woodmanbg

Having struggled with our dishwasher since we have been here we have now consigned it to the bin and yesterday bought a new Blomberg machine. We went for this machine as it has the salt dispenser to aid in softening the water and has a filter system rather than the macerator in the Kenmore we had. On purchasing the machine we then went to their parts department to buy the salt but they were out of stock. We did have a quick look in Canadian Tire on the way home but they didnt appear to have any.

My question is does anyone know where in Calgary other than Trail Appliances you can purchase dishwasher salt? I wondered whether the salt that went into water softening appliances would do but I believe it is a different grade to that required for a dishwasher

iaink

Softener salt tends to be larger pellets. Id be carefull what you use, too fine will clog things up, not pure enough will clog things up.


Id have thought if your water was hard enough to need the softener to get clean dishes you would be better advised to fit a softener to your cold water supply to help with laundry, water heating costs etc etc.

Souvenir

Softener salt, as far as I am aware comes as both pellets and granules.

I did a job on sofener salt in the UK some years ago. If I remember correctly, the salt is exactly the same but dishwasher salt comes in smaller bags and thus costs a lot more.

Sam-in-Okotoks

I noticed some in Home Hardware when I was in there about 3 months a go.

Piff Poff

Let us know if that solves the problem! We moan constantly about our dishwasher and I put it down to being saltless. I think we ought to get a water softener.

woodmanbg

OH did lots of research into this and for whatever reason decided it wasnt the road to go down for us. I think he was concerned about the amount of salt going into the septic system and also the amount of water that was wasted. I expect we may well end up with a softener one day, not just yet. It is really just the dishwasher we have been concerned about and it may just be that it was clapped out and had never washed well.

Spent the day preparing for the installation of the new machine, hence couldnt reply to anyone until now. We were all system go until we got the machine out of the car and discovered that they had supplied us with a black one instead of their last white one They had loaded it into the car for us so we didnt really look at it until it came out of the trunk this afternoon. So back to Trail appliances tomorrow to collect the white one.

In the meantime to keep himself occupied for the rest of the day he has been trying to do some electrics. We are still after 14 months still scratching our heads trying to locate what some of our switches/plugs control and getting no where. We cannot think what these people did when they built this house, the electrics are an absolute nightmare. Would you believe that the downstairs bathroom lights/sockets are connected to the circuit in the master en suite bathroom. When the power goes off in the downstairs bathroom we have to reset it from ours! It is driving OH around the bend.

Thanks for all your replies, will have a look in the Home Hardware to see if they have any dishwasher salt if not will have to wait for Trail Appliances to get their stock in.

wiggs1034

That is fairly standard, and complies with Code. All bathroom sockets are connect to a GFI which is reset from a single location - usually the master bathroom. We have bathrooms all three floors, and all are reset from our ensuite.

Piff Poff

Your electrics sound like ours! I can't use the microwave when teen is drying her hair in the bathroom and I can't plug my kettle in at the same time as the blender/fryer on a completely different worktop to each other.

woodmanbg

The other bathroom is not connected to our master bathroom, only the downstairs family bathroom.

woodmanbg

Oh gosh, I dont think we are that bad We just have a load of sockets and switches that we just dont know what they are for

woodmanbg

Is your dishwasher one of those with a macerator? Just cannt understand how all that chopped up food going round and round in the dishwasher can leave dishes clean I will let you know how this new machine performs once we get it installed, hopefully within the next few days. Having had to wash dishes by hand for the last couple of weeks I must say the dishes and glasses particularly have never looked so clean.

iaink

This is a serious consideration actually as the backwash cycle dumps salt in the septic, and as anyone with a concrete sidewalk here knows, salt tends to do horrible things to concrete in terms of its structural integrity. You dont want a tank collapse

We are lucky that we have both a septic and a grey water system, so the salty backwash goes somewhere we dont really care about.

The overall water usage is not that bad as its set to regenerate in the wee hours when no one is using the water anyway.



The macerator traps food in a trap and only mascerates is once its sending out to the drain AFAIK. Its not much of a problem with our cheapo washer anyway...

iaink

Also probably code related. In theory the top and bottom outlets in a pair should be on different circuits, so they probably daisy chained the all the top outlets in the kitchen on one circuit and the bottom on another.

Are both fryer and kettle plugged in the same level?

Piff Poff

Yes to the fryer and kettle and the microwave is on the other side of the wall to the bathroom.

Now we know a sparky, is this something worth sorting or do I just live with it?

iaink

If he's a qualified sparky, hes not going to change it from meeting code...

Its just the nature of 110V over 240...you need to pull double the current to do the same amount of work, and if you pull too much, then the breaker will trip. You can either run another circuit to one lot of outlets in the kitchen, or you can live with it.


Proximity to the bathroom has nothing to do with it Just try pluging the kettle in the bottom receptacle of the pair (or vice versa)