Is there a real difference in water and electricity consumption? Personally, I don’t use a lot of water to wash my dishes (by hand), but maybe I should install a flow meter to make sure.
What is your opinion on the subject? Do you have any evidence or studies available that could confirm your intuition? Or do you have other alternatives in mind?
dishwasher. it uses way less water than even filling the sink once. it obviously uses more electricity than doing it by hand though. you gotta think about the value of the time saved as well.
Depends whether you wash in hot or cold water. If you use more hot water washing dishes by hand then it’ll consume more electricity too.
of course.
I use a dishwasher. Produce all my own power so that’s not a concern. Also on a treated well system so it really just makes more sense.
Generally wait until it’s full before I run it but yeah. Inefficiency is the enemy.
I used to wash by filling the sink till I met my wife - she always wet each item, scrubbed with soapy scrubber, and then rinsed. It’s a far better method!
That’s like the second most wasteful way of washing dishes, with the most wasteful being the same thing but not turning the tap off while scrubbing.
Well, presuming you have enough wares for a full wash. Filling the sink for just one plate would be unnecessary…
You can plug the sink and wash with your current tap method and see how many dishes it takes to fill the sink with water - that’s how many you need to collect to save water with the sink method.
That’s what I thought, so that’s what I did! Way less water than filling the sink. Way less. I will add though that I have a pretty big sink.
Cool! My sink was small enough that I’d fill it thrice while washing under the tap haha. Now I have a washing machine and won’t be going back.
I have 4 children. I would literally sell a kidney to buy a dishwasher, if I couldn’t afford one. Fuck washing dishes by hand. Anyone who doesn’t agree with me is either brain damaged or a masochist.
Or east asian
Yes, I already mentioned masochism.
Dishwasher. I’ve done hand washing and dishwashing depending on where I’m living each year. Dishwasher does a better job than me, uses less water than me, and saves me time. I run it at night and put away the dishes in the morning.
Everything into the dishwasher. Why would I waste my time with washing dishes. Dishwashers are more efficient and often more hygienic because of higher temperatures and optimized wash and rinse cycles. I put everything in there, even the stuff that doesn’t belong. Apart from my good knives. I hate washing by hand…
One tip though: if your machine is connected to hot water. Let the hot water on the tap run until the water is hot. This helps the machine get a better cleaning result.
Wouldn’t the first batch of lukewarm water just be used for the prewash/rinse cycle? So it doesn’t matter if it’s fully hot yet or not.
Oh boy do I have a video for you. This guy has done a whole series on dishwashers and how to get the most out of them. Highly recommend them.
Thanks, I was wondering what to waste my weekend on this time around!
It’s not entirely waste if you learn something!
Yeah true!
Machine, except those items that cannot go in (mostly wood and good knives)
What am I, a caveman?
By hand. I don’t have a dishwasher. The place I rent didn’t come with one, and I don’t have the space for my own (plus no money). I think I’ve only ever met one person with a dishwasher, although I suppose I wouldn’t know if someone has one unless I either go to their house or they bring it up. I don’t see the issue with doing dishes by hand, and I pay a flat rate for water so water usage is not a concern to me.
Same, and even if I wanted to install a dishwasher for my rented place, there’s no water supply to connect it to so it would take some very serious work to be done
Here as well. We’re obviously not among those who put travelling down as a hobby.
Edit: though my water supply is no issue
Teeny tiny kitchen, I don’t have the space to put a dishwasher, not even a small one on the countertop.
I do it by hand because I rent a small 1 bedroom flat. Those don’t typically have dishwashers here.
My last place had one though, and what an absolute godsend. I’ll definitely get one when/if I ever buy my own place.
They make countertop dishwashers that connect to your sink, still better than washing by hand imo
I have read comparisons in the past. I don’t have them to hand, but the conclusion was that dishwashers were more efficient in terms of water use and energy. However, the type of hand-washing that it was being compared to was itself a very inefficient style of washing (tap running continuously? two full sinks for rinsing? I can’t recall, but not the way that we do).
So handwashing the way we do is probably more efficient but it seems that there isn’t THAT much in it either way, and given the time taken and that we cook from scratch almost all the time, we use a dishwasher for the vast bulk of stuff.
It’s not just hand washing like that. They have done comparisons with varieties of hand washing. Basically the only type of hand washing that saves water when done frugally is the three sink/basin method.
Both.
I tend to wash the larger stuff by hand so it’s not wasting so much space in the dishwasher.
Same. I’d be running like 3 cycles if I put pots and pans in there just to get everything through. Plus a fair amount of them can’t be run in the dishwasher anyways.
By hand.
One of my first jobs was a KP so I’m used to washing by hand.
Yes we had a dishwasher, had to prewash everything because it was so shit.
Also, never, ever put a chefs knives through the dishwasher.
I wash as I go when cooking because it’s much easier and you’re not left with a load of minging dirty dishes after a meal
Helps if you have allergies to food and ingredients too. Hot dishes rinse easily. It’s extra steps loading and unloading when you keep a drying rack and rinse your dishes as you go and immediately after eating.
An in-depth research from MiniuteFood.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SDfeLICMfNcBoth because the dishwasher in our apartment sucks ass and always leaves like 5 things that need to be redone by hand.
I have a dishwasher (came with the place). I don’t like it. I don’t think it does a very good job.
I use it as a dish drainer. That is to say, when I hand wash, I open the dishwasher, and I use its racks to air dry my washed dishes. I don’t even skip straight to the dry cycle, that’s a waste of electricity.
I would not own a dishwasher. I would throw it out if it were up to me and use the space for shelves to store more gear, like my slow cooker, toaster oven, air fryer, stand mixer, etc. when they are not in use.
Take a look at technology connections as videos if you haven’t already. The TLDR is that the type of soap you use matters a lot, whether the water is hot matters a lot, and using the pre-wash as intended matters a lot.
ha i was gonna make the same suggestion.
