Life Hack: Dishwasher hacks to get the best results when washing your wares

From shiny cutlery to one-dry dishes, here are three useful tips when using a dishwasher

Three ways to guarantee flawless results from your dishwasher

Tin foil 

One issue many people have when they use their dishwasher is that often their silverware does not come out as clean looking as they would like. Despite even the most effective cycle, some cutlery looks tarnished after being washed. This can be tackled with a very simple solution, using something you probably already have in your home: tin foil. To ensure shining forks, knives and spoons from your next wash, ball up a piece of tin foil and place it in the dishwasher’s cutlery basket. Run the dishwasher on your preferred setting, using your usual dishwasher tablet, and you’ll notice an immediate improvement when the wash completes. Cutlery will be gleaming and untarnished, thanks to a chemical reaction between the tin foil and the dishwasher tablet.

Drying dishes 

After opening the dishwasher once the wash is complete, it is common to find the dishes still sopping wet. Usually people will dry off each individual item within before returning it to its usual storage cupboard or drawer. However, there is a quicker way to ensure bone-dry dishes. Last year a hack went viral on TikTok after the woman behind the ‘Brunch with Babs’ account shared her trusty tip. "No hand drying those dishes. Do this instead," she says, before draping a tea towel inside the dishwasher’s door and closing it to secure the cloth. "At the end of the cleaning cycle, terry cloth dish towel, close the door and wait five minutes." She says the cloth absorbs the moisture and after a few minutes you will open the dishwasher to find a completely dry load. Another thing to check is your rinse aid: it can help your dishes dry better, which is a much more pocket-friendly solution than turning up the heat on your dishwasher’s setting to dry everything.

Hard water 

Have your glasses been coming out of the dishwasher cloudy? Are there spots on your dishes? It’s likely that you have hard water, which can hinder the results of your wash. If you have hard water in your area, you should keep a bottle of standard white vinegar in your home. Fill a bowl with vinegar and place it on the top rack of your dishwasher. Run a cycle with just that bowl of vinegar inside. The vinegar will combat the staining caused by hard water. You may need to repeat this process every now and again. It will also clean the inside of your dishwasher by breaking down any food, grease, and grime that lingers inside your machine. It is worth doing a deep clean of your dishwasher each month to guarantee the best results from each wash.