Working from home has its advantages – I’m able to meet/wait on the repair guys. Today was like the third time over four years we’ve had to have someone from GE out to fix/repair our dishwasher. You see, it has this automatic dishwasher detergent dispenser thingy that really has never worked. The first repairman said we weren’t using the right detergent, we needed to use the new advanced formula expensive stuff. I thought, figures, we bought this nice new dishwasher in a kitchen renovation (that went bad, another story) and it is going to cost me more on a regular basis. So I bought the expensive detergent and guess what, it clogged again.
Okay… I’ll show this dishwasher, I’ll quit using the auto-dispensing function. Take that fancy schmancy machine, I can outsmart you! Wrong. Still not washing the dishes. So we call again, they come out and it’s clogged again. He fixes it and gives me the detergent lecture. He doesn’t seem to believe that I am actually using the “good stuff.” Husband resigns himself that this dishwasher is going to be a menace so he buys an extended warranty on it and the other appliances, $750. That is supposed to be good until 2014.
So we have the warranty and its not cleaning right again. We call, they come out… again. And, he unclogs it… again. But this time he tells me something I didn’t know. Apparently to make detergents more environmentally friendly they had to take the chemical out that reduces the calcium and lime build up. So, no wonder the thing was getting clogged up over time. He advised me to get this stuff called Dishwasher Magic to first clean out all of my filters, etc. Then he said use Lemi Shine with my detergent. If you want to know what’s in Lemi Shine good luck but I did find this chemist blog that did some pretty interesting testing to get to the bottom of it.
Maybe I’m out of touch with my housewife duties, but before today I did know all of this. The total cost of these products is about $11, more if I order them online and have them shipped. So that is the cost of being green. Not bad I guess, but I wish someone would have given me a heads up a few years ago. Before the $750 extended warranty.
Note: I have not tried these products, but I will be and will let you know if they work.
helen2o 