Your dishwasher is one of the best appliances that you own. It saves you tons of time and aggravation from hand-washing all of the dishes each and every night after dinner. It’s not an appliance that we replace often, so you need to make sure that we maintain it correctly in order to get a good lifespan out of your investment. Taking good care of your appliances can also help to keep up the value of your home when you go to sell it. Homebuyers prefer to have appliances that are updated and well maintained. Below, you’ll find some tips for extending the life of your dishwasher. You may not think that an item that cleans needs to be cleaned itself, but there’s plenty of things that you can do to keep your dishwasher clean and working well in order to have sparkling dishes.
Load It And Use It
This may seem obvious, but it’s important to actually use your dishwasher. Running cycles regularly can help you to keep the machine running smoothly and keep away debris and food particles. If you don’t have a full load, try and run the dishwasher at least every other day. You’ll save money and energy if you wait to run the washer on a full load, so don’t overdo it. You just don’t want to go a week or more without running the dishwasher, as it will allow a lot of buildup to occur, making the dishwasher work harder to clean the dishes that are loaded in it.
To keep the washer running effectively, you’ll want to always load it correctly according to the guidelines for your particular dishwasher. For a thorough clean, use a commercial dishwasher cleaner from time to time when you run the washer on its own without any dishes in it. This will keep a stench from building up and allow your dishes to clean more thoroughly.
Scrape Food Debris
Although your dishwasher and the detergent are equipped to get rid of food debris, scraping food off of plates prior to loading them into the dishwasher can help to prevent damage and maintain proper drainage from the washer itself. The dishes will also come out of the cycle a bit cleaner than if you have left a ton of food and sauce debris on your plates. Scraping the food rather than pre-rinsing the dishes also is a good way to conserve water. While pre-rinsing your dishes may seem like a good idea, over the life of your dishwasher, you can save tens of thousands of gallons of water.