How to Clean a Dishwasher

Step 1: Clean the dishwasher filter

Where most of the smell lives

Pull out the lower rack and look at the floor of the tub. Many dishwashers have a cylinder filter that twists out with a quarter turn; others use a flat screen or a self cleaning grinder, so check the manual before pulling on anything.

How to clean dishwasher filter mesh without tearing it: hold the cylinder under hot running water, add one pump of dish soap, and work the suds through with a soft brush. Rinse the flat lower screen the same way if yours has one. Wipe the well with a damp cloth, then twist the filter back until it locks. A filter that is not fully seated lets food pass straight to the pump.

Step 2: Clear the dishwasher drain

Standing water means a blocked drain

With the filter out you are looking at the drain opening and the pump cover. Scoop out whatever sits there, including the glass chips, fruit stickers and olive pits that filters routinely miss.

For how to clean dishwasher drain lines beyond what your fingers reach, pour one cup of hot water with a pump of dish soap into the opening and let it sit ten minutes. Check the drain hose under the sink too; a kink or a clogged air gap sends dirty water right back into the tub. Anything deeper is a job for the manual or a technician. Leave the drain chemical on the shelf.

Step 3: Rinse the spray arms

Clogged holes make cloudy glasses

Each small hole in a spray arm is a place for a seed or a flake of hard water scale to lodge. Lift the lower arm off its post (most unclip or unscrew by hand) and hold it up to the light. Any hole that does not show daylight is blocked.

How to clean dishwasher spray arm holes is a toothpick job. Push one through each hole from the outside in, then rinse the arm under hot water so the debris flows out through the center hub rather than deeper into the arm. Repeat with the upper arm if it detaches. Spin each arm once you reseat it. It should move freely.

Step 4: Wipe the door seal & edges

The spots the spray never touches

The rubber gasket and the flat ledge at the bottom of the tub sit outside the spray pattern, so they collect a dark, greasy film. Fold a microfiber cloth around your finger, dampen it with warm water and a drop of dish soap, and run it the full length of the seal, opening the fold to reach inside the grooves. Wipe the inside edge of the door and the detergent dispenser too, then dry everything with the second cloth.

For the stainless door front, use a surface cleaner for stainless doors. Homecourt's Surface Cleaner lists stainless steel in its directions and lifts smudges without streaks or residue.

Spray it onto the cloth, not the panel, so nothing runs into the controls.

Step 5: Run a vinegar cycle

One cup, top rack, hottest setting

With every part back and the racks empty, set a dishwasher safe bowl with one cup of plain white vinegar upright on the top rack, then run the hottest, longest cycle the machine offers and skip the heated dry. The acidic rinse loosens grease film on the tub walls and softens the mineral haze that spots glassware.

This is the simplest version of how to clean dishwasher with vinegar, and it works because the vinegar disperses through the wash water. Skip detergent on this cycle, and keep vinegar out of the detergent cup and rinse aid reservoir; both are built for other products.

If your manual limits how often acidic rinses should run, that limit wins.

Step 6: Finish with a baking soda rinse

A short cycle to clear the last of the odor

When the vinegar cycle ends, sprinkle one cup of baking soda across the floor of the empty tub and run a short hot cycle. Baking soda is a mild alkali and a gentle abrasive, so it lifts what the acid loosened and takes the sour edge off the vinegar.

That is how to clean dishwasher with baking soda. The tub should come out smelling of nothing at all. Leave the door cracked for an hour, then load it as usual.

Step 7: Dishwasher cleaning mistakes to avoid

Two habits that undo the work

Never put dish soap in a dishwasher
Suds belong in the sink

The question "can you put dish soap in dishwasher" comes up whenever a household runs out of detergent, and the answer is no. Hand dish soap is formulated to foam. In a sealed machine agitating hot water for an hour, a single pump becomes a tub of suds pushing past the door seal and across the kitchen floor.

Dishwasher detergent is low foaming and built for the machine's water temperature and spray pressure. Our comparison of dish soap in dishwasher vs detergent covers liquid, pod and powder if you are choosing one. Homecourt Dish Soap for handwashing stays at the sink, where its plant-derived surfactants and glycerin meet your hands and where it handles the filter and gasket.

If dish soap in dishwasher has already happened, stop the cycle, scoop out the foam with a cup, and run rinse cycles until the water runs clear.

Skipping the filter between deep cleans
The two minute habit that prevents the big job

A full deep clean twice a year is reasonable. A filter that sits untouched for six months is not. Food left in the mesh breaks down, feeds odor-causing bacteria and lands back on clean dishes every time the pump runs. Rinsing it takes two minutes with the lower rack pulled out, which is the entire argument for doing it often.

Step 8: How often to clean dishwasher filter

A schedule that matches how you cook

The honest answer to how often to clean dishwasher filter mesh is more often than you think, and more often than the manual's minimum if you cook most nights or skip pre-rinsing.

• Every two to four weeks: rinse the filter under hot water with a pump of dish soap and a soft brush. Households that run the machine daily sit at the two week end.
• Monthly: wipe the door gasket, the tub ledge and the inside of the door.
• Every three to six months: the full routine above, filter to baking soda.

Your manual may name its own interval. This schedule is the floor under it.