The hardness level of the water for the dishwasher is of great importance. The life of the equipment, the quality of washing dishes, and the amount of detergent depend on this indicator. But how to determine this indicator yourself? We figured out several ways to measure the amount of impurities at home.
What kind of water does a dishwasher need
Soft or hard water in your water supply depends on the region of residence and soil composition. This is influenced by the amount of heavy impurities: calcium and magnesium cations. Getting into a dishwasher, washing machine or other household appliances with water, impurities precipitate in the form of limescale.
The more limescale deposits on the details of the technique, the faster it will stone, turning into scale.
Probably, you have repeatedly noticed a scum at the bottom of the kettle or its heating element. For PMM elements, this is also dangerous. The layer covering the heater does not allow the heating element to transfer heat normally. The element overheats and burns out.
Thus, the scum enters the body, where it accumulates and causes various diseases, for example, kidney stones.
What to do to soften the water? Dishwasher manufacturers have already taken care of this by installing ion exchangers. These tanks are located in the lower part of the body, under the pallet. A special resin fills them. Before entering the machine’s chamber, water passes through an ion exchanger, where the resin collects heavy impurities, contributing to softening.
Over time, the ion exchanger is depleted, the resin is washed away. Then a special salt is used to soften.
How to find out water hardness
You can check the amount of impurities using tools or take advantage of everyday experience.
Approximate Methods
- pay attention to plaque rate on pipes, taps, mixers. Recently, the crane was descaled, how did it again overgrown with a gray coating? So, the calcium and magnesium salts exceed the norm.
- Mildness. Try washing your hands under the tap with soap and water. If it foams well, the composition of the water is normal.
- Turbidity. Fill the bottle from the tap, put in a dark place for a day. If a precipitate has formed at the bottom, and on the walls of the film - the salt level exceeds the norm.
- Taste. Some people can tell the difference in taste. It is believed that soft water is much tastier.
- Difference. Fill the same containers from different sources. Weigh which capacity is heavier, there are more impurities.
You can go the simpler way: call the water utility and find out the degree of stiffness in your area.
Of course, these methods are very subjective, so they won’t give an exact result.
Exact methods
- Test strips - come with some PMM models. They are coated with a special composition. Just dip the test into water, and after one second, compare the indicator with the table.
Depending on the company, you need to immerse for 2-3 seconds, after which you need to wait half a minute and compare the result.
If the kit does not have test strips, you can buy them at specialized or pet stores.
- TDS meters - This is a special device. With it, you determine the exact amount of impurities, as well as the electrical conductivity of water. A useful thing that can be used at any opportunity. Minus is not an expensive tool.
How to set up and adjust the water hardness sensor
The water supply filter (softener) for washing and dishwashers is installed on the tee during the connection. It traps heavy impurities, small debris, rust.
You can install the filter on water yourself. It is important not to forget to periodically clean it.
As we wrote above, salt is loaded into the ion exchanger. Once you have determined the level of stiffness, do this:
- Open the machine door.
- Take out the bottom basket.
- In the pan you will see a tank with a lid.
- Remove the cover.
- Fill the hole with water.
- Fill it with salt (which salt for the dishwasher to choose, read in one of the previous articles).
Next is the automatic installation and adjustment of water hardness:
- There is a special regulator on the machine door.
- To adjust the operation, turn the arrow to the desired value. The more impurities the test showed, the higher the value on the sensor must be set. So the system determines how much salt to apply for an optimal result.
- The fact that the salt will end soon, you will be notified by an indicator on the control panel.
Manufacturers of tablets and combination products declare that their products replace detergent, salt and rinse aid. Therefore, you do not need to buy anything else.
Now let's turn to the logic: you put a tablet in the compartment on the door, the tank in the pan is empty. Water entering the system passes through an empty ion exchanger, is heated by a heating element and only then it enters the chamber, from where it washes the detergent. It turns out that while the tablet works, the plaque will already settle on the details.
Of course, to understand this, you need to know the PMM device. Therefore, the average user is "led" by advertising and the beliefs of manufacturers. Be careful and be sure to use dishwasher salt.
We talked about adjusting the dishwasher and checking the hardness of the water. Use these tips and forget about scale.