can also try adding something the the dishwasher like that jet dry rinse aid stuff. Do you do that already or just use detergent?

WRT plugging, I know it wouldn't be plugged from us because we maintain our softener unit and it works great. I'm more concerned about previous owners. And yeah, we use Jet Dry.

[summerdonna]

I have a water softener and have never had this issue. Actually our water softener broke last year and we considered not paying so much to fix it but it was the spotting on the dishes after being in the dishwasher that made me decide to get it fixed.

[swivelchair5]

I don't know what type of water we have, but my dishwasher just sucks in general. I switched from powder detergent to liquid and that made a huge difference. I also run it empty with a cup of white vinegar on the top rack about once a month which helps it rinse a little cleaner.

[teraiin]

I know nothing about hard or soft water. This thread seems like a foreign language to me...

[♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪]

Does anyone else think their water tastes funky because of the soft water? I opt for water from the store.

I'm trying to figure out if I'm just a weirdo, or if I am having legit issues.

[LadyNymeria]

Apr 26, 2015 9:50:06 GMT -5 teraiin said:

I know nothing about hard or soft water. This thread seems like a foreign language to me...

I didn't either until we bought our house and it had a softener system.

[nuggetrn]

Apr 26, 2015 9:48:24 GMT -5 ♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪ said:

Apr 26, 2015 9:44:15 GMT -5 nuggetrn said:

Usually it is hard water that causes things like spots and plugged nozzles, not soft. Are you regularly adding salt to the softner/are there any issues with the softner itself?

You can also try adding something the the dishwasher like that jet dry rinse aid stuff. Do you do that already or just use detergent?

WRT plugging, I know it wouldn't be plugged from us because we maintain our softener unit and it works great. I'm more concerned about previous owners. And yeah, we use Jet Dry.

Hmmm, that's about as much as I know then, lol. I guess the next thing I might do is call a repairman and at least ask for some insight, they might now some tips or tricks that you could do yourself. That sucks though, the film left would drive me nuts!

[nuggetrn]

We don't have a water softener in our current home but we always had one growing up... I think our water here tastes terrible but I loved our water softened well water when I was younger!

[LadyNymeria]

Apr 26, 2015 9:50:53 GMT -5 ♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪ said:

Does anyone else think their water tastes funky because of the soft water? I opt for water from the store.

I'm trying to figure out if I'm just a weirdo, or if I am having legit issues.

Our water tastes great! Our neighbor who is also on a well with a softener system has water that tastes more like treated city water (rather than the clean taste of our well water).

When was the last time your water softener system was inspected? They should test your water as part of the inspection.

[♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪]

Apr 26, 2015 9:55:51 GMT -5 LadyNymeria said:

Apr 26, 2015 9:50:53 GMT -5 ♪♫choppinbroccoli♫♪ said:

Does anyone else think their water tastes funky because of the soft water? I opt for water from the store.

I'm trying to figure out if I'm just a weirdo, or if I am having legit issues.

Our water tastes great! Our neighbor who is also on a well with a softener system has water that tastes more like treated city water (rather than the clean taste of our well water).

When was the last time your water softener system was inspected? They should test your water as part of the inspection.

It was inspected when we were buying the house. I think he manually cycled it to confirm that it does. I know that the water gets soft (duh haha), but perhaps we need to do some testing of the feed and discharge streams. I wish you all could taste it so we could compare reactions, lol.

[mugster]

So we have good water, but we had lots of not clean dishes coming out of our dishwasher. We took apart the filter and cleaned it and found lots of weird things (paper clips? toothpicks?). It still wasn't working well and we called a repair guy because we have a home warranty. He came out and it turned out that there was a second filter below the one that we got to, also full of junk. Once that was cleaned out it started working well.

ETA: This was just after we bought our house. We are not responsible for paper clips in the dishwasher.