We have had a Miele dishwasher for 3 years, and we use Cascade powdered dishwasher detergent. Works well.

When the machine was first installed, I bought one box of special German salt from our appliances dealer, but it cost a whopping $20. Ever since, I've used "no additives" coarse salt, from our local Safeway at about $2.50 per five-pound bag. It is necessary to read the label carefully, because many salt products contain additives.

There is probably some risk to using ordinary coarse salt; if the salt naturally contains compounds deleterious to the resin element of the water-softening component, then the unit will probably become progressively less effective. It seems to be working well in our slightly hard tapwater (and so far I've saved about $170 toward the cost of repairs if necessary!). I suggest that you discuss with your installer.

ABT Electronics carries the salt and the Miele Tablets; decent pricing and no S/H charges. I use both BTW, and also use Jet Dry (per Miele tech's recommendation shortly after our Optima was installed).

Here is a link that might be useful: ABT link

Cat-Mom,
What's the advantage to using the tablets? I've tried Ecover with so-so results and now use WalMart brand powder with better results. The cutlery still doesn't come out as clean as I'd like.

The tabs really do a great job (there are some older threads with loads of posts singing their praises!). We used Cascade Complete initially, but Miele came out with the tabs sometime around when we first started using our DW. A bunch of GW'ers tried them and kept raving about them so we decided to give them a try. The CC worked perfectly fine and everything came out spotless. However, the tabs seem to give the loads an extra level of clean and sparkle. Also, the air in the DW just had a fresher quality (odor) after running a load with the tab vs CC. The DW after a CC cleaned load isn't bad, just less fresh smelling.

FWIW, some on this forum use 1/2 a tab (and possibly even 1/4 tab?) to clean most loads. Again, my stuff comes out fine with a 1/2 tab, but a full tab just seems to raise that sparkle and clean to another level. It's not overly noticeable, in fact, I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me, but some others here have said the same thing. We don't usually run our DW every day, so I like the sense of security (that everything will get clean) that using a full tab gives.

Last night I had a pretty empty DW, but one of those few items was a stinky plastic food container that would have been quite foul smelling by morning let alone this evening, so I ran the DW before bed instead of waiting, with a 1/2 tab and everything came out great.

PS there were some posters who had trouble with grit (undisolved soap powder) build up in their rack glides from using Ecover so you might want to do a search for those threads discussing that.

One of the early adopters on the Miele tabs here. Catmom summarized it well.

We have a whole house water softener (not bypassed) which required disabling the salt function. I've never used salt because my water is 0 hardness.

Because of that I was getting some etching on glassware. Turns out I used too much powder and cutting it back didn't solve the problem.

So I tried the tabs and that eliminated the etching. I don't use more than 1/2 unless I run a complete pot and pan load with no glassware. Excellent results. They are easy to cut and go in with the cellophane wrapper, which dissolves.

I'm currently using Jet Dry. I used Somat with the Cascade & Electrosol and felt it did a better job than Jet Dry with those. Since I switched to the tabs I haven't missed the Somat. I might try the new combo when I remember to buy it.

I also have a lot of old china I wouldn't dare put in the DW before I got the tabs. But I can use a quarter one of those and the china cycle and even the gold rims are fine.

Still use powder (by the ton it seems) in our old DW in the apartment. That has heated drying. The dishes and silver don't get nearly as clean as they do in the Miele. I keep wishing for its demise (along with the horrid old fridge).

What a timely thread! We are about to move in after a long renovation and have an Excella waiting for us. I couldn't convice my wife of its gentle cleaning capabilities, so it will probably never see our crystal or fine china. Perhaps we should have had it hooked up to hot water instead of cold.

We have city water and have seen no need to soften it, so I'll probably just wait to see if the Excella tells me to add salt (that would also be a great feature for pots and pans, LOL).

I think I'll buy a package of tablets and a box of Cascade Complete powder and compare the results. I wish there was an objective test to declare a winner but will look for that extra level of sparkle and clean.

Any further recommendations?

Thanks, cat-mom, for the explanation. I ordered a box from Amazon this a.m.

We opted to do hot water hook-up with our Optima--even our "good dishes" are oven-table-microwave safe, and the few pieces of crystal we own would never see the inside of a DW anyway. We'd be more afraid of knocking something into those things ourselves while loading/unloading than the DW doing any actual damage!

You two will have to decide for yourselves if you notice a difference in sparkle and clean and report back here, of course :-) It's almost imperceptible, but others have commented on it too, so at least I don't think I'm crazy!

It's nice to have a box of CC on hand either way; for those occasions when you want to add some to the pre-wash cup (e.g. when stuff's been sitting in the DW for an extra day or more with a lot of dried on crap), or for a light load that only needs the smallest am't of soap, or to tide you over 'til that next box of tabs arrives in the mail!

The Miele tabs will dissolve and clean well in water of 104F. This is good for Miele models that have the cycles: short, china/crystal, economy, sensor wash, and energy saver, because these cycles use water temps as low as 104F depending on the soil level.

If you're hooking up to hot water, check on the hot water temp in your house. If it's over 115F it pretty much cancels out the benefits of the china/crystal cycle. 115F is lukewarm water -- the temp used to proof yeast. Probably cooler than what's coming out of the tap.

Thanks for the replies - very helpful to have other resource, b/c my appliance retailer is chargint a lot for the salt - $15 for a box of "Miele" salts, which ended up being Somat salt!

Since I've been using Glass Magic and detergent with zero softening and no salts, I'm going to fill the dw's with the Somat salt, but I'm curious if anyone out there knows of any difference between the Miele brand DW saltsa nd the Somat salts?

TIA

PS. I also had my DW's installed to the cold water so my fine china and stemware could be washed at teh proper low temp. I also, to avoid the massive etching I had with my last DW that was connected to the whole house softneer, by-passed the house softener and plan to rely only on the DW's softening system.

I think I'll look into those tabs made by Miele after my Trader Joe's detergent runs out.

BTW, I'm going through Jet Dry like mad! It tells me it's empty every other load; I'll have to look into adjusting that.

I just ordered the salt (Miele) for $11.49 from ABT Electronics, no tax, no S/H. I usually order the tablets from them, too. I think Amazon.com had the tabs a couple bucks cheaper with no S/H as well, but they might charge tax, so there would go the savings.

I just added salt to my Optima (ours seems to ask for salt about every 6-8 months).

Here is a link that might be useful: Miele salt

We're very happy with the ElectraSol tablets (without Jet-Dry ball, though in a pinch we'll buy those and pop the ball out). Our water is low (but not very low) hardness (3 grains if I remember, ~50mg(?)), and we don't use a softener. We have a very acidic well, but neutralize with injection of potash solution instead of using a marble-chip bed - marble-chip beds raise the hardness a lot.