White residue in vessels after dishwasher wash

WATER HARDNESS LEVEL SETTING in DISHWASHER

I’ve received quite a few questions related to salt and water hardness level setting in the Dishwasher.

WATCH INSTEAD OF READ?

DISHWASHER HARDNESS / SALT LEVEL SETTING

How would you know if there is an issue with your hardness level setting?

If you are seeing white residue in your dishes after a wash cycle - the hardness setting is probably incorrect or your dishwasher is running short on salt. If you see a salt level indicator - make sure you refill your dishwasher salt.

Every modern dishwasher has a water softening system in it which is used to soften the hardness of water. This is particularly useful in India - where many areas use groundwater. Different areas even within a 1-2 km radius can have different water hardness level.

If you want to know the hardness levels in your house accurately - you will have to get the water tested in a laboratory. You can also use a TDS meter to determine the Total Dissolved Solids in the water in your area. TDS is measured in parts per million or ppm and hardness level is measured in milli moles per liters. There are a number of calculators available online to convert the readings from a TDS meter to a hardness reading. I’ve linked to one such calculator in the description and here is a quick screenshot - you can pause if you want to look at more details.

Water hardness calculator 1, calculator 2

WHAT SHOULD MY DISHWASHER SALT SETTING BE?

Now - once you have determined what your water hardness level is in your area - you can look up your dishwasher manual to determine what the water hardness setting should be. For example, I use the Faber dishwasher and the manual for Faber has listed out the water softener level to be set for a specific level of water hardness. The dishwasher’s water softening system can soften water upto a level of 9.8 milli moles per liter OR 900 ppm.

So what do you do if the water hardness in your area is above this level. You may need to use an external water softening system. You need to attach this to your water inlet tap for the dishwasher. Test the water again after attaching the water softening system and based on the new reading - you can set up the water softener level in your dishwasher. I’ve linked to a few in the description.

By default - for Faber they set it at H3 level. When I started using my dishwasher, I saw that I still had white residue on my vessels. I changed that setting to H5 and now I don’t see any residue on my vessels.