How to Deep Clean Your Dishwasher
Everyone knows that a dishwasher is indispensable and makes cleaning up after meals a breeze, but over time, it can accumulate grime and residue that affects its performance. Regular maintenance is key to keeping your dishwasher running efficiently and extending its lifespan.
In this guide, we'll walk you through the steps to deep clean your dishwasher to ensure it stays in top shape and continues to deliver spotless results.
Why Should You Deep Clean Your Dishwasher
While it seems counterintuitive to clean a machine that is cleaning your dishes (and itself) daily, your dishwasher is actually dirtier than you think. Modern dishwashers are incredibly efficient, but they’re not perfect, so chunks of food and other grime get stuck in every crack and seam - trust us, take a look in yours!
Luckily, deep cleaning your dishwasher is easier than you think.
Step-By-Step Guide to Deep Cleaning Your Dishwasher
Before you dive into scrubbing, make sure you have the following tools and supplies ready:
- White vinegar
- Baking soda
- Dish soap
- A toothbrush or small cleaning brush
- Microfiber cloths
Step 1: Empty and Inspect the Dishwasher
First things first, you’ll need to remove everything from your dishwasher. Pull out all the dishes (hopefully they’re clean), as well as the racks, utensil holder, filter, and spray arms.
Now that everything is out, you can see what you’re working with. This is the perfect time to remove any larger food chunks, undissolved paper particles, broken glass, and anything else you see that shouldn’t be there.
Step 2: Start Scrubbing
Roll up your sleeves and grab your microfiber cloths, small brush, and dish soap.
Pro Tip: We always recommend sticking with microfiber cloths that are color-coded to the room they clean to reduce cross-contamination and you can use an old toothbrush instead of buying a specialized tool.
To start, you’ll want to wipe the sides, top, and bottom of the machine with your microfiber cloth and dish soap.
Next, grab your small brush and scrub the rubber seals along your door. This is usually one of the grossest parts of the job - you’ll see all the grime and food particles that escaped the rinse cycle. You’ll now want to move on to cleaning the machine’s accessories.
Step 3: Clean Your Filter, Racks, and Spray Arms
Keep a hold of your small brush and dish soap and start scrubbing your dish racks and utensil holder. Rinse them and set them aside. Similarly, scrub the machine’s spray arms, paying special attention to the holes where the water comes out. Occasionally you’ll find pieces of food or other debris stuck in them preventing your machine from working correctly.
Finally, move on to scrubbing your machine’s filter. If you’re going to clean one part of your dishwasher regularly, it should be your dishwasher filter. Do an initial rinse of the filter and then take your brush and dish soap to get into the filter’s mesh and grooves.
Now that everything is clean, it’s time to put your dishwasher back together.
Step 4: Run Vinegar and Baking Soda Cycles
For a sparkling finish to your dishwasher deep cleaning process, you can run separate cycles with vinegar and baking soda.
First, take a small dishwasher-safe container, fill it with white vinegar, and place it on the top rack of your dishwasher. Run an empty, hot water cycle with the dish of vinegar inside and make sure the heated drying setting is turned off.
Once that first cycle is complete, sprinkle some baking soda at the bottom of your dishwasher and run a second empty, hot water cycle.
In addition (or separate from) the vinegar and baking soda, you can also run a cycle with dishwasher cleaning tabs. These tablets also work great to regularly clean your dishwasher in between your deep cleanings.
Step 5: Clean the Exterior
It’s finally time to move to cleaning the exterior of your machine. If you have a stainless steel dishwasher, use a stainless steel cleaner and a microfiber cloth to wipe the exterior - wiping in the direction of the steel’s grain. If you have a black or white machine, you can use a multi-purpose or glass cleaner with a microfiber cloth.
This is also the perfect time to dust or wipe underneath your dishwasher to pick up any loose crumbs that missed making it into the dishwasher.
Deep cleaning your dishwasher is an important cleaning task that often gets overlooked. We recommend deep cleaning your machine monthly and running a hot water cycle with a dishwasher cleaning tablet weekly.
We understand that deep cleaning your dishwasher is just another cleaning task to tack to the end of your seemingly endless list, so reach out to Cleandae for a little extra help. We can handle the deep cleaning of your kitchen so you can focus on the cleaning tasks you actually like, or better yet, you won’t have to clean at all.
