Vinegar Saved My Dishwasher

I've known for years that white vinegar is great, non-toxic household cleaner.

But a few nights ago, I learned that it can help fix dishwashers, too.

My husband is a creature of habit, and I know that, so I'll take partial credit for the incident that happened. You see, we had been using store brand powder dishwasher detergent in our dishwasher. I was using it up before I started to use my gigantic stash of Electrasol dishwasher tablets I got for super dirt cheap last fall. Well, I forgot to tell my husband we were making the switch from the powder to the tabs.

He loaded the dishwasher and a short while later asked, "Why are there soap suds coming out of the dishwasher?"

It turns out, he thought I had switched to a liquid detergent.... so he filled up the dishwasher with plain good ol' Dawn dish soap!!! HUGE MESS! Our dishwasher was FULL of suds, and was making a funny noise.

I did a quick search on the internet and found a great, cheap solution: pour some salt and some white vinegar in to kill the soap bubbles. I then ran the dishwasher once more and it works fine now!

The funny thing was that when I did my search I discovered that hundreds of husbands and teenage sons everywhere have done the VERY SAME THING my husband did.

Anyway, my hubby and I both learned some lessons from the experience.

Power bill keeps me in line

I got my power bill today. I am currently signed up for budget billing, which means that my bill is the same amount every month. The power company takes my annual usage and divides it by 12 and that is how much my bill is. The risk with budget billings is that if you use more electricity than what they've estimated, you will end up owing the power company money. If you use less, they will have gotten to keep your money interest free until they return it. In the end, I like knowing exactly how much my bill will be each month.

Even though I know exactly how much I owe the power company each month, I still make sure to study my bill. This month I wasn't surprised to see my heat portion of my bill take a big leap because it has been 20-below-zero for several nights last month. But I was surprised to see my electric and hot-water bill take a leap.

The increases in those two parts of my bill have forced me to more closely examine what we've been doing the last month. First of all, I attribute the increase in our electric use to the fact that we were home a LOT in December, and it is also the darkest month of the year. I also realize that we've been running the dishwasher and washer and dryer a lot more this month.

The bill was a wake-up call to me - to remember that I must be diligent in my energy conservation. This means I need to stop leaving lights on, leaving the computer on all day, and running not-quite-full loads of laundry and dishes. I need to be aware of those things that quietly steal electricity even when not in use.