Removing Hard Water Deposits
The best way to prevent hard water deposits is to purchase a dishwasher with a built-in water softener or purchase a central water softener. Mineral deposits can be removed with acids. Natural acids like Vinegar and Citric Acid are preferred because they are non-toxic and are easily biodegradable. Vinegar is often too weak and Citric Acid must be used. Commercial dishwasher cleaners can also be purchased, some of these cleaners contain EDTA that is considered an organic pollutant. Citric Acid is the preferred solution for removing hard water build-up from dish washers. GE Appliances recommends citric acid and has and has a GE part number WD35X151 that contains 2 2 oz. packages of citric acid. Kitchenaid also recommends the use of citric acid in this Kitchenaid Warranty Document.
Why Other Solutions Fail
After researching online, one can find many tricks and tips from user comments on sites that try and solve their hard water problems. These are some of the other solutions from people experiences this problem, and why they do not work as well as citric acid.
White Vinegar
The use of white vinegar in your dishwasher is one way people try to clean their dishes of hard water stains and deposits. Unfortunately, this method tends to fail due to the acidity of white vinegar. White vinegar is often too weak to clean your dishes of hard water because it is not acidic enough to clear the stains. After numerous tests on our glasses, we found that though the white vinegar visibly helped, we were not satisfied with the results, and our glasses still had an unappealing cloudy tint to them. Citric acid is environmentally safe like vinegar, but is much more powerful.
Lemon Juice
Lemon juice also is suggested when trying to clean hard water stains from dishes and glassware. Like white vinegar, however, this method tends not to work because the lemon juice is not acidic enough. Like white vinegar, we tried the lemon juice on our glasses, and it did not solve the problem completely. The lemon juice seemed even weaker than the white vinegar, and when taking the dishes out of the dishwasher, the white on the cups and dishes from the hard water remained on them.
Commercial Products
Commercial products that clean hard water stains, though often effective, have many downsides to them as well. Many companies overcharge for their products, or force you into buying large amounts of their solution, even if you only need very little. We sell our product in multiple sizes for your convenience, and offer very competitive prices. Not only do the commercial products cost more using marketing techniques, but many contain unsafe materials. The most popular commercial clean agent for dishwashers contains an acid called EDTA or ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid. EDTA while effective, has emerged as a organic pollutant. Citric Acid is totally biodegradable and is used as a food additive to enhance flavoring and preserve foods.
About Us
We are the Jensen Family (Brian, Jillian, Danny) and we live in Redondo Beach, California in the Los Angeles Area. We have a Maytag dishwasher that put a white film on all dishes and silverware. Water spots were particularly bad on plastic dishes. It was necessary to towel dry or re-rise all dishes before using them. Our Maytag Dishwasher was 5 years old and I thought we had a problem with the washer. We were ready to buy another dishwasher but first, we called our local Maytag dishwasher appliance repair dealer Liberty Appliance with over 40 years of experience and asked how to clean hard water stains from our dishes. It was recommended that we purchase Maytag part number WD35X151 Qty 2 ounce packets of citric acid for $14.95. Liberty Appliance sells and services Maytag, Kitchenaid, General Electric (GE), Amana, Whirlpool said they were starting to have great demand for this Citric Acid product because the drought in California had caused the water to become harder. We now understood our hard water spotting problem was due to hard water deposits, but we did some research and found that vinegar could be used to solve our problem! We ran several loads using a gallon of white vinegar. The water deposits persisted after the vinegar treatments even after we scrubbed the inside of the dishwasher with vinegar. Vinegar did not solve water our spotting problem. After more research, we found that Citric Acid was a natural weak acid that is found in citrus fruits like lemons and limes. We then mixed up a solution of lemon juice and dipped a hard water stained plastic cup in the lemon juice solution. To our surprise the citric acid in the lemon juice solution dissolved the hard water spots on our plastic cup. Before trying Citric Acid, we researched other acid products. We found that many were unsafe for the environment. The most effective organic material was citric acid. Finally, we purchased some citric acid. We poured 2 ounces of citric acid in our soap container and ran a load of "clean" heavily water stained dishes using the hottest water setting. We were amazed by how the citric acid caused our stained dishes to be stain free again. Brian and Danny decided to set up this web site to provide Brian with income and a part time job. Brian is responsible for web site maintenance and order fulfillment.