Washing machines are now just as bad - take forever to wash a load of clothes, using a thimble-full of water. And many appear to damage the fibers.

I dread the day my old Kenmore washer and my 15 yr old KA dishwasher finally die.

Pre-rinsing could be the reason so many of you are having problems. Today's DW detergents need food to activate the enzymes.

My old KA was awful. My newish Bosch is great! No pre-rinsing needed!

I agree that many (not all) dishwashers being built today could use some thoughtful improvements. I believe we can have a discussion without bringing politics into it.

Consider the overall lifespan of the dishwasher, and I don't mean 3-4 years. I'll pay for it, but 15-20 years for a small household should be the goal. And I want it to clean my dishes, no pre-rinsing required.

1) Build them with easy to change components to make repairs possible. I.e. screw together the case with standard screws, nothing proprietary, and for heaven's sake don't weld it!

2) Provide an alternative to expensive and flaky electronic control panels. I want a simple dial, since all I ever use is one cycle. Dials are straightforward and inexpensive to replace.

3) Make the components of distinct materials so at the end of its lifespan they are easy to recycle.

Sounds like a business opportunity to me!

Today's DW detergents need food to activate the enzymes.

That's now how enzymes work.

Appliance Science: How dishwasher detergents digest food stains
An enzyme is a biological catalyst that makes a chemical reaction
happen faster. The starch and proteins in the food stains on your dishes
will slowly break down over time, but an enzyme makes it happen much,
much faster.

The really smart bit, is that an enzyme is not
destroyed or altered in this reaction. Once it has broken down a bit of
food, it will float away and start breaking down another bit of food.
This means that you only need a very small amount of enzyme to break
down a lot of food: each enzyme molecule can break down millions of food
molecules.

Exactly! If you pre-rinse, you're making it difficult, if not impossible, for your detergent to work and clean your dishes!

The more food (substrate), the longer it takes for the enzyme to complete the reactions (starch and protein breakdown).
Are you thinking of the reaction rate?

ETA: More substrate on the dishes would indeed increase V, but the completion of breakdown would still be longer with more substrate. (Hope that was clearer than murky dishwater.)

This is a really weird post.

To the OP: no, I don't need to contact my representative, or the woefully unqualified and asinine Rick Perry. I have no problem with the time it takes to wash a load of dishes. Why does it even matter? I'm not standing there waiting for it to finish.

Please leave crazy rhetoric out of discussions about kitchens.

fuzzy wuzzy, your link to an article that is primarily based on opinion and anecdotal evidence written by someone who is also a Fox news contributor, and your appeal to contact Rick Perry and/or our local representative to repeal energy efficient standards for appliances takes this thread into the murky world of politics, which does not belong on this forum, IMO. There are plenty of other sites for those kind of discussions.

With that in mind, I'm suggesting that we turn this thread's focus to sharing tips on how to use today's energy efficient DWs for best results.

My Bosch DW works great - and I don't pre-rinse or pre-wash - because I follow a tip given to me by an appliance repairman: run the water hot before turning on the DW. That little trick made the a world of difference in how well my energy efficient DWs cleaned. A friend
loaded and ran my DW recently, without running the water hot. Yep, the dishes did not come out as clean.

I had to experiment to find the DW detergent that worked best in my Bosch but I might have had to do that with my old machine as well, due to changes in detergent formulas.
I don't need to go back to - nor do I want to - a noisy, water and power guzzling machine to get clean dishes. I just needed to learn a couple tips to make my new DW work well.

PS Sometimes a machine is just a lemon and no matter what, it won't clean well. That happened back in the day, too. IMO, poor performance can't all be laid at the feet of energy efficient standards.

That’s it. I’m using paper plates!

Dang it! I can’t leave it alone. If detergent needs stuck on food to activate, how come dishes, flatware can come out with baked on food at the end?

Well said, Lisa! I’m in total agreement with every word you said.

I also do not pre-rinse, run the hot water till hot, run the disposal to make sure it’s empty, make sure the rinse aid doesn’t need filling and use Cascade Platinum or the one 1-step down. I run it at night and in the morning and everything is sparkling clean, and dry! I learned this method on this forum and it works for my Bosch and my family. My grandson lived with us when he was born for four months. It made no sense to run the DW just for bottles as we do not run it nightly. We used a bottle brush and dish pan with hot, soapy water. Rinsed then sanitized in a MW sanitizer. Fast and easy.

I don't care about the length of time it takes to run my DW, or even the noise level for that matter. I have a middle of the line Bosch and it does a very good job of cleaning my dishes but I still miss my old Kenmore where I could fit any dish of any size in a logical way. And it never got smelly.

I'm an unrepentant pre-rinser. I live alone and usually run the DW twice a week, so dishes sit inside the incubator for a few days. If there is food residue, particularly of the meat/dairy/egg variety, it will start smelling bad very quickly, esp. in the summer. Despite the dishes' rather clean condition *before* they are washed, the DW does a fine job doing the rest of the work.

Tell me what happens when you have guests and lots of glassware, most of which has only contained water and maybe not used, but you want to be sure so you wash it anyway. It doesn't have food on it. So how does the DW clean it? If a little food is all that's necessary to begin an enzyme breakdown thing, why not just add a small piece of pork chop before you run the DW?

The advice regards to not pre-rinse dishware is more related to:

1. Avoiding etching of glassware, which occurs if the detergent concentration is excessively strong (i.e. less food soils involved).

2. Dishwashers with soil sensors will shorten the cycle and reduce water changes if a low level of soil is detected (i.e. the prerinse water is clear, it becomes the main wash). More soil in the water gives extra water changes, longer wash time, more water heating time so overall performance is better.

I’d like the GE washer and dryer that came with the house we bought last July/August to die because then we can get some that don’t make horrendous sounds (ka-THUNK and squeaks), have more wash/dry cycles/controls/water temps/etc, not to mention a dryer with a time dry selection that SHUTS OFF once that time length has passed. The whirlpool models I had at our previous home were bought in 2002, had more than adequate capacity and control options, with the only issue being a burnt out heating element that was easy and inexpensive to replace. If not for the cross country move expenses, we might have taken them with us to our new home.

The dishwasher we have now replaced the broken GE one that the seller swore she had filed a warranty claim meaning that would pay for the broken one. She lied. I filed a case in small claims court against her for that (cause of action:fraud amongst others) and the fridge - also GE - that using the ice maker in froze the freezer door shut. She mailed a check that covered replacements and court cost in a no return addressed envelope that originally was one from the junk mail that she repurposed, and that was that. The builder appliance packages that our builder offered and made by GE are AWFUL, I cannot imagine the problems of trying to handle replacement of these short term lifespanned, poorly designed, still far too expensive for the average customer to afford without additionally weighing themselves down with even more debt. I know it’s unlikely we’re ever going to see a return to longer lasting appliances because that makes businesses struggle to stay operational - fewer people buying, harder to have enough profit to cover the product materials/making of, transport to store/warehouse/customer, and the installation plus labor at all stages. Unless we all want to start buying appliances at 15K+ each, every 10 years. Energy efficiency and water usage regulations are well intended, but in the US, there’s been deliberate actions taken to make innovation and implementation costly and incredibly frustrating for smaller companies trying to get a foothold. Then there’s the pressure on price from consumers direct towards the big companies; we want less expensive and excellent quality, they don’t know how to successfully convey that they can’t reasonably do BOTH to the customers. They (mostly) can do a median in both aspects, but it doesn’t leave much in the budget for expensive R&D to create more efficient and less water-intensive products. They also worry about what happens if they make all that investment and customers don’t buy these new machines - so they try to keep regulations or lack of to their benefit while pushing the products to consumers, which they already have the ability to supply, at a decent profit to the company. Tamping down innovation, making anything that does manage to get to market way out of average consumers’ financial reach (Tesla, I’m looking at you), hanging onto the status quo = why we will continue to see lousy appliances for our foreseeable future.

Rather than clamor for eliminating regulations, we should be clamoring for BETTER ones. Better is established according to evidence and keeps an eye on the long range goals of energy and water efficiency.

Pre-rinsing makes no sense. For the people so staunchly defending their pre-rinsing - just because you've gotten into that habit for years doesn't make it a sensible habit. It's a terrible waste of water for one thing. If you are going to spend the time to pre-rinse, then take the extra 20 seconds more while you're standing there and just handwash with soap and be done. Instead you run the water in the sink, then run the water via the dishwasher. How are you reconciling that in your mind as making sense. Also, pre-rinsing means you run the risk of etching your dishes and glassware as Dadoes mentioned above. The enzymes--with nothing to digest because you've pre-rinsed--will digest the shine on your dishes instead.

Problems with DWs not cleaning are almost always the result of not using rinse-aid, not having hot enough water, and/or the spray arms being blocked or not spinning.

Please keep personal diatribes out of your comments. I merely presented a link to a well respected global newspaper and a suggestion that consumers present their own views to a federal agency. This would help us get BETTER regulations as suggested by Jenn Codename.

Lisa _a: I never said to repeal the regs. Comments from constituents would help create new better regs.

Hillside house: "Please leave crazy rhetoric out of discussions about kitchens." I never thought asking people to participate in the democratic process of letting their elected representatives know how they feel was, in your words, crazy.

There are many threads about people being unhappy about the length of time new appliances take to clean and their quality. If you are happy with your appliances, you are very fortunate. But please don't disparage the other people.

FriedaJune wrote:

"Problems with DWs not cleaning are almost always the result of not using rinse-aid, not having hot enough water, and/or the spray arms being blocked or not spinning."

Maybe FriedaJune or someone else could help me understand how rinse aid helps a DW clean better. It's a mystery product to me frankly.

I've never used rinse aid, ever, until my latest DW was installed in 2015 and a tiny sample of Cascade rinse aid came with it. I put that in the compartment designated for such and I couldn't tell a difference. Recently, I purchased a bottle of LemiShine rinse aid because I read on GW about how rinse aid is an almost must have and the fact that my DW is now approaching the end of modern day appliance-life at 3 years old, but I can't tell a difference once again.

I do live in a dry climate. Yesterday was 8% humidity (not a typo). Is this why I can't tell a difference?

Btw, my DW is a Whirlpool Gold model with 3 1/2 to 4 hour cycles. Works very well (knock wood) and everything comes out nice and clean. Took some time to get used to the long cycle times, but I've adapted and appreciate how clean dishware comes out.

With all the crazy stuff that's going on right now, *this* is what you think people should call their representatives about?

jslazart: Whatever floats your boat.

I could talk for days about this. My new Bosch dishwasher is excellent. I do wish it had more cycles and flexibility with programming, but it still is by far the best dishwasher I have ever used. My old Whirlpool did not use enough force to really tackle heavy soils. That machine didn't use hot enough water temperatures either. It would use 5 gallons and quite a bit of electric. The Bosch uses less water on every cycle, and about the same electricity while using much higher temperatures. The only downside is that the Bosch does take 2 hours, however the Whirlpool took 1.5 hours. The Bosch does sit to let the dishes dry for about 20 minutes. I despise when people run the hot water and feel the need to scrub EVERY item. It is an absolute waste. I do wish that the dishwasher cycles could use higher wash temperatures and phosphates could be reincorporated in very low doses. Don't get me started on laundry regulations...

Along the lines of what Dadoes suggested here is a plausible reason that pre-rinsing causes etching: "Pre-rinsing prior to loading to remove all food soil increases the alkaline concentration of the dishwasher detergent."

Let's run the experiment:
1) control, usual pre-rinse
2) same as 1, but add 28g (1 oz) pork chop chunk with each cycle.

____

Filming & Etching on Glassware UNL Extension

Cloudiness or filming on glassware... may happen after several washings and
appears as a white film and the cause may be hard water. Hard water
filming many times can be removed. However, if etching occurs it is a
permanent film. Etching, in the beginning stages may be identified by an
iridescent look – shades of blue, purple, brown or pink seen when the
glass is held at an angle in the light. The surface will appear frosted
or cloudy in advanced stages of etching.

Filming may be cause by:

(1) Hard water and not enough detergent. This combination may leave
hard water minerals that dry on the surface of the glassware creating a
film. Unremoved food soil may also cause filming.

(2) Low water temperature. The water temperature should be 140
degrees F as it enters the dishwasher. Check the water temperature by
placing a candy or meat thermometer in a glass and letting it fill with
water from the hot water faucet in the kitchen sink. Let the water run
until the temperature stops rising. If it is not 140 degrees F, adjust
the water heater. If the dishwasher is not near the hot water heater,
let the water run before starting the dishwasher this clears the line of
cold water.

(3) Not using a rinse additive. A rinse additive such as JET-DRY
improves the sheeting action of the water. Use liquid JET-DRY in the
rinse dispense. If the dishwasher is not equipped with a dispenser, hang
a basket of solid JET-DRY in a back corner of the lower rack.

To remove filming, soak glasses approximately 15 minutes in
undiluted white vinegar. Rinse and dry. Or, wash the glasses in a basin
of water using a generous amount of dishwasher detergent (wear rubber
gloves to protect your hands from the strong detergent solution).

Etching may be prevented by:

1. Adjusting the amount of detergent according to water hardness. [See link].

2. Lowering the water temperature so it enters the dishwasher at
approximately 140 degrees F. Do not use a water heating option such as
Temp Boost, Power Boost or Power Scrub.

3. Use the no heat Energy Saver dry cycle, if you have one.

4. Do not manually pre-rinse dishes before loading in dishwasher.
Pre-rinsing prior to loading to remove all food soil increases the
alkaline concentration of the dishwasher detergent.

The past 10 years I've used an older Frigidaire DW. It struggled. I had to use a phosphated detergent and had to turn the dial around to continue on the wash cycle just before it drained. But still I often found dirty dishes. I recently got a new Whirlpool which I suppose for 329 sure isn't a TOL but...I love this thing. Yep a cycle is well over two hours although I have a one hour cycle that has surprised me with how well it does. I'm a family of 5, I cook every day so I do have some full, heavily soiled loads...I never rinse I do scrape. Everything is immaculate, shiny, polished. I wouldn't trade this DW or any other I'm that pleased with it just as I am with my FL washing machine.

I don't mind the longer wash times for either of these appliances. I don't have to babysit them like I did with the others and I know everythings comming out of both to suit my high standards. And my water bill again dropped..just call me tickled PINK.

I don't have a problem with the OP suggesting we contact our local representatives. It (the suggestion) was not slanted to one party or another. Most of the people here have a keen interest in the way washers, dryers and dishwashers function, and if suggesting improvements to those in power to enact some sensible changes makes for better appliances, no harm in that. Anyway, I have learned a lot with this discussion. Several of my drinking glasses have suddenly become etched, and I wondered if my water softener is not working properly. Now I am wondering if I don't put the dishes and flatware in soiled enough. I tend to run our DW when it is full-usually every 2 days or so. I barely scrape.

“It (the suggestion) was not slanted to one party or another.”

I disagree. When the OP is recommending people contact the head of the EPA (an outspoken climate change denier) asking him to pass “new rules,” it seems pretty obvious that the OP found the EPA under the previous administration to be too rigid. Personally, I liked it when the EPA actually, I don’t know, PROTECTED THE ENVIRONMENT, even if it means my dishwasher takes longer to cycle. We all have our priorities, though.

The current head of the EPA would love to put himself out of a job. But for now he has to content himself with merely eliminating ANY environmental regulation he can, while hoping to one day completely shutter the agency he currently runs.

When the moderates keep being run out of town, you get down to two choices - the “end all meat agribusiness, everyone must take public transit or (laughs) buy a Tesla, grow their own organic veggies to stop pesticide using corporate farms, with fair trade sustainable clothes/household goods or live in a tent with none at all” and “the government is completely closing, we’ve handed the planet and all forms of life over to the most short sighted and greedy corporations we could find, enjoy the rapidly approaching total extinction by dying as soon as you can so you don’t suffer too much during the mad max style apocalypse”.

There's nothing inherently wrong with suggesting political action. However, when people have been desperately calling for action for years now on child detentions, gun control, police brutality, botched hurricane aid, and other life-or-death concerns, you have to expect a little ridicule when you have a call-to-arms over a 2 hour dish cycle.

Let them eat cake.

HillsideHouse: You should get your facts straight before you interject your own priorities and feelings. (1) These rules for washing machines and dishwashers are under the purview of the Dept of Energy, not the EPA. The EPA is an independent agency. (2) I don't know why it's "obvious" that I found any administration better than any other administration. I merely suggested that YOU forward YOUR comments. I never said anything about supporting anyone else's beliefs. If you want to keep or strengthen the regulations, write to your representatives and the Dept of Energy. Make your wishes known.

Jenn Codename: See above comment to HillsideHouse. about EPA. Also, it appears as if Mad Max is trying to bring on the apocalypse. And yes, that is very scary.

jslazart: Best of luck on getting your children out of jail, banning legal guns, emasculating the police, re-building your house in a flood plain, and whatever else you're up to.

And to all a good night. Clearly your own biases are showing. I sleep quite well at night. But I'm glad that some people will no longer pre-rinse their dishes. So, this has been a very successful thread. Ahhhhh. peace at last.

My daughter is 2, I live in the desert, and my brother is a police officer. Just offering some perspective on priorities, not sides. This is a time to build alliances, not make assumptions.

This is a forum about laundry appliances where we interject dishwasher experiences when desired. This forum is not about social issues. I won't apologize for wondering how to improve washing machines in a forum about washing machines.

I would hardly call how dishwashers have changed due to a change in regulations, a "social" issue. It's about a regulation that caused manufactue to change how they design and make their machines.

Not all of us run our dishwasher daily. I live alone and run mine about once a week. Because of this, I DO pre-rinse my dishes - they would start to smell and mildew if I didn't, and food would be hard to remove. While on vacation with my family, we are running it daily and only need to scrape not rinse.

Most of the country is not having a drought and the fact that all these machines are now manufactured to meet California requirements is irksome. Yes, they do need to conserve water, but most places in the US do not.

If one is only running the dishwasher after dinner then the time it takes to run matters very little unless it is a child's chore to empty it before bed. But if one has had a party and needs to run two loads, it makes clean-up take forever.

As for laundry, I prefer to do my laundry all at once, once weekly. I do it when I'm in my basement doing my breathing treatments. If it takes more than 30 minutes of so for a load, this means I must make multiple trips up and down the stairs, a real problem for me. I just hope my old Kenmore doesn't check-out until I do as I will have to do laundry daily. I only have someone at my house once a week to carry it up to the 2nd floor, so this will be a problem for me.

Two points.

1) I'd like to add that the original article linked by fuzzy wuzzy was a link to a WSJ 'Best of the Web' article, vs. an actual published article.

2) I was not able to find the original 'linked to' article.

I am now wondering about the purpose of this post.

Edited to add that the 'Best of the Web' is an Opinion piece by Freeman, which I hadn't before realized. What does Best of the Web mean in this case?

I'd like to also add that I have no problem with my Miele taking a couple of hours to clean my dishes.

Freeman is assistant editor of The Wall Street Journal's editorial page and author of the weekday Best of the Web column and newsletter. He writes about business, finance and taxes among other issues, and is a contributor to the FOX News Channel. Before joining the Journal in September 2007, he served as investor advocate at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, where he encouraged the transformation of financial reporting technology to benefit individual investors.

I will refrain from giving my opinion of Rick Perry, as I am trying sooo hard to be a good Christian nowadays and cast no stones. (But wow, is it getting harder . . .) Regarding dishwashers, I love my Bosch. It always runs flawlessly. Lightly scrape, pop in a Finish tab, draw up hot water to the tap, and perfection every time. My 18-year old Bosch is the same — still running with no replaced parts in kid sis’s canning kitchen.

Refrigerators seem to die every four years—an environmental abomination, if you ask me, Washing machines I feel less certain about, but from all the complaints I see on this forum, they don’t last as long as they should. My 1997 Kenmore is still running at sis’s house, but I fear my 3-year old Speed Queen won’t outlive it. So far as phosphates, when I need them, I add them in. My AC is either off, or on 78 degrees, I recycle every scrap I can find, eat meat rarely and modestly, drive my cars a minimum of 200K miles, patch, sew, and wear my clothes to threads. But when I need phosphates (or blazing hot laundry water) by golly, I use it. The vast majority of the damage to water sources comes from runoff from industrial farming operations, as I understand it, something that hasn’t been nearly as well regulated as individual consumers. Individuals don’t seem to mean much to our government anymore. We have been deemed unnecessary, save for our ability to vote — often against our own best interest — and our ability to consume what the industrial complexes produce. When it comes to phosphates, I think we’ve been sold down the road, and a lot of other folks here think so, too.

fuzzy wuzzy: "I never said to repeal the regs. Comments from constituents would help create new better regs."

That intent was not clear at all, given the article's author's media affiliations and presumed political bias, or the consumers' comments solicited by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Libertarian think tank and CEI's bias, as well. For example: One consumer requested, "Make dishwashers great again" and"[t]he free-market think tank is asking the feds to reconsider their long-term campaign to degrade the kitchen appliance."

There is a decided bias towards undoing current regulations, IMO. Why else would they use the word "degrade" to describe what they perceive to be happening?

That's not to say that there's not room for improvement. However, unless someone has a trick up their sleeves to build a DW that uses less water and power while washing dishes well in a short period of time, I don't see how current regulations can be changed without undoing or significantly decreasing current energy and water usage benchmarks. DOE is quoted in the article that "[t}o help compensate for the negative impact on cleaning performance
associated with decreasing water use and water temperature,
manufacturers will typically increase the cycle time.”

It's a take on that old adage. You can have it good, fast or cheap: pick two. In this case, you can have it clean well, in a short amount of time, or use limited resources: pick two.

Water is already a limited resource in several areas of the country as well as the world. As our population grows, water is only going to become even more precious. Perhaps someday, desalinating ocean water for drinking and cleaning won't be so cost prohibitive and we can go back to old style water-guzzling household appliances and fixtures. But until that day, I believe that we have to use our resources wisely, not just for our sake but for that of our children's, our grandchildren's and all future generations. Humans can not live without clean water. Period.

As stated above, by me and others, we have to learn how to use today's machines to get the best performance out of them. I was fairly unimpressed with my Bosch DW when it was first installed nearly 3 years ago but, thanks to this forum's members, I quickly learned tips, including finding out which one was the best detergent for my machine, to get it to give me sparkling clean dishes. I'm very happy with my DW now.

ETA: I'd love to see an increased focus - either from the government, consumers, manufacturers or all 3 - to build machines that use metal, not plastic parts so that, one would hope, they last longer than they currently do. I detest planned obsolescence. That's as much of a waste of resources as energy and water inefficient machines. But I'm not holding my breath. Manufacturers would have to charge more for each machine to stay profitable but most consumers can ill afford to pay more, not with today's wages MOL stagnant.

I haven't pre-rinsed since I moved out on m own in 1974. My modern dishwasher does great. But washers and dishwashers need hotter water to really perform quicker. Energy Star guidelines have caused temperatures to be reduced too. It's not just lack of water.

In my house the dishwasher is run once a day and two or three times when we decide to do a cooking marathon. I like the way it cleans but I do wish it dried better and ran quicker. My first dishwasher many years ago could do a Heavy/ Potscrubber cycle in one hour. This machine takes about 2 hours for Normal with High Temp enabled

Right now much of the country is experiencing various degrees of drought; we don’t have a system designed for significant water storage and when the catch basins, reservoirs, and unpaved ground is full/saturated, we get runoff and that eventually flows out to where our rivers and flood channels empty into the oceans. At the same time Earth has a growing human population, animals needing water, plants/trees/agriculture needing water - demand is outpacing supply. Just because certain regions have a decent source of water to supply their area’s needs doesn’t mean they will have that forever. Weather patterns change. I’d rather not hasten the depletion of available water (or have my water bills get hiked into ridiculous territory) for future generations all because I had to have my dishes washed faster. Just sayin’...

People -- this horse is dead. Just sayin'

Well I guess that means the subject must cease being discussed? Oookay.

I can not use a dishwasher anymore because of the requirement to use a rinse aid. Any dishes utensils coated with a residue that I am allergic to. My lips will react if I even drink from a glass coated with the rinse aids.

So no dishwashers for me. Just a thought...does the residual rinse agent on plates, glasses, flatware have any other health effects on the population? Do all these extra chemicals we are injecting into our wastewater have a negative environmental effect?

LoonLakeLaborCamp,

Rinse aid is required to get proper drying performance. The machine won't outright malfunction without it. Don't use it and towel-dry your dishware to the extent that is needed ... you'll still get the labor-saving benefit of washing and rinsing via machine.

White vinegar can be subbed for a commercial rinse aid. I don't use one and my Miele cleans and dries everything. But I've only got 7 grains hardness.

Rinse aid can (partially) counter-act the problems that all dish washers have with hard water. If you have really soft water, as I do, you can mostly forgo rinse aid and you'll still have excellent results.

If rinse aid isn't an option, then what you need is a water softener. A whole-house softener obviously works, but that's an expensive investment. Instead, you could buy a dishwasher that has a small internal softener. I know that this is a pretty common feature on many Miele models. I don't know if there are other manufacturers who do the same.

Please note that you will now have to buy salt to recondition the softener every so often. So, you won't completely be able to get away from buying some extra consumables. But presumably, you aren't allergic to regular kitchen salt...

Wow, talk about a first-world problem! You're motivated to take political action over a longer appliance cycle? I think that's kind of sad. I have no problem with a washer or dishwasher cycle that takes over 2 hours. Yes, they used to take longer -- so what? They were wasteful and more polluting, so I'm OK with waiting a little while longer to get my clothes and dishes clean. More convenience doesn't equal more desirable, because all other things aren't equal.

I don’t particularly care if my washer/dishwashers take longer, as is the case with many here who share the same feeling.

*I had a new Maytag washer+dryer delivered on Monday. So far I love them.

My Bosch increases rinse cycle temperature and time when no rinse aid is in the dispenser or the rinse aid setting is 0. I currently have mine set to 3/7 and have great results. We have always had bad issues with hard water spots. So far the rinse aid is making a big difference.

If anyone is looking for a "greener" rinse aid, I have had good luck with Seventh Generation - it's unscented and doesn't leave any noticeable residue while working well. I also tried Ecover and did not feel like that one did much, unlike 7th Gen.

My Kenmore (Bosch) does a great job cleaning anything. I have been using Cascade products, but I will try Finish products.