The best part is that it only requires two ingredients and they are probably items you already have around your house.
- White Vinegar
- Baking Soda
To polish your dishwasher, use baking soda. Just sprinkle about 1/2 cup on the bottom of the dishwasher and again run in a hot cycle (short is okay). It will help make it sparkle like new!
You may think that you could save time, money and energy by doing them both at the same time. In theory, yes, it's a good idea, but it won't work. The world of science says that an acid (vinegar) and a base (baking soda) will neutralize themselves when combined. That means that they won't work as well when you combine them.
I got this recipe from Consumer Queen nearly a year ago and I've been using it ever since. It's basically the same as her recipe, but I use less baking soda for the polish cycle. You may find you need to use more-- I really think it just depends on the quality of your water. Or maybe your standards. {wink}
Ahh.. it's so fresh and so clean! I recommend doing at least the vinegar treatment every two months (every month is better if you use the dishwasher frequently). It will help your dishwasher clean better and it will prolong the life of your dishwasher as well.
Happy Cleaning!
question: if an acid and base will neutralize each other how is the baking and washing soda working w/citric acid? Just wondering!!
ReplyDeleteSo you ask a tricky question. I am not a chemist, but I'll try to explain what I've been told. Baking soda is a weak base, washing soda is a little bit of a stronger base, but not by a lot and citric acid is actually a fairly weak acid. Because they all hover around the "weak' category, they don't counteract each other as strongly as a strong acid and a strong base would. They should work a little better if you could use each separately, but they won't cancel each other out. I have used citric acid once as my prewash for the DIY dishwashing detergent and it actually did seem to work better, so even though I'm not a chemist I would seem to be true based on my one time non-clinical trial ;)
DeleteI hope that helps! And if anyone else out there has a better answer-- I'd love to hear it! I like learning new things ;)
HI! Do you have any tips for cleaning a front loading he washing machine? Love your blog! THANKS!
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