No matter how you look at it, your dishwasher is definitely one of the best inventions of this era. Just think about it. There was a time when you would still have to stand around the sink, washing all those dishes after dinner, when you could be enjoying some quality time with the rest of the family in the living room.

Now, you could easily throw everything into the dishwasher and help the kids out with their homework, or watch a movie or two with your spouse.

This is why it is so important to keep your dishwasher running at its best at all times. To help you maintain one of the most important appliances around your home, here are a few dishwasher tips to remember:

Scrape off food bits. It’s irritating having to deal with small particles stuck on your dishes after every dishwashing cycle. For you to make sure that all your dishes are squeaky clean after the cycle, make sure that all food bits are scraped off.

Run some hot water first.

The first fill cycle should have hot water in it, so make sure that you start running the hot water before you even start the cycle. Especially during the cold season, it usually takes a long time for the water heater to kick in, so you would often end up with cold water starting the cycle, which will not help clean your dishes at all.

Keep it loose: Tempting as it may be to load up all the dishes in one go, you also have to understand that everything in there will not get properly cleaned if there’s barely enough space between them. Make sure you load just enough dishes into each cycle to avoid having to redo the cycle.

Use the proper cycle.

You may be getting conscious about your utility bills, which pushes you to make each cycle lighter and shorter to save up on energy. But when you do this, the dishes will not be as clean, and may even require you to do an additional cycle, or worse, do the washing by hand! Avoid further inconvenience by using the proper setting for each load at all times.

Keep your dishwasher fresh with vinegar. Vinegar definitely helps clean things up, especially when you’re dealing with appliances like your dishwasher, which can have food particles accumulating at corners without you noticing right away. Just run a normal cycle on an empty dishwasher using a cup of vinegar every so often and you’ll find your washer smelling fresh all the time.

Maintaining your dishwasher can be very easy, as long as you follow these dishwasher tips. For more handy tips on your dishwasher, as well as any kind of professional help in installing the machine and hooking it up to your water line, just call Mr. Speedy, the best plumbing service in Los Angeles and have it ready to run a fresh cycle in no time.