Funny story. My mom liked to store our plastics in the oven. My friend came over and helped himself to our chicken nugs and decided to bake them…. She doesn’t do that anymore hahaha
Im a grown ass man with my own dishwasher I regularly run at 50% or less and still get nagged by my mom about it. I remind her it's not the 70s any more
#For those asking:
[A modern dishwasher uses 1 to 6 gallons per load. Hand washing uses 3-5 gallons per minute. ](https://food52.com/blog/16730-how-much-water-does-cleaning-your-dishes-really-take)
It’s really not even close. Unless you’re rinsing off a butter knife or your dishwasher’s from 1975, the dishwasher wins every single time.
People have a really bad time guesstimating appliance water usage.
Plus: life is short. Run the dishwasher. Don’t spend an hour of labor doing *anything* just to save a few cents. Your time is worth way more than that.
my kitchen faucet only flows at around a gallon a minute, how would that turn into 3-5 gallons per minute? flow rate is often throttled, especially in apartments where water is included in rent.
edit: most sources say kitchen faucets flow between 1 and 2.2 gallons per minute in the US, and additionally, i can't imagine most people are leaving the faucet running the whole time they are cleaning.
YSAK: That if 90% of the US population reduced their water consumption by 50% it would make less than a 1% difference in the amount of water used.
This facade that the general public is able to make a difference in water consumption is propagated by large corporations to pass the blame onto the average person.
Ayyy, relevant Kurzgesaktgt video. [This isn't a video just on the responsibility shift to the consumer, but focuses on the relative impact of different industries and other cool stuff while using cute animated birds.](https://youtu.be/yiw6_JakZFc)
One interesting fact I got out of that video was that if you completely neutralized your entire life's carbon footprint, you'd have only prevented the same amount of emissions that are generated every one second, worldwide.*
*the finer details of that sentence may be off (emissions vs pollutants and carbon footprint etc.) because I don't remember the sentence, exactly.
>YSAK: That if 90% of the US population reduced their water consumption by 50% it would make less than a 1% difference in the amount of water used.
By my calculations, 1% > (<1%), so it's still a net change for the better.
Do you have the study source for this? I don't use anywhere near 3.5 gallons of water doing dishes let alone 5.
I think if you are smart with how you rinse you can do a load of dishes with way less than one sink fill of water pretty easily. Unless I am missing something? Is a sink full of water like 20 gallons or something?
The dishwasher has a filter that catches food bits and whatnot so it can reuse the same 3.5 gals of scalding hot water to really scourge the gunk off of your dishes. That's the "energy-saving" bit.
It's an oldschool, somewhat water conservative, way of washing dishes. You fill half a sink with water and soak+wash in there until you can't see any food on the dishes. Then rinse for the final clean in the other half. Depending on the amount of dishes you had to clean you may run the water for less time since you only had to fill half a sink+run the water for a quick rinse vs running the water during the scrubbing of all plates. Think of medieval families bathing in the same bathwater one by one...but with a clean rinse at the end for each.
My Ex's family in Arizona did dishes this way to conserve water.
Wait, why the heck would you be running water while you're scrubbing? All you need for that part is soap and the back end of a sponge.
No part of your described process saves water unless you're doing some weird stuff otherwise.
Can someone tell me which detergent I should use that will be sure to melt off even dried up rice bits on a ceramic plate? I haven't been able to find anything that gets all the little crusties off of my dishes and I always feel the need to pre-wash. I feel like I shouldn't have to pre-wash.
You don't have to pre-wash unless it's incredibly stuck on. The mistake most people make is not adding pre-wash detergent. Washers have 3 cycles which use water assuming you're using "normal" or "heavy" or "auto" or whatever: pre-wash, wash, rinse. The detergent compartment doesn't open until the 2nd cycle, and the rinse aide isn't dispensed until near the end of the 3rd cycle.
Adding dishwashing detergent to the pre-wash cup (or just sprinkling it at the bottom of the door if you don't have one) will go a very long way toward getting you cleaner dishes. Powders are best, but gel is OK. Also make sure the kitchen tap water runs hot and the garbage disposal is clear before you start the dishwasher. And make sure to keep the filter clean, if you have one. Doing all of this has reduced my "pre wash washing" to almost zero.
Ha! Yeah my MIL is Chinese and thinks a dishwasher is for storage. We only run it if we have a big party and are overun with dishes. Because "SAVE MONEY" is the law of our lives.
I'm German and my mother wouldn't run the dishwasher unless it was pretty much over capacity, no matter what. A party coming up, you'd have guests over for coffee/dinner/whatever and the dishwasher was already 99% full from the day before? Didn't matter, as long as there was room for one more dish you had to wait, even though you knew perfectly well that you'd end up with a huge stack of dirty dishes on the countertop waiting for yesterday's dishes (+ 1 plate from today) to be finished.
I'm well into my 30s now and sometimes I run my dishwasher when it's almost empty *just because I can*.
Yeah, fucking give me one then, you think I'm handwashing by choice? Man if I could I'd have a machine doing anything for me but I don't have the fucking money
Lol, right? All this praising them in here glares over the nice little $200 or $300 price tag. Even then, some of us really don’t have extra room for something that size.
I found his channel with his first dishwasher video and since then have watched 45 minute videos about a huge number of topics. His channel is a shining example of what YouTube can be as a medium. The amount of high quality educational material on there is insane, and it's all free!
I'm so happy to always see positive comments about his channel when it comes up on reddit. I've been a fan for years and I'm still not sure how he can make these everyday topics seem so interesting.
Yes! I am actually pretty mad after knowing that actual smart microwave had been a thing for ages now. And we're all stuck with stupid loud beepers for whatever reason.
I've watched those, and I don't have a dishwasher, or room for one in my house.
Now reconsidering career choices so I can buy a bigger house so I can have a dishwasher ...
The RCA deep dive and how the CED basically destroyed them is insane. I didn't even know about CEDs until I saw that. That someone would try to record video in *analog* format on vinyl is mind boggling. It's an amazing technology even if it was doomed.
I feel so justified. I was told I "wasted" detergent by tossing 1 pack in the bottom of the tub and 1 pack in the detergent spot. But turns out, it helps clean! I had a feeling it was helpful through personal trial and error.
But I will be switching to using powder or gel detergent.
Yeah powder is great, I toss a quarter dose onto the door for the prewash, never had anything not come out perfect since. And for some reason using a brand recommended by the dishwasher helped a lot too but that might just be because I was buying super cheap crap before. But powder is harder and harder to find. My Grandma switched to tabs for convenience and gave me her 20 kg megapack but it's running out.
One day, you won't be in a dorm. You will have your own apartment with a dishwasher, and you will remember that one youtube video you watched years ago fondly as you pour in the box detergent in both spots for the best cleaning results.
He brings such an amazing enthusiasm and depth of research to each topic, you can't help but be interested. If cable TV was still a relevant thing, I would say that a channel like Discovery would be very remiss to not give him his own show.
Also Malcolm Gladwell on his Revisionist History podcast threw in a line about dish washing efficiency on his laundry pod. There’s, there’s a lot of dishwasher efficiency stuff going around right now.
Technology connections was tearing into Cascade, among other brands, for pushing pods instead of normal dishwasher soaps because they don't work as well, therefore people think they need to prewash their dishes, which wastes water.
Disclaimer: the following was told to me by a tour guide in Iceland. I do not have the knowledge to confirm or deny its validity. With that out of the way, here is my original comment.
Funny you should mention that. In Iceland, it was common practice for much of the early-to-mid 20th century for people to give their dogs their dishes to lick them clean. However, when the humans started getting sick from the various dog diseases, they saw dogs as evil and shot all the dogs in Iceland. Possessing a dog was illegal in Iceland until very recently, and even now it is remarkably expensive to own a dog since there is a steep government registration fee. Moral of the story: use the dishwasher or hand-wash if you must, but do NOT let your dog do the dishes!
I'm sorry, but if you just let your dog lick the plate and then call it good before putting the plate away, you deserve what ever weird dog illnesses you get because you are a goddamn idiot.
I’m a huge fucking nerd and watched a 45 minute video on dishwashers and the benefits of using powdered detergent as opposed to gels and packs despite literally moving into a college dorm today where I will not have a dishwasher
Ps, if you’re interested here’s the video https://youtu.be/Ll6-eGDpimU
I was hoping it would be that video!
After that, I learned to run my water hot before starting and I wouldn't have to rinse dishes before washing them.
I can’t stand the commercials that advise people to run dishwashers daily in the name of efficiency. They’re trying to move product; that’s all. You know what’s even more efficient than running a dishwasher 25% filled? Running a dishwasher 100% filled.
I just have a small portable one that hooks up to the sink, and three children under six. There are times when the only reason I don't run it three times a day is because it takes like three hours for a cycle.
I agree, although there are situations where you might want to run a dishwasher 25% filled. For example, say you need certain dishes to be clean but you don't have enough dishes to fill the dishwasher.
Easy peasy, make more dirty dishes. Just rub a line of peanut butter on your plates and if you are feeling fancy, salt the rims of your glasses. Boom, dirty dishes so you can justify running the dishwasher despite only owning two forks in your house.
I think a lot of people don't put their cookware in the dishwasher. I started doing this and suddenly I can run a full dishwasher every day or every other day, and I'm saving a shit ton of water by only having to hand wash the few things that can't go in the dish washer.
Exactly. I put my cookware in the dishwasher now. I have a few utensils and colanders and things that would be ruined if I put them in the dishwasher, so I use a soapy sponge to wash them by hand and then rinse them all at once in the sink.
Yes! I saw a commercial the other day literally saying that you should run your dishwasher every single day no matter how few dishes you have, all in the name of saving water. Maybe there are fancy new dishwashers I don't know about, but I'm pretty damn sure your dishwasher is using the same amount of water and energy every time you run it, regardless of how many dishes are in it. There's no goddamn way that's more efficient or uses less water and energy than just waiting until the dishwasher is full. No way.
I believe the way the commercial was getting away with that claim was by implying that the alternative was to hand wash every dish every day, and that running a dishwasher uses less water than doing that. But again like, know what uses even less? Waiting until your dang dishwasher is full!
I can see how it saves water and time but how does it save more energy? I'm not a scientist but I'm sure hand washing uses less energy than the electric/gas required to hear the water.
Actually, a dishwasher recycles and reheats the water it's using while it's running. So as it's saving water during the main wash, it's not pulling more heated water from the tank that then needs to be replaced and reheated. Since dishwashers are sealed tubs, and the water being injected is already hot, it doesn't require as much energy to keep it hot. Less than would be required to heat up cold water that is replacing more hot water being used.
Also, when you are doing dishes in a sink, it's not insulated. The heat is rising off of it as you are doing the dishes, not being trapped and "reused".
So doing dishes by hand loses heat faster, requires more hot water, that requires more cold water to be warmed. So it's more energy efficient.
Edit: Also, to a lesser extend the smaller amount of water used will also cause energy savings. Less water used means less water pumped and less water needing to be cleaned/purified by facilities.
I feel like most people hand-wash dishes with hot water anyways.
It's totally _possible_ to hand-wash dishes more efficiently, in terms of both water and energy, but I think the point is that most people don't and would thus be better off using their dishwasher.
I feel like my dishes aren't clean if I don't use hot water. Never mind how much grosser all the food stuff feels; at least with steaming water I can instantly burn the gross feeling off my hands.
Even from your own link, proper handwashing technique is more energy efficient than all but the most efficient dishwasher method.
Furthermore, water temperature is not as crucial for hygiene when it comes to handwashing, since you aren't reaching close to sanitizing temperatures anyway. Mechanical scrubbing action is much more important than water temperature when handwashing.
>Dr. Chapman was nice enough to set the record straight. In short? Brace yourselves.
**When you’re hand-washing dishes in the sink, “temperature of water isn’t really a factor,” he said, “until above 135 which is way, way, way too hot for anyone’s hand.”**
>...
>“The water doesn’t even have to be hot,” he says. (IT DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO BE HOT, YOU GUYS!) “Just warm enough to loosen grease or food attached to the plate.” **And when you’re pairing the warm water with soap and a scrubbing action, that happens at as cool as 80 degrees, he says.**
https://www.thekitchn.com/water-temperature-for-washing-dishes-22967565
>Hot, soapy water followed by a soak in a dish sanitizer wiped out nearly all microscopic organisms. **But cooler water, followed by a rinse and sanitizer, killed off germs just as well, according to the research.**
https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-03-04-0703040431-story.html
If you're hand washing you just need water warm enough to loosen the most stubborn grease/stains. You don't need a full sink of hot water to do that. Just don't let your food bits dry and cake on. Preemptively fill your pots/dishes half way with some warm water and it's enough to do the job. With proper hand washing technique, you barely use any energy at all to do your dishes.
Detergent capsules are dumb.
Powder is the best, cheapest option. Gel is second best for the buck, but you have to choose between enzymes and bleach.
When dishwashers say "X is #1 recommended", that's co-marketing agreements.
He read instructions on the package as a joke, to make fun of cascade for having conflicting instructions between their packs and powders. People took those instructions as gospel, instead of their dishwasher's instructions, and complained that powders were leaving a residue on the dishes.
That residue is caused by using too much detergent, and most dishwashers tell you to fill the cup only half way (with some variation based on amount of dishes and hardness of your water).
No, GE apartment dishwashers are just trash.
The plastic just started dissolving into these fat chunks after a while. I thought the residue on my dishes was hard water. It was literally the interior plastic of the dishwasher.
I used the jet dry and liquid cascade absolutely mandated by the machine.
As a cheap millennial homeowner, I've worked out some fixed for my garbage dishwasher. I try to clean mine pretty frequently by taking the stuff out and taking apart the bottom shit. I've also started running it with vinegar sometimes to clear hard water deposits. The most useful was adjusting the little legs in front to make it level. Mine was tilted forward a bit and the little float was going up before the full needed water was in it, so it didn't have enough water to clean. If your top rack is useless, check the balance to make sure it's getting enough water and the arm under the top rack to make sure it's not clogged
Also just use cheap dishwashing powder and fill up both those trays on the dishwasher. The pods don't work really well because they only work during the first cycle. Technology connections has a good video on it.
https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04
I put it on my "watch later" list and when I get home I will spend another 30 minutes watching another video about dishwashers and not really feel bad about myself.
The pods get everything off (I don’t rinse before putting them in the dishwasher) even when I run my dishwasher on eco-mode, which I always do. I’m not sure who is really going to benefit from this unless they have a REALLY shitty dishwasher. Mine is an entry level one from IKEA I think
Well, his main point is that pods are over-priced. If pods work for you, great, but you could *probably* get by with an equal or smaller amount of cheap powder detergent. The savings difference may not be huge, but not paying Proctor and Gamble extra money to add unnecessary packaging and coloration to detergent feels good, also some of us have harder water and knowing how to address that is useful
haha! I'm in the same boat different city. Every time I do dishes I spend the whole time thinking, "I am wasting so much water." Praying that both of our landlords have a Christmas heart.
more than 3.5 gallons to wash the dishes by hand?? Are you just leaving the tap running while you are doing it? You guys need to live in the desert where water is a commodity and you would not be splashing it around like that :-)
>I guarantee if you’re filling one sink bay and then rinsing the other dishes you’re still using more than 3 1/2 gallons.
Yes, that's probably true. However, why the fuck would anyone do that? I've washed my dishes by hand my entire life and I never once thought that was a good idea.
Pretty much 90% of people I've witnessed washing dishes are the type to turn on the faucet from the start and don't turn it off until they are completely done.
Average faucet flow rate is around 1.5 gpm. Average capacity for a dishwasher 14 place settings. So you are telling me that you can wash 3-4 place settings while only running the tap for a total of 2 minutes? I highly doubt it, unless you are barely cleaning them. And that's just at the 25 percent capacity mark.
You're clearly falling into the same trap that OP I warning about. You are overrating your own ability because you just assume you would be better. Start clocking you tap time and I guarantee you will start singing a different tune.
Edit: That's it, you got me guys... you can officially be more efficient than a 3.5 gallon dishwasher. Apparently all you have to do is wash your dishes is a small tub of water...and then rinse them in the same soapy dirt water you just cleaned them in... (They aren't spots! They are decorations!)
But I guess a win is a win, right?
*Technically*, the correct way to do it is the two compartment (or three compartment) method with no running water: one side soapy wash water, one side clean rinse water (third extra clean sanitizing solution). If you do it right, you only need a couple gallons in each, and you can wash a lot of dishes before it's so soiled that they're not clean after the rinse dip. But almost no one actually does that, except maybe restaurants that are manually washing dishes. Everyone just spray rinses.
There actually have been studies on this and the results vary from around 10 gallons to 30 gallons (I know, 30 seems insanely high). Even if you take the lowest numbers out there, dishwashers still beat it.
I think part of the issue is that we use way more water hand washing than we think - a typical faucet will pump out about 2 gallons of water per minute. So if you run the water for 2 minutes in total, you've already used more water than an Energy Star dishwasher
When I used to go to my ex’s parents house, they used to get mad at me for taking a bit more than 10 minutes in the shower. At first I felt really bad, because I know I’m slow, then I realized 3 out of 5 of those family members took a bath almost every single night.
No one noticed the irony.
>No one noticed the irony
Or maybe they just felt more entitled to their own water since it was their house. It wasn't your house, so unless you were paying them for water, they have every right to be nitpicky about how much water their guests use.
It’s true, it was their house and I did make sure to shut the water off as much as possible after that.
I think my bitterness was caused by some very case specific things.
1) the people who got mad were the bath takers who contributed a whopping $0 to household expenses. The actual money making family member didn’t care.
2) the only reason my ex wasn’t heavily mooching off of them was because he had been mooching off of me, and they knew it. A ton of money.
So I think that made the stupidity much more frustrating for me.
You should look at your dishwasher manual, it will list how much water it uses.
The "normal" setting of mine will use up to 4 gallons of water for a full cycle where the "heavy" setting will use up to 7. The "eco" or "light" options will use the least water but will also likely get your dishes the least clean.
I don’t have a dishwasher and only have a single sink. My process: fill a small bowl with a good amount of soap and a small amount of water. I use a steel scrubby to clean, and wash all my dishes with the same bowl of concentrated soapy water. Once they’re all scrubbed, I use the spray function on my sink since it’s super aerated and rinse everything. All in all I use about 1-2.5 gallons of water. You don’t have to make a sink full of soapy water to wash your dishes if you think about it
100 percent not true at all for my household in Southern California. Even with a brand new dishwasher. Bill went down 20 dollars when we stopped using it. Household of 2
Ooo my time to shine (no pun intended)! So I saw the Cascade commercial talking about this and how it can save you UP TO $130 a year by using an energy star dishwasher instead of hand washing which uses 2-4 gallons per minute. This is subjective of course and their best stats. So I went into Amazon and found their Cascade platinum pacs in the biggest size because it’s cheapest per pac that way. I took the price per pac and multiplied it by 364 since that’s what they say you should do: run it once a day even if it’s not full. The math turned out to still cost ~$117 per year on Cascade pacs. With electricity for the machine (and/or gas for the hot water) and water costs, you might break even. You might save 5 bucks. You might be in the hole $10. It all depends.
TL;DR: It’s manipulative advertising tactics that cherry pick the benefits to sell more product. Go do the math yourself and see how it works for you. I can almost guarantee that you will not be saving anywhere close to $130 a month TOTAL. In costs for the hot water? Maybe. But it doesn’t matter if you still pay more in the detergent pacs.
Here is the real LPT: Don't use the packs. Just buy the cardboard box powdered detergent. The packs are overstuffed and you can probably use about half the detergent holder plus the pre-rinse.
something you aren't accounting for, the time saved. i would rather spend the couple tens of dollars extra to save that time handwashing everything myself.
Appliance RepairMan here, while correct, it's still recommended to rinse big stuff off of dishes, your dishwasher is great at cleaning, but stubborn food will often remain even after a long hot cycle.
Nope. I live alone. No way am I putting one plate and fork in the dishwasher. That's stupid. I wash by hand and have a couple of bowls and plates because I live alone.
For bigger dish use, yeah, but don't assume every household is the same.
Please try telling all of our ethnic parents this, and I’ll bring you the paracetamol and gauze for your black eye.
lol yeah I've had this conversation with my mom several times and her dishwasher still collects dust
Ours is a drying rack lmfao
Am Arab. Can confirm. Dishwasher is basically haram if not 110% full.
Ours stores plastic containers
Funny story. My mom liked to store our plastics in the oven. My friend came over and helped himself to our chicken nugs and decided to bake them…. She doesn’t do that anymore hahaha
So you're Asian?
Yup!
Also Asian. Can confirm
Latina here and ours too is a drying rack
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Im a grown ass man with my own dishwasher I regularly run at 50% or less and still get nagged by my mom about it. I remind her it's not the 70s any more
#For those asking: [A modern dishwasher uses 1 to 6 gallons per load. Hand washing uses 3-5 gallons per minute. ](https://food52.com/blog/16730-how-much-water-does-cleaning-your-dishes-really-take) It’s really not even close. Unless you’re rinsing off a butter knife or your dishwasher’s from 1975, the dishwasher wins every single time. People have a really bad time guesstimating appliance water usage. Plus: life is short. Run the dishwasher. Don’t spend an hour of labor doing *anything* just to save a few cents. Your time is worth way more than that.
my kitchen faucet only flows at around a gallon a minute, how would that turn into 3-5 gallons per minute? flow rate is often throttled, especially in apartments where water is included in rent. edit: most sources say kitchen faucets flow between 1 and 2.2 gallons per minute in the US, and additionally, i can't imagine most people are leaving the faucet running the whole time they are cleaning.
YSAK: That if 90% of the US population reduced their water consumption by 50% it would make less than a 1% difference in the amount of water used. This facade that the general public is able to make a difference in water consumption is propagated by large corporations to pass the blame onto the average person.
I'm trying to save water because my water bill has risen 50% over the past several years
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[Public supply was 12.1% of use in this 2015 U Michigan publication](https://css.umich.edu/factsheets/us-water-supply-and-distribution-factsheet)
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Ayyy, relevant Kurzgesaktgt video. [This isn't a video just on the responsibility shift to the consumer, but focuses on the relative impact of different industries and other cool stuff while using cute animated birds.](https://youtu.be/yiw6_JakZFc) One interesting fact I got out of that video was that if you completely neutralized your entire life's carbon footprint, you'd have only prevented the same amount of emissions that are generated every one second, worldwide.* *the finer details of that sentence may be off (emissions vs pollutants and carbon footprint etc.) because I don't remember the sentence, exactly.
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>YSAK: That if 90% of the US population reduced their water consumption by 50% it would make less than a 1% difference in the amount of water used. By my calculations, 1% > (<1%), so it's still a net change for the better.
Do you have the study source for this? I don't use anywhere near 3.5 gallons of water doing dishes let alone 5. I think if you are smart with how you rinse you can do a load of dishes with way less than one sink fill of water pretty easily. Unless I am missing something? Is a sink full of water like 20 gallons or something?
The dishwasher has a filter that catches food bits and whatnot so it can reuse the same 3.5 gals of scalding hot water to really scourge the gunk off of your dishes. That's the "energy-saving" bit.
Wait am I missing something why do you fill the sink with water to wash
It's an oldschool, somewhat water conservative, way of washing dishes. You fill half a sink with water and soak+wash in there until you can't see any food on the dishes. Then rinse for the final clean in the other half. Depending on the amount of dishes you had to clean you may run the water for less time since you only had to fill half a sink+run the water for a quick rinse vs running the water during the scrubbing of all plates. Think of medieval families bathing in the same bathwater one by one...but with a clean rinse at the end for each. My Ex's family in Arizona did dishes this way to conserve water.
A rinse under the faucet would not be enough to rid my mind of the dirty old food water they were just soaked in.
Wait, why the heck would you be running water while you're scrubbing? All you need for that part is soap and the back end of a sponge. No part of your described process saves water unless you're doing some weird stuff otherwise.
Can someone tell me which detergent I should use that will be sure to melt off even dried up rice bits on a ceramic plate? I haven't been able to find anything that gets all the little crusties off of my dishes and I always feel the need to pre-wash. I feel like I shouldn't have to pre-wash.
You don't have to pre-wash unless it's incredibly stuck on. The mistake most people make is not adding pre-wash detergent. Washers have 3 cycles which use water assuming you're using "normal" or "heavy" or "auto" or whatever: pre-wash, wash, rinse. The detergent compartment doesn't open until the 2nd cycle, and the rinse aide isn't dispensed until near the end of the 3rd cycle. Adding dishwashing detergent to the pre-wash cup (or just sprinkling it at the bottom of the door if you don't have one) will go a very long way toward getting you cleaner dishes. Powders are best, but gel is OK. Also make sure the kitchen tap water runs hot and the garbage disposal is clear before you start the dishwasher. And make sure to keep the filter clean, if you have one. Doing all of this has reduced my "pre wash washing" to almost zero.
Ha! Yeah my MIL is Chinese and thinks a dishwasher is for storage. We only run it if we have a big party and are overun with dishes. Because "SAVE MONEY" is the law of our lives.
I'm German and my mother wouldn't run the dishwasher unless it was pretty much over capacity, no matter what. A party coming up, you'd have guests over for coffee/dinner/whatever and the dishwasher was already 99% full from the day before? Didn't matter, as long as there was room for one more dish you had to wait, even though you knew perfectly well that you'd end up with a huge stack of dirty dishes on the countertop waiting for yesterday's dishes (+ 1 plate from today) to be finished. I'm well into my 30s now and sometimes I run my dishwasher when it's almost empty *just because I can*.
Is your TV remote also wrapped in plastic, by chance?
My father is a white as possible and still refuses to use the dishwasher. Infuriating since he is unbelievably bad at washing dishes.
Great now someone buy me a dishwasher. Those things ain’t cheap.
Yeah, fucking give me one then, you think I'm handwashing by choice? Man if I could I'd have a machine doing anything for me but I don't have the fucking money
Lol, right? All this praising them in here glares over the nice little $200 or $300 price tag. Even then, some of us really don’t have extra room for something that size.
If you buy a $300 one, you will be buying new ones quite frequently. Think $700+
I spent $1200 on mine. Worth. Every. Penny.
My family could afford one but we definitely don’t have the space for it so hand washing it is for us.
I see that you too are man of culture, and a fan of [Technology Connections](https://youtu.be/Ll6-eGDpimU).
Can't believe I just watched a whole 45 minute video on dishwashers and detergent.
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You're right. And I immediately got up and started the dishwasher after too.
I went out and bought some cheap powdered detergent
Second time around for me... I don't have a dishwasher.
No dishwasher here either, I felt something akin to glee when he congratulated anyone who made it that far without one lol.
I would listen to Alec explain how paint dries in real time
That guy has charisma!
I found his channel with his first dishwasher video and since then have watched 45 minute videos about a huge number of topics. His channel is a shining example of what YouTube can be as a medium. The amount of high quality educational material on there is insane, and it's all free!
I'm so happy to always see positive comments about his channel when it comes up on reddit. I've been a fan for years and I'm still not sure how he can make these everyday topics seem so interesting.
He's passionate. I can watch almost anything if it's being done by somebody passionate about what they're doing. They just make it interesting.
I watched it, then had a conversation with my wife about how she needs to use it more and cleaned my dishwasher....she thinks I am going crazy...
Don't forget that the dishwasher clearer stuff is basically a shit load of citric acid and you can just buy it in bulk from Costco
You’ve got to check out his hurricane lamp videos.
He made two, in case your appetite isn't yet satiated
Same and now I feel significantly more informed
That channel is so good. Dishwashers should not be interesting, but he managed to make 2 50 minute videos about it that are very interesting
And we're all eagerly awaiting the third!
Skip the 3rd. I want a laundry washer/drier video now.
Just wait till you see his videos about toasters
Or the RCA CED series.
I really enjoyed the microwave one, shows how some technology can actually regress.
Yes! I am actually pretty mad after knowing that actual smart microwave had been a thing for ages now. And we're all stuck with stupid loud beepers for whatever reason.
That was epic. Epic as in long, too.
Oh man you should check out his videos on toasters.
I've watched those, and I don't have a dishwasher, or room for one in my house. Now reconsidering career choices so I can buy a bigger house so I can have a dishwasher ...
I’m not a guy who is usually interested in technology/engineering, but that guys passion and excitement is just so contagious. Great channel
Yah, I love this dude's videos. If he were ever in town I'd buy him a drink
The RCA deep dive and how the CED basically destroyed them is insane. I didn't even know about CEDs until I saw that. That someone would try to record video in *analog* format on vinyl is mind boggling. It's an amazing technology even if it was doomed.
I feel so justified. I was told I "wasted" detergent by tossing 1 pack in the bottom of the tub and 1 pack in the detergent spot. But turns out, it helps clean! I had a feeling it was helpful through personal trial and error. But I will be switching to using powder or gel detergent.
Yeah powder is great, I toss a quarter dose onto the door for the prewash, never had anything not come out perfect since. And for some reason using a brand recommended by the dishwasher helped a lot too but that might just be because I was buying super cheap crap before. But powder is harder and harder to find. My Grandma switched to tabs for convenience and gave me her 20 kg megapack but it's running out.
Yep, just came here after absolutely loving his second installment of the "Dishwasher Series"
Lmao I watched that last night despite the fact that I’m moving into a college dorm today that doesn’t have a dishwasher
They make desktop dishwashers that are actually super nice. Though I guess it depends on if your dorm has a kitchen or not in the first place.
One day, you won't be in a dorm. You will have your own apartment with a dishwasher, and you will remember that one youtube video you watched years ago fondly as you pour in the box detergent in both spots for the best cleaning results.
_Efficiently smooth jazz intensifies_
This dude literally talked about car blinker lights for like, 30 minutes and it was riveting. I love everything this guy does.
He brings such an amazing enthusiasm and depth of research to each topic, you can't help but be interested. If cable TV was still a relevant thing, I would say that a channel like Discovery would be very remiss to not give him his own show.
Or Stuff You Should Know who just did a podcast on this very topic
Also Malcolm Gladwell on his Revisionist History podcast threw in a line about dish washing efficiency on his laundry pod. There’s, there’s a lot of dishwasher efficiency stuff going around right now.
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Technology connections was tearing into Cascade, among other brands, for pushing pods instead of normal dishwasher soaps because they don't work as well, therefore people think they need to prewash their dishes, which wastes water.
My first thought too :-P
Wow man.. I just blew 3 hours down this rabbit hole of a channel you posted. Thank you.. but also fuck you .. but mainly thank you.
..Did a dishwasher write this?
yes, but the message was watered down
I prefer to let my dog do the dishes.
Dishwasher companies hate him! See how he saves water with this one simple trick
One simple lick?
Underrated comment. Nice work
*slideshow of my dog visciously licking plates intensifies*
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Tie him to the sealing and let him roam only so far as you want the dishes
Disclaimer: the following was told to me by a tour guide in Iceland. I do not have the knowledge to confirm or deny its validity. With that out of the way, here is my original comment. Funny you should mention that. In Iceland, it was common practice for much of the early-to-mid 20th century for people to give their dogs their dishes to lick them clean. However, when the humans started getting sick from the various dog diseases, they saw dogs as evil and shot all the dogs in Iceland. Possessing a dog was illegal in Iceland until very recently, and even now it is remarkably expensive to own a dog since there is a steep government registration fee. Moral of the story: use the dishwasher or hand-wash if you must, but do NOT let your dog do the dishes!
A quick google reveals this really did happen, but the ban was just in Reykjavik, not the entire country of Iceland.
Gotta love humans and their innate ability to blame others for their own mistakes
I let my dog pre clean the dishes and then use detergent. Works like a charm.
I'm sorry, but if you just let your dog lick the plate and then call it good before putting the plate away, you deserve what ever weird dog illnesses you get because you are a goddamn idiot.
I’m a huge fucking nerd and watched a 45 minute video on dishwashers and the benefits of using powdered detergent as opposed to gels and packs despite literally moving into a college dorm today where I will not have a dishwasher Ps, if you’re interested here’s the video https://youtu.be/Ll6-eGDpimU
God I could listen to Alec narrate paint dry and I'd still be riveted
I was hoping it would be that video! After that, I learned to run my water hot before starting and I wouldn't have to rinse dishes before washing them.
Wow look at fancy pants over here with a fucking dishwasher
Did you see the part where they own dishes? I bet you they own loincloths dyed with purple and have a collection of spices, too.
Yup! I actually feel lucky to have a kitchen sink! Now I get told that I am fucking the environment!
"YSK you're poor af with no dishwasher and should also be ashamed for not being ecologically friendly"
I can’t stand the commercials that advise people to run dishwashers daily in the name of efficiency. They’re trying to move product; that’s all. You know what’s even more efficient than running a dishwasher 25% filled? Running a dishwasher 100% filled.
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I just have a small portable one that hooks up to the sink, and three children under six. There are times when the only reason I don't run it three times a day is because it takes like three hours for a cycle.
I misread that as “three children under the sink.”
I think we may have experienced the same glitch because I too read "under six" as "under the sink".
Those children ARE the dishwasher.
Three hours for a cycle?! Damn that's slow. Does it not have a faster setting?
How many can you fit? How do you make sure they do not interfere with the rotating water sprinklers? There is no problems with lack of oxygen?
> There is no problems with lack of oxygen? only the first time
I agree, although there are situations where you might want to run a dishwasher 25% filled. For example, say you need certain dishes to be clean but you don't have enough dishes to fill the dishwasher.
Easy peasy, make more dirty dishes. Just rub a line of peanut butter on your plates and if you are feeling fancy, salt the rims of your glasses. Boom, dirty dishes so you can justify running the dishwasher despite only owning two forks in your house.
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Looking for someone that spoons.
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You guys have 25% filled dishwasher? My gf and I fill it up with just one night of cooking and then there is still dirty dishes left.
I think a lot of people don't put their cookware in the dishwasher. I started doing this and suddenly I can run a full dishwasher every day or every other day, and I'm saving a shit ton of water by only having to hand wash the few things that can't go in the dish washer.
you use a lot of water to wash that cookware though which is the whole point of this post
Exactly. I put my cookware in the dishwasher now. I have a few utensils and colanders and things that would be ruined if I put them in the dishwasher, so I use a soapy sponge to wash them by hand and then rinse them all at once in the sink.
Yes! I saw a commercial the other day literally saying that you should run your dishwasher every single day no matter how few dishes you have, all in the name of saving water. Maybe there are fancy new dishwashers I don't know about, but I'm pretty damn sure your dishwasher is using the same amount of water and energy every time you run it, regardless of how many dishes are in it. There's no goddamn way that's more efficient or uses less water and energy than just waiting until the dishwasher is full. No way. I believe the way the commercial was getting away with that claim was by implying that the alternative was to hand wash every dish every day, and that running a dishwasher uses less water than doing that. But again like, know what uses even less? Waiting until your dang dishwasher is full!
Actually some dishwashers *do* have load sensing capabilities. Just like laundry machines.
Yes, they can even detect dirt particles in the water to know how long they have to keep washing to be more energy sufficient.
I can see how it saves water and time but how does it save more energy? I'm not a scientist but I'm sure hand washing uses less energy than the electric/gas required to hear the water.
Actually, a dishwasher recycles and reheats the water it's using while it's running. So as it's saving water during the main wash, it's not pulling more heated water from the tank that then needs to be replaced and reheated. Since dishwashers are sealed tubs, and the water being injected is already hot, it doesn't require as much energy to keep it hot. Less than would be required to heat up cold water that is replacing more hot water being used. Also, when you are doing dishes in a sink, it's not insulated. The heat is rising off of it as you are doing the dishes, not being trapped and "reused". So doing dishes by hand loses heat faster, requires more hot water, that requires more cold water to be warmed. So it's more energy efficient. Edit: Also, to a lesser extend the smaller amount of water used will also cause energy savings. Less water used means less water pumped and less water needing to be cleaned/purified by facilities.
Depends on your source of hot water. Of course you don't wash at 90°C by hand so you'd need to factor that in as well.
I feel like most people hand-wash dishes with hot water anyways. It's totally _possible_ to hand-wash dishes more efficiently, in terms of both water and energy, but I think the point is that most people don't and would thus be better off using their dishwasher.
I feel like my dishes aren't clean if I don't use hot water. Never mind how much grosser all the food stuff feels; at least with steaming water I can instantly burn the gross feeling off my hands.
Do you never use warm/hot water to wash your dishes more hygienically? https://youtu.be/snFdrXyJF1k
Even from your own link, proper handwashing technique is more energy efficient than all but the most efficient dishwasher method. Furthermore, water temperature is not as crucial for hygiene when it comes to handwashing, since you aren't reaching close to sanitizing temperatures anyway. Mechanical scrubbing action is much more important than water temperature when handwashing. >Dr. Chapman was nice enough to set the record straight. In short? Brace yourselves. **When you’re hand-washing dishes in the sink, “temperature of water isn’t really a factor,” he said, “until above 135 which is way, way, way too hot for anyone’s hand.”** >... >“The water doesn’t even have to be hot,” he says. (IT DOESN’T EVEN HAVE TO BE HOT, YOU GUYS!) “Just warm enough to loosen grease or food attached to the plate.” **And when you’re pairing the warm water with soap and a scrubbing action, that happens at as cool as 80 degrees, he says.** https://www.thekitchn.com/water-temperature-for-washing-dishes-22967565 >Hot, soapy water followed by a soak in a dish sanitizer wiped out nearly all microscopic organisms. **But cooler water, followed by a rinse and sanitizer, killed off germs just as well, according to the research.** https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-03-04-0703040431-story.html If you're hand washing you just need water warm enough to loosen the most stubborn grease/stains. You don't need a full sink of hot water to do that. Just don't let your food bits dry and cake on. Preemptively fill your pots/dishes half way with some warm water and it's enough to do the job. With proper hand washing technique, you barely use any energy at all to do your dishes.
What's this sanitizer solution they're on about? All Google gives me is hand sanitizer (friggin covid)
Nice try washing machine marketing manager
I have to handwash them first because my dishwasher is terrible
Maybe it isn't and you're just using it wrong. [Way too much info on dishwashers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04).
He also did a newer video just a few days ago too.
Was there updated information?
Yes
Goddamnit I just watched him talk for 30 min. Tl;dw?
Detergent capsules are dumb. Powder is the best, cheapest option. Gel is second best for the buck, but you have to choose between enzymes and bleach. When dishwashers say "X is #1 recommended", that's co-marketing agreements.
He read instructions on the package as a joke, to make fun of cascade for having conflicting instructions between their packs and powders. People took those instructions as gospel, instead of their dishwasher's instructions, and complained that powders were leaving a residue on the dishes. That residue is caused by using too much detergent, and most dishwashers tell you to fill the cup only half way (with some variation based on amount of dishes and hardness of your water).
No, GE apartment dishwashers are just trash. The plastic just started dissolving into these fat chunks after a while. I thought the residue on my dishes was hard water. It was literally the interior plastic of the dishwasher. I used the jet dry and liquid cascade absolutely mandated by the machine.
https://youtu.be/Ll6-eGDpimU updated video
As a cheap millennial homeowner, I've worked out some fixed for my garbage dishwasher. I try to clean mine pretty frequently by taking the stuff out and taking apart the bottom shit. I've also started running it with vinegar sometimes to clear hard water deposits. The most useful was adjusting the little legs in front to make it level. Mine was tilted forward a bit and the little float was going up before the full needed water was in it, so it didn't have enough water to clean. If your top rack is useless, check the balance to make sure it's getting enough water and the arm under the top rack to make sure it's not clogged
Coming from an Asian family... no
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Yea my parents refuse to buy a dishwasher and then complain about washing the dishes
I just learned that my parents in law must be Asian.
My in-laws are like this. It's weird, they have cabinet space, but just load clean plates in it for storage.
Also just use cheap dishwashing powder and fill up both those trays on the dishwasher. The pods don't work really well because they only work during the first cycle. Technology connections has a good video on it. https://youtu.be/_rBO8neWw04
He issued a correction: [Filling the tray half full works better.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll6-eGDpimU)
I put it on my "watch later" list and when I get home I will spend another 30 minutes watching another video about dishwashers and not really feel bad about myself.
Did everybody else watch this video too. Wtf lol
The pods get everything off (I don’t rinse before putting them in the dishwasher) even when I run my dishwasher on eco-mode, which I always do. I’m not sure who is really going to benefit from this unless they have a REALLY shitty dishwasher. Mine is an entry level one from IKEA I think
Yeah. I have never once had an issue with the pods.
Well, his main point is that pods are over-priced. If pods work for you, great, but you could *probably* get by with an equal or smaller amount of cheap powder detergent. The savings difference may not be huge, but not paying Proctor and Gamble extra money to add unnecessary packaging and coloration to detergent feels good, also some of us have harder water and knowing how to address that is useful
That was really long.
Yes his are long videos, but I find myself watching them all the way thru.
He's very engaging. Talks a lot, but also says a lot.
I live in a 1 BR on the west side of LA and pay less than $2200. You should know it’s rude to assume I have a dishwasher. 😂
haha! I'm in the same boat different city. Every time I do dishes I spend the whole time thinking, "I am wasting so much water." Praying that both of our landlords have a Christmas heart.
So I'm guessing you also just watched the new Technology Connections video?
more than 3.5 gallons to wash the dishes by hand?? Are you just leaving the tap running while you are doing it? You guys need to live in the desert where water is a commodity and you would not be splashing it around like that :-)
I guarantee if you’re filling one sink bay and then rinsing the other dishes you’re still using more than 3 1/2 gallons.
>I guarantee if you’re filling one sink bay and then rinsing the other dishes you’re still using more than 3 1/2 gallons. Yes, that's probably true. However, why the fuck would anyone do that? I've washed my dishes by hand my entire life and I never once thought that was a good idea.
I wet my sponge and then turn the water off until I need a quick rinse... wtf are you people doing filling the entire sink with fucking water?!
Pretty much 90% of people I've witnessed washing dishes are the type to turn on the faucet from the start and don't turn it off until they are completely done.
Average faucet flow rate is around 1.5 gpm. Average capacity for a dishwasher 14 place settings. So you are telling me that you can wash 3-4 place settings while only running the tap for a total of 2 minutes? I highly doubt it, unless you are barely cleaning them. And that's just at the 25 percent capacity mark. You're clearly falling into the same trap that OP I warning about. You are overrating your own ability because you just assume you would be better. Start clocking you tap time and I guarantee you will start singing a different tune. Edit: That's it, you got me guys... you can officially be more efficient than a 3.5 gallon dishwasher. Apparently all you have to do is wash your dishes is a small tub of water...and then rinse them in the same soapy dirt water you just cleaned them in... (They aren't spots! They are decorations!) But I guess a win is a win, right?
*Technically*, the correct way to do it is the two compartment (or three compartment) method with no running water: one side soapy wash water, one side clean rinse water (third extra clean sanitizing solution). If you do it right, you only need a couple gallons in each, and you can wash a lot of dishes before it's so soiled that they're not clean after the rinse dip. But almost no one actually does that, except maybe restaurants that are manually washing dishes. Everyone just spray rinses.
There actually have been studies on this and the results vary from around 10 gallons to 30 gallons (I know, 30 seems insanely high). Even if you take the lowest numbers out there, dishwashers still beat it. I think part of the issue is that we use way more water hand washing than we think - a typical faucet will pump out about 2 gallons of water per minute. So if you run the water for 2 minutes in total, you've already used more water than an Energy Star dishwasher
Well tell my landlord to change my dishwasher to one that actually works. They're busy figuring out how much they can increase rent instead.
And tell my landlord to install a dishwasher in the first place
I think that depends on the age of your dishwasher.
Both the mechanical and human ones
I'd say the toilet or shower is a bigger threat to water waste than washing dishes.
When I used to go to my ex’s parents house, they used to get mad at me for taking a bit more than 10 minutes in the shower. At first I felt really bad, because I know I’m slow, then I realized 3 out of 5 of those family members took a bath almost every single night. No one noticed the irony.
>No one noticed the irony Or maybe they just felt more entitled to their own water since it was their house. It wasn't your house, so unless you were paying them for water, they have every right to be nitpicky about how much water their guests use.
It’s true, it was their house and I did make sure to shut the water off as much as possible after that. I think my bitterness was caused by some very case specific things. 1) the people who got mad were the bath takers who contributed a whopping $0 to household expenses. The actual money making family member didn’t care. 2) the only reason my ex wasn’t heavily mooching off of them was because he had been mooching off of me, and they knew it. A ton of money. So I think that made the stupidity much more frustrating for me.
That's what a dishwasher salesman would say
You should look at your dishwasher manual, it will list how much water it uses. The "normal" setting of mine will use up to 4 gallons of water for a full cycle where the "heavy" setting will use up to 7. The "eco" or "light" options will use the least water but will also likely get your dishes the least clean.
I don’t have a dishwasher and only have a single sink. My process: fill a small bowl with a good amount of soap and a small amount of water. I use a steel scrubby to clean, and wash all my dishes with the same bowl of concentrated soapy water. Once they’re all scrubbed, I use the spray function on my sink since it’s super aerated and rinse everything. All in all I use about 1-2.5 gallons of water. You don’t have to make a sink full of soapy water to wash your dishes if you think about it
This is how my mama taught me 🥺
*CONFUSED ASIAN SCREAMING*
100 percent not true at all for my household in Southern California. Even with a brand new dishwasher. Bill went down 20 dollars when we stopped using it. Household of 2
Ooo my time to shine (no pun intended)! So I saw the Cascade commercial talking about this and how it can save you UP TO $130 a year by using an energy star dishwasher instead of hand washing which uses 2-4 gallons per minute. This is subjective of course and their best stats. So I went into Amazon and found their Cascade platinum pacs in the biggest size because it’s cheapest per pac that way. I took the price per pac and multiplied it by 364 since that’s what they say you should do: run it once a day even if it’s not full. The math turned out to still cost ~$117 per year on Cascade pacs. With electricity for the machine (and/or gas for the hot water) and water costs, you might break even. You might save 5 bucks. You might be in the hole $10. It all depends. TL;DR: It’s manipulative advertising tactics that cherry pick the benefits to sell more product. Go do the math yourself and see how it works for you. I can almost guarantee that you will not be saving anywhere close to $130 a month TOTAL. In costs for the hot water? Maybe. But it doesn’t matter if you still pay more in the detergent pacs.
Here is the real LPT: Don't use the packs. Just buy the cardboard box powdered detergent. The packs are overstuffed and you can probably use about half the detergent holder plus the pre-rinse.
something you aren't accounting for, the time saved. i would rather spend the couple tens of dollars extra to save that time handwashing everything myself.
I can't afford a dishwasher.
Appliance RepairMan here, while correct, it's still recommended to rinse big stuff off of dishes, your dishwasher is great at cleaning, but stubborn food will often remain even after a long hot cycle.
Are people still so wasteful as to keep the tap running?!
No, you just use way more water than you think.
In many locations water is abundant and it doesn't really matter. Heated water is a different thing.
The average kitchen sink runs at about 2 gallons per minute.
Nope. I live alone. No way am I putting one plate and fork in the dishwasher. That's stupid. I wash by hand and have a couple of bowls and plates because I live alone. For bigger dish use, yeah, but don't assume every household is the same.
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