I need to know how to fix a dishwasher after
using dish soap.
You’re supposed to use dish soap in a dishwasher.
Not the kind I did.
If you put the hand dish washing soap in there,
your first step is to clean up all the bubbles
off the floor.
What if they went up the pipes to the sink?
That’s the easiest thing to fix by turning
on the water, and if it is really goopy, turn
on the garbage disposal.
What about the dishes in the dishwasher?
Given the amount of bubbles and soap residue,
take them out and wash them by hand with water
to wash the soap, dry them, and put them away.
That’s a lot of work given that they’ve
already been through the dishwasher.
If you have managed to make a habit of putting
hand dishwasher liquid in the dishwasher,
you’ll have so much goop in there that the
powder you use next may not get dispersed
right.
I have no idea how to fix that.
Run the dishwasher with a cup of baking soda
to scrub away the dish soap without making
the bubbles worse.
If the soap is caked on in places like the
soap dispenser, that requires manual cleaning.
But nothing that turns the cleaners into a
mess.
You can add some vinegar to the dishwasher
and run it on hot water if you think the excess
soap and foam is leading to mold.
What else might I need to do?
Run the dishwasher with the minimum of the
right type of soap next time.
I’ll use powder next time.
Are you sure you didn’t add too much rinse
aid instead, resulting in residue on all the
dishes?
I rarely use rinse aid.
If you’ve got a lot of white powder on the
dishes after using dish soap, the solution
may be using rinse aid to get the hard water
to actually absorb all the soap you’ve used.
Or run it with hot water and rinse aid and
no dishes to remove all the soap.
I wonder if you’re running it with twice
as much soap as required and blaming the lack
of cleaning on too much of a good thing.
I wouldn’t want to use too much soap.
If the dishwasher drain has a bad clog, it
will seem like there’s too much soap when
it is hiding a clog in the drain.
That would be disgusting to clean out.
True, but it will also be made worse by lots
of gummed up soap residue mixed with old mashed
potatoes or the cleanest rotted meat either
of us will have ever seen.
I don’t want to see what that looks like.
Do run the food grinding in the dishwasher
or garbage disposal to make sure there isn’t
too much soap in those things, too, or you’ll
have a bubbly mess the next time you run it
because the dirty water can’t drain.
And then I’m back to scrubbing both the
dishes and floor that are too clean to be
that dirty.
And making sure no one uses the wrong soap
or too much of the right one ever again.