Water out west here is hard. Not unusual, not dangerous, and not a plumbing problem. It is an appliance problem, and it is the most predictable one on our board.
Scale is an insulator
Heat water and some of the calcium comes out of solution onto whatever surface is hottest. In a dishwasher and a washing machine that is the heating element. Scale does not conduct heat well, so the element has to run hotter to put the same energy into the water. Hotter means shorter, and when it goes it goes suddenly.
The same deposit narrows spray arm jets, blocks inlet screens and coats the sensors deciding when a cycle is done. Which is why you get a performance complaint first and a breakdown later.
The progression, roughly in order
- Glasses cloudy in a way that does not rinse off.
- Cycles quietly getting longer with nobody changing a setting.
- White crust visible round the spray arm holes or inside the door seal.
- Top rack coming out dirty while the bottom rack is fine.
- No heat in the dry cycle. That is the element, and that is the repair.
What actually works
A whole-house softener solves it outright and does the same favour for the water heater. Short of that: descale both machines twice a year rather than once, keep rinse aid topped up instead of treating it as optional, and pull the dishwasher filter monthly to rinse scale off it, not just food.
On a washing machine, drop the wash temperature wherever you sensibly can. Scale drops out fastest at high heat, so a machine run mostly at 105 degrees scales far more slowly than one run mostly at 140.
If the element has already gone
It is a repair, not a replacement, on almost every machine worth keeping. The figures are up on the pricing page.
Call 847-941-0334 and describe what the glassware looks like. It narrows things faster than you would think.
