Hard water/laundry issue

[BirdBrain]

For hazy glasses, try the Tang. You could also add vinegar to the rinse cycle.

 

[Marianne]

For hazy glasses, try the Tang. You could also add vinegar to the rinse cycle.

Welcome, BirdBrain!
or did I say that already?

I etched a bunch of glassware with homemade auto dish detergent. Tried different recipes, finally went to dollar store cheap stuff, ended up with Cascade again. But I too, use vinegar in the jet dry dispenser thingy and that helps a lot.

I'll go in big spurts and do all the dishes by hand, then I get lazy, I guess. But since I have auto dish detergent, I'll use some in the laundry when I'm doing whites that are so dingy it's embarassing.

A couple days ago I washed a load of jeans using 1/4 cup of Simple Green concentrate that I've had around here for years. I was shocked at how well that worked! They always looked clean enough using the homemade detergent, but they just didn't smell clean enough lately.

Now I'm going to add some baking soda to the next batch of detergent, and add the salt, too. Love these ideas - Simple stuff, and it works.

 

[~gd]

I am so glad it worked for you and about hubby. Are our husbands related???

I have tossed salt in the dish washer. It helps. I still have to use expensive dish washer stuff (Cascade complete Gel) or the glasses are hazy...but salt and/or vinegar does improve things. Use whatever is cheaper.

Look at your ingredient label on the Cascade (Formulations will vary from place to place) If it lists Silicates (usually Sodium) that is the source of the hard to remove haze on glasssware. Calcium water spots are usually controlled by the rinse aid and just about any acid (citric in kool-aid,tang or acetic in vinegar will remove calcium also. The silicate is added to protect the washing machine from corrision. It leaves a thin almost transparent film on metals that will resist most water born corrosion. Glass is also a silicate and it will build up on that. No reasonable amount of acid will remove silicate or that haze. Soaking in a basic material will slowly remove it Washing (not baking) Soda is safe but slow. Lye is faster but not really safe around the house. DO NOT USE SALT it will pit metal and even stainless steel resulting in pinholes that are impossible to repair. The chloride inpurities in chlorine bleach can have the same effect but most bleaches are very low in chloride inpurities because the bleach makers are well aware of the effect and they have filling machines with metal parts.
How do I know this? I am a Chemist that spent 13 years in a plant that produced machine dishwashing powders and liquid chlorine bleach. We used to test for silicate content by washing 5 Libby #10 glasses in the upper rack for five cycles and a final cycle in vinegar to remove the calcium, minor haze was OK

 

[valmom]

Tang? I haven't had Tang in about 40 years! I may have to buy some- I didn't realize it was that acidic

 

[BirdBrain]

Thank you Marianne! I mostly lurk.

 

[feather and mountain man]

We have a water softener installed now and it is awesome but before we bought it this is what I did.

Laundry 1/2 tsp salt to each load right into the detergent despenser

dish rince water 1/4 tsp to a sink full of water

bath (use sea salt or espom) 1 tsp or 2 if you like a more bubbly feeling

watering plants 1/4tsp to a gal (fill with warm water and shake let sit till room temp.

It helps and you may have to adjust the amount of salt to how hard your water is.