How hard is your water?

Do you have a whole house water softener?

No water softener, but the my husband said its as hard as it gets. Whatever that means.. I only know the old one worked fine.. Seems the more energy efficient these washers get the worse they clean.

We may have to get a softener down the line. Its not an option today though. Maybe by next summer. :(

It looks like a dishwasher with a built in softener might be an option.

Thank you so much. I did check out the kitchen aid and it would be around 700 through his job. I have been reading mixed reviews on the Bosch. I will ask my husband if he knows how many grains I'd hard as it gets.

This gave me models to research. The Miele is pricey, but if it works, it would be worth it.

Anyone else on hard well water with experience on certain models, please do share.

We have a diishwasher that we run on unsoftened well water with a hardness of 18gpg. and no iron. We had all the problems you describe until we started using the Finish Quantum Powerball capsules along with a rinse agent. Even the glasses lost all their cloudiness. The crystal comes out perfectly. If you don't have hard water, you shouldn't use the rinse agent as it will just gum up the works. The machine is a Gaggenau (just a rebadged Bosch) but we don't use it's softener.

As to the brand of machine, we also have a Miele and a Maytag in two other houses. The Bosch wins hands down for us on several fronts but partcularily for it's quietness.

Thanks for the information. Think I will do a water test to see what the hardens is. If its as bad as my husband says, I may get the water softner and a cheaper dishwasher. We'll see..

We have had a cheap dish washer for years and yes we are on a well plus we have iron water that turns the inside of the dishwasher red, we also spent a little over 5 grand on a water softener which if we had the money to keep chemicals in the filter worked ok but I didn't like the idea of dranking all the chemicals that the water filter/softer required, so I believe it would be cheaper to replace the dishwasher every 10 yrs then go with a higher priced one that probably won't last any longer then that anyway. The dishwasher done a fair job with no extra additives other then regular dishwasher detergents.

I didn't like the idea of drinking all the chemicals that the water filter/softer required

You do realize that "all the chemicals" is just regular household salt. Your hard water has calcium and magnesium, and the softener replaces these mineral ions with sodium ions (kitchen salt is just sodium ions and chloride ions).

Instead of hard water, you now end up with slightly salty water. If you are on a sodium restricted diet, this could be a problem. Otherwise, it is completely harmless. It's as if you sprinkled a small amount of salt into your drinking water. And yes, technically you are correct, salt is in fact a chemical. But so is everything else.

If you in fact are on a sodium restricted diet, then you could either use bottled water for drinking and softened water for everything else. The softened water would still protect your appliances and faucets from being damaged.

Or you could spend more and buy what is sometimes referred to as low-sodium salt. Instead of sodium, it uses potassium. That's another common mineral salt and entirely harmless in the quantities that you'll be exposed to. Of course, just like regular kitchen salt. If you do consume it by the teaspoon, you'll have health problems. But again, that's true for pretty much every food ingredient.

Now, an entirely different and valid argument is the overall resource waste associated with a water softener. All softeners not only consume salt, but also pretty huge amounts of water and (depending on how they are powered) noticeable amounts of electricity. So, you safe on not damaging your appliances, but you do pay on regular consumable costs.