Tips on Eliminating Dishwasher Odor

Dishwasher odor can be smelly, disturbing and even nauseous. Causes are often built-ups of lime scale, decomposing food remains and proteins in places you usually wouldn’t expect it to happen, or through smelly waste pipes or sinks.

There are a lot of little tricks known to remove bad smells and odours quite easily. Sometimes it is worth to switch simply the detergent you use. Some supermarket brands seem to be less efficient and a switch over to a "name brand" product may help and stop odor.

White vinegar or lemon juice is a cheap, eco-friendly and everywhere available household chemical that is great for getting rid of bad smells.

• Put 2 cups of vinegar placed into the bottom of the empty dishwasher and run a normal cycle and extra-rinse. Do this once or twice per year.


• Fill the detergent dispenser unit on the inside of the door with vinegar or lemon juice and run the empty dishwasher through a light or short cycle. You can repeat this monthly to keep odor away.


• Fill white vinegar into the JetDry dispenser: this helps to eliminate smells and lime scale built-ups.

Within the door hinge – sealing rubber area where the door meets the bottom of the dishwasher food remains and/or grease can easily build up. Once this will happen, a bad dishwasher odor that cannot be removed only by running a cycle with vinegar/lemon juice will be always present. Check, if this is the case and take a wet cloth or rug to clean this manually.

Waste pipes that are being used together by sink and the dishwasher can cause smelly dishwashers, too. Check and use special sink cleaners to get the waste pipes washed through to remove smelly built-ups. An old household trick is to use baking soda and several cups of white vinegar followed by plenty hot water.