I use dishtabs, though the borax/soda/salt combo highly interests me!  I use vinegar for my rinse agent though -- cheap and abundant in my house.  DH made a comment one day about need jet dry and I just nodded; later added vinegar and DH made another comment to thank me for putting the jet dry in.  I laughed and said, "Oh, I never bought that!  I used vinegar; good to know you think it works though!"

Our dishwasher, to put it mildly, s*cks.  The dishtab holder doesn't drop the tab in the way it should, so it's almost never dissolved and so nothing was clean; and the drying function doesn't work either.  We just drop the tab in the bottom of the dishwasher, set it to watersaver mode, and let them air dry by pulling the racks out at night while sleeping.  Clean dishes ever since we started this.  And saves a bit of energy and water.  I think machines are like people -- we all have our quirks.

My Family's Interests:

1C Borax
1C Baking Soda
1/2 C salt

Mix it all together. Use 1 TB detergent, and use vinegar as your rinse aid.

When I used to make our own dishwasher detergent, the salt was a MUST or everything got spots, even with vinegar rinses. Our water is somewhat on the soft side - I don't know if that changes things.

I don't know how I missed all the responses to this thread after I posted it . . . I had forgotten about it!  Oops!  There are some great ideas here and I'm going to try them out.  We have super hard water, I think both the salt and the vinegar will be necessary.  I agree that the hot water does the best job of cleaning.  The soap seems to help dissolve food (since I don't pre-rinse).  I have borax, baking, soda, salt, & vinegar . . . going to try it!

Thanks!

lol  gives me a start when I see my old sign in name! had to change it when the site changed and lost my password!

I have tried the solution of Borax and baking soda but completely forgot the salt. I only used it to boost dishwasher detergent so it came out ok but I should see how the salt works.