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Water stains in the north.
azith28
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I moved to Cleveland from the south about 12 years ago. Ever since then I've had this wierd issue with doing my dishes. I inevitably end up with white streaks on anything metal or plastic. I pre-rinse, I've tried hand washing/drying, dishwasher heat drying, etc but they always come back and are very difficult to remove, barely coming off with dishsoap. I've mostly switched to using paper plates and cutlery just to avoid the problem as I've ended up throwing out quite a bit of metal flatware because its too much trouble to remove.
I've also moved in this time so its not my dishwasher like I first thought. Any suggestions on how to remove it (I've tried CLR, even that does not remove them so it does not appear to be calcium/lime buildup). Any ideas what is likely the cause?
Stercus, Stercus, Stercus, Morituri Sum
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The best thing my wife and I found while we lived in south cali (which also has very hard water) was Finish Quantum. Its a bit on the expensive side for dish detergent, but I would happily be one of those "It really works!" people vapidly staring at sparkling wine glasses in one of their commercials. Because in my experience its one of the only things that did.
This stuff:
yeah, I use those (or the step down, there's several levels for those finish tabs) and finish jet dry and with my hard water the dishes come out pretty clean with very little streaking (or none). glasses are usually fine and sometimes I get a bit on utensils but not always.
(Or both)
Probably more of the former than the latter, but I'd think it would work both ways.
We throw the cleaning pod in the bottom of the machine, pour that in where you'd pour a detergent powder, and never have a single spot, ever.
If we don't use it, within two loads it looks like I coated every dish and glass with flour.
This is the stuff, dude.
Another option is an under-the-sink water filtration/softener. Those will run you about $500-800 for the initial set up. (Edit: assuming your dishwasher uses the sink's water and not its own)
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
- Kendrick Lamar, "The Blacker the Berry"
I'm in a rental townhouse so im not installing things under the sink, its just not really a viable option.
If you can't find any (it's hard), 1/2 teaspoon of trisodium phosphate in your detergent should be enough, which you should be able to pick up at home depot or any home/garden store (usually with the deck/cleaning supplies or Amazon). The phosphates that were the harm to the environment were from fertilizer runoff, not dishwashers. Most of sewage and waste water is treated before released back into the wild, unlike fertilizer.
The title made me pretty curious too.
That aside, my advice would be to ask a local. Preferably a friend or someone at work, or whatever, but bonus points if you just grab a stranger and start talking about stains. The general advice here has been good, though, but as someone who lives with a similar sounding problem, some things just seem destined to get stained after a while with certain types of water.