That dishwasher filter

Clean it out!

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I had a dishwasher for about 18 years that worked perfectly (with a rare, reasonable repair) for our family of 10, sometimes more, depending on the random boarding teenager(s), all of whom were admonished to “just scrape, don’t rinse” as they, and I, overstuffed it.

I never cleaned any filter as far as I can remember.

I rued the day it no longer worked. After living for some years with a stupid replacement that made me really rue not spending the $400 to fix the motor on the old one (“you need to let it go” said the repairman, but he was wrong), the day came for us to face the renovation of our tired kitchen.

Now I have a perfectly working dishwasher (a higher-end one I got on FBMP for $200, go me), but the filter needs to be cleaned pretty often.

The best way to clean it would obviously be to put it… in the dishwasher. So that won’t work. Instead, I have to do that gross job by hand, and so do you. I remind my husband occasionally of the necessity of doing it, after I die.

One day I happened to be in Marshalls and found this set of brushes (affiliate link). They are very useful for this task (also for cleaning the edges of my stainless steel sink). You need a big bowl or basin of hot, soapy water and something like that to get into the insides of the filter.

It’s a yucky job, but you feel virtuous when it’s done, that’s for sure.

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Be happy at home!

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