The average kitchen sponge contains up to 45 billion types of bacteria. That’s disgusting, yet many people still use sponges to wash their dishes.
Of course, running your dishes through your dishwasher is a better way to clean them. However, your dishwasher might also contain bacteria, so you should clean your dishwasher.
You might not clean your dishwasher. After all, it seems counterintuitive. But, it’s actually an essential job.
Keep reading this guide to learn why you need to clean it and how to get the job done.
Signs You Need to Clean Your Dishwasher
Dishwasher cleaning isn’t something most homeowners think about doing. But, learning the signs that indicate you need to clean yours might help you realize that your dishwasher is due for a good cleaning.
Here are some of the signs.
Bad Odors
The first sign is bad odors. Have you ever opened your dishwasher and suddenly smelled something terrible?
A dishwasher will begin to smell bad as food, limescale, and other debris builds up inside the device. So if your dishwasher stinks, it’s time to clean it.
Dirty Dishes
Secondly, how well does your dishwasher wash your dishes? If your dishwasher doesn’t clean your dishes like it once did, it could be a sign that it needs a cleaning.
A dirty dishwasher can’t clean dishes as it should. Therefore, you should clean it if you notice that your dishes look dingy or dirty.
Food Buildup or Rust
Additionally, you’ll know it’s time to clean it if you can see food buildup or rust inside the device. You might have to look closely at the bottom of your dishwasher to see these signs.
If you look at the bottom and see rust, food, or a slimy material, it might be helpful to start thinking about cleaning it.
Reasons to Clean It
Your dishwasher serves an important role in your kitchen: it cleans your dishes. However, a dirty dishwasher can’t complete this job well. Instead, a dirty dishwasher leaves dishes contaminated and dirty.
If you look inside your dishwasher, you’ll likely see buildup in it. For example, look at the seal around the outside of the device. Do you see a slimy, gray or red material?
Additionally, you’ll likely see grease, limescale, and food buildup at the bottom of the device.
When you run a dishwasher cycle, the water in the dishwasher passes by this buildup. Therefore, it spreads it over your dishes. As a result, it contaminates every dish you place in the device.
Cleaning your dishwasher results in cleaner, safer dishes to use.
However, your dishwasher isn’t the only kitchen appliance you need to clean. You should also clean your refrigerator, stove, and microwave. Unfortunately, cleaning kitchen appliances isn’t simple, fast, or easy.
How to Clean a Dishwasher
Some people clean their dishwashers with at-home remedies. For example, you could try pouring lemonade powder into your dishwasher’s soap dispenser. Afterward, you run the dishwasher.
You can find many at-home remedies you can try, but they might not work as well as you hope. Vinegar is one effective option you might want to try.
Instead, you might want to hire a cleaning company to clean your dishwasher and other appliances. They’ll know how to clean them properly and thoroughly, and you won’t have to do the work.
However, you can attempt to clean your dishwasher yourself if you want. Dishwasher cleaning begins with cleaning the drain. The drain is on the bottom of the device and tends to collect debris.
You might want to wear gloves or use paper towels to clean all the gunk out of this area. You might also want to spray some vinegar on the drain and wipe it clean with additional paper towels.
The goal is to remove the debris and slimy buildup that naturally occurs with use.
Next, you can wipe the seal, which is the component that keeps the water inside the dishwasher. The seal goes around the entire door and also tends to collect buildup.
Some dishwashers come with a removable filter. You might need to look in the owner’s manual to determine if yours has one and where it’s at. If your dishwasher has one, you can remove it and clean it.
Additionally, you might want to remove the silverware tray and clean it out. A silverware tray tends to collect food particles, and you can dump it out into your garbage can or sink.
It might also be helpful to rinse or scrub it before placing it back in your device.
Benefits of Hiring It Out
As you can see, cleaning a dishwasher is vital if you want to have clean dishes. But, cleaning it also requires work. As a result, many people hire cleaning services to do tasks like this one.
When you hire a cleaning company to clean the tasks you don’t enjoy cleaning, you won’t have to do them. Yet, you’ll have a cleaner house.
If you’re considering hiring a company to clean your dishwasher, you might also want to consider hiring them to do the following cleaning tasks:
- Microwave
- Refrigerator
- Oven and stove
- Windows
- Trim
- Plumbing fixtures
You can hire a cleaning company to perform weekly services if you need it, but you can also hire them monthly to do these types of tasks.
Hire a Home Cleaning Service
If you don’t want to clean your dishwasher or don’t know how, you can hire it out. You can hire a house cleaning company to handle all the mundane or difficult home-cleaning tasks. The benefit is a cleaner, safer home to live in.
Contact us if you need help with your home cleaning tasks. At Detail Cleaning Service, we’ll clean your entire house or the tasks you don’t have time to do.
We offer services in Houston and the surrounding areas, so call us today to learn more.
