When we moved into our house I noticed that our dishwasher utensil basket was missing some pieces along the bottom, causing the silverware to fall through. Replacing the basket would cost anywhere from $9-$20, which I did not want to spend.
Using zip ties you can close the gap in just a few minutes and for only a few cents. Zip ties cost about two to three cents a tie, so repairing the dishwasher basket cost less than ten cents. That is a significant savings over replacing the basket.
What super cheap fixes have you done around your home?
Sarah says
Thanks for the tip! My basket is coming apart at the seams quite literally and I hadn’t taken the time to do anything about it. Great idea!
Jaimie K says
This is awesome! I totally need to do it. My silverware always falls through.
Danielle W. says
awesome idea, mine has a few holes that things keep falling through, so i am going to do this thanks so much!
Linda says
That’s so funny because I just did this the other day and was thinking about writing it up as a kitchen tip.
Luke Holzmann says
…that’s incredibly clever!
~Luke
Barb S. says
Really smart idea!
Courtney says
We had that problem with the basket in our previous dishwasher and repaired it with dental floss. My husband wove the floss through the broken spot in a criss-cross pattern and it worked great and held up for many months until the dishwasher went kaput. I believe I got the idea from The Tightwad Gazette.
Lisa H. says
Thanks for this very clever tip. I told it to my husband and he thought it was an amazing idea. He put the zip ties in our basket last night and it works great! You just saved us $15!! Thank You!
Kasey says
This just made my day. My sliverware is forever getting caught on the door because it slips through the basket where it has cracked. I have already replaced my basket once I really don’t feel like doing it again. Thanks for the tip!!!!
Reuben says
I bought a 1′ length of galvanized wire fencing, with maybe a 1/4″ grid, rom the hardware store.
I then cut and shaped three small pieces, bending them into a U shape, using the edge of the counter to get 90 degree corners, so that the patches fit right down into the individual sections that had broken bottoms. The repairs worked like a charm and one has to look twice to realize they wire mess is in there.
A new Kenmore utensil basket was $40 or so from Sears. The galvanized wire fencing cost maybe $1?
Susan H. @ The Food Allergy Chronicles says
You are a genius! My husband found your post, ran down to the basement found a bag of multipurpose ties and fixed my cutlery basket…you saved the day! I have been tortured by cutlery falling through for months…he has been promising me to purchase a new one…this is even better. With two boys with food allergies…I need my dishwasher to sanitize everything!Thank you…thank you!
Haley says
Thank you! Worked beautifully!
Tony says
I used a double layer of squares of left over aluminium flywire to cover the bottoms of the broken basket pockets.
Another website had this good idea-
I went to the craft store where for about a dollar and a half, I bought a sheet (10″ x 15″?) of a plastic grid/mesh intended to be used for cross-stitch needlepoint projects in kindergardens and senior centers. The cells in the grid are about 2.5 mm square. I cut out a piece of grid that I fashioned into a liner for the bottom of the damaged compartment in the cutlery basket, reaching about 8-10 mm up the side of the cell.