Film on Dishes

I had the same problem with the white film. I was told to get a water softner. The small town where I live put in a new water system and I was told they had to turn the main water softner off. I never did get a water softner, as I don't have well water. As soon as they turned it on my dishes started coming out crystal clean.

I had the same problem recently and I couldn't get the white off the dishes. Here's what I did, I put all the glasses in the top rack and spaced them out. I put all the plastic kids dishware that got ruined in on the bottom rack plus some other dishes that got ruined. All evenly spaced (don't overload). I ran a "normal" wash with NO heated dry. I started the wash and waited for it to fill. I added 1 Cup of Vinegar and ran it. I did that twice and all the dishes are completely restored. I did have to do another wash for just the glasses that had been totally ruined by using LemiShine Machine Cleaner and followed the directions for a regular wash (not an initial wash). The vinegar did a fabulous job on the glasses, but I wanted them to sparkle again! So I followed up with the LemiShine. You cannot use lemishine on anything other than GLASS, or it will get ruined. So follow the directions. I know I'm late to this conversation, but this saved me hundreds of dollars on replacing what I thought was a broken water softener... turns out my hubby let the salt run out... oops! Oh well! Hope this helps! :D

Don't use Cascade. Use Electrosol's tablet with the little red dot in the middle. Its not only cheaper, but they work better.

Vinegar

In the July issue of Consumer Reports page 10 they have a rating of non-phosphate dish washer detergents. They note that dishes washed in hard water left a white residue on glassware. Phosphate detergents help control water hardness.

Phosphate was banned from dishwasher detergents 2 years ago. Consumer Reports rate Finish Powerball tabs and Cascade Complete All in 1 ActionPacs as the tops. They clean dishes and pots very well and don't leave water spots and white film or discolor aluminum.

I would suggest a vinegar wash and rinse, if it is just a film on the glasses. It could be "etching", which sometimes occurs, and I don't think there's a cure for that. If your Cascade packs have a rinse agent already in them, the Jet Dry is overkill, and that might be the problem. Good luck!