Do you have a dishwasher?

[TromboneAl]

I haven't done any research on it, but I've been wondering lately if a well packed dishwasher is better for the environment than washing by hand.

Yes, it is.

you can actually put dirty dishes in and the food comes off with very few exceptions.

There was an effective ad a few years ago in which a woman bakes and frosts a big chocolate layer cake, puts it on a plate, then puts it in the dishwasher. Completely disappears during washing. However, chocolate cakes are extremely water soluble, so it's not so surprising.

BTW, check out the ER Forum cookbook for a recipe for cooking salmon in your dishwasher.

 

[CyclingInvestor]

Never had one. I generally wash as I use them, and wash anything else while I cook dinner.

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

i had one in the condo for five years which i never used though i did wind up with a sink full of dirty dishes.

in the house when i redid the kitchen i installed a dishwasher that i use. only now i have a dishwasher full of clean dishes and a sink full of dirty ones.

edit: but my shelves are spotless (&, apparently, dishless).

 

[flipstress]

We have a 12-yr old dishwasher that came with the house, but it doesn't work, i.e., it leaves spots of food stains and powder detergent, so we haven't used it in the last 3 or 4 years. This is the first dishwasher I've ever owned, too.

I grew up with no running water but did not have to do dishes. Our live-in maids handled that task with multiple basins of water for rinsing.

Here in the US, with running water, I like washing dishes by hand. It's gratifying to see the results, the before-and-after difference.

We might buy a new dishwasher this year, or we may just put off the purchase again.

 

[ladelfina]

Have one, but it came with the house, is pretty old, doesn't work that great, and to top things off is in a separate room (through a door to an unheated area and down steps). It's great when we have company.. but if we ever re-do our kitchen and this unheated pantry, I would consider leaving it out. Most houses here have a big above-the-sink drainer cupboard which also serves as clean storage. We don't have that "luxury" so I continue to use the d/w. The drain/counter space next to the sink is only about 14" x 14"!

 

[podey]

I live in NYC where a dishwasher in an apt is a dream, so basically, I have never had one. It's just me, so as someone said higher up on the thread, it would take forever to fill and I would need the pots again before it got full and have to take them out and clean them by hand anyway.

 

[Eagle43]

Yep, in fact I just installed a new seal around the door to stop a leak. The trouble with the dishwasher is there's only two of us and we don't like to use it until it's full. Dishes sit in there a couple of days before they get washed, making them harder to clean. But, we do use it. Then, you get to put them up. Almost seems a waste of time for just two people.

 

[Martha]

i had one in the condo for five years which i never used though i did wind up with a sink full of dirty dishes.

in the house when i redid the kitchen i installed a dishwasher that i use. only now i have a dishwasher full of clean dishes and a sink full of dirty ones.

edit: but my shelves are spotless (&, apparently, dishless).

One of my non-LBYMs fantasies is to have two dishwashers, one for clean, one for dirty. Never have to put the dishes away.

 

[Tiger]

In the 32 years that my wife and I have been together I have been the dishwasher but our next house will have a mechanical one.

 

[happy2bretired]

One of my non-LBYMs fantasies is to have two dishwashers, one for clean, one for dirty. Never have to put the dishes away.

Sounds like the drawer type dishwashers with 2 drawers. That would be nice.

 

[free4now]

I have a hybrid approach: I use my dishwasher as a drying rack after I clean the dishes manually. This way all my dishes are always ready to go. When I need to use a dish, I take the handwashed dish out of the dishwasher. About once a week when it's full or when company is coming over I run the dishwasher so the dishes are super-spotless.

It's easier to just take the dish out of the dishwasher than to unload the dish into the cabinet and then later take it out of the cabinet.

The downside is that visitors always complain about there not being a drying rack on the countertop and offer to buy me one. In the small kitchens I've had, I've always prefered the counterspace over having a drying rack. But I recently broke down and bought my first drying rack mostly for visitors to use.

 

[Goonie]

Never had one at home.....most likely never will. I don't mind washing dishes the old fashioned way.....by hand. It never takes very long.

Back in the pre-ER days, actually several years pre-ER, I had a dishwasher in my laboratory. But I could get my lab-ware both washed AND disinfected faster by doing it by hand. So a few years ago I ripped out the dishwasher, heaved it into the dumpster, and installed a storage cabinet in it's place.

 

[free4now]

This thread inspired me to do a patent search for devices that automatically indicate whether the dishes are clean or dirty. There are a handful of inventions that look like they would work, but a web search doesn't show any actually in production.

Now that dishwashers are getting some "smarts" I betcha it won't be long before we see automatic "clean/dirty" indicators on luxury dishwashers. It's easy to reset the indicator to "clean" during the cleaning cycle. The hard part is figuring out when the clean dishes have been unloaded, to set it back to "dirty". Most of the inventions I saw do this by having sort of a lever that you set a dish on... when you remove the last dish it resets to "dirty". If I were a dishwasher manufacturer I might use a strain gauge to determine when the weight of the contents drops to the "empty" level.
Or for a zero-cost solution, just reset it to "dirty" whenever the door is opened for more than say 30 seconds.

I should have been an inventor. After I wrote that I found the 30 second idea has already been patented by Maytag in 1992, and that patent is referenced in LG's 2007 patent on a dishwasher door. So maybe we'll see this commercially soon!

 

[FIREd]

We have a dishwasher but never use it. Ever. It's only the two of us so it takes no time to wash the dishes by hand. We could use it when we have company for dinner, but our good china and silverware has to be washed by hand.

 

[Marquette]

I'm pretty sure I've seen these offered from several different manufacturers, but kitchen-aide was first on the google hit list.

Some of you might like the idea of a drawer dishwasher:

KitchenAid®: Find Drawer Dishwashers

or an in-sink dishwasher:

KitchenAid® brivaTM in-sink dishwasher

However, at those prices, I'm not sure it's tempting enough.

 

[mike hall]

We have had 3 or 4 over the last 30 years, but we jokingly call them the "dish-rinser", because it seems you need to at least partially hand wash the dishes before you put them in. Maybe we need lessons?

 

[lazygood4nothinbum]

One of my non-LBYMs fantasies is to have two dishwashers, one for clean, one for dirty. Never have to put the dishes away.

to which i have a lbym solution: a deep sink.

 

[Ronstar]

Have a dishwasher - last used it 3 years ago and it leaked bad. The wife wants a new one (stainless steel) with other appliances to match, and new cabinets while we're at it. I just want to fix the old one. Maybe I will one of these days.

 

[gandalf42]

A dishwasher came with the house..standard, cheap model. Died at 20+ years of age. Got a better grade replacement..has a sanitizer which is nice when there is a sicko in the house.

The DW still hand washes a lot of not-dishwasher-safe stuff. I told her if wasn't dishwasher safe to throw it out and simplify life. No go.

We have a massively mixed set of silverware some of which dates back to 2nd hand stuff we were given when we were married 35 years ago. I bought her a nice complete set for Christmas. She likes the new stuff..kept the old stuff too. Its all mixed together in the silverware drawer.

She's a frugal wife..probably helped a lot to my F.I.R.E.

 

[HFWR]

In the Midwest we had dishwarshers...

 

[gandalf42]

In the Midwest we had dishwarshers...

I was an early escapee from the Midwest and I still talk that way.

The only time I was ever corrected was by my sister yelling at me that there was no "R" in Washington.

She was a teacher by then. They must have done something terrible to her in college..shock treatment or hot pokers..to get her to start talking funny like that.

 

[Walt34]

In the Midwest we had dishwarshers...

I thought that was PA? A girlfriend in HS noted that I put an "r" in "warsh" - I must've picked it up from PA relatives since I grew up in MD.

 

[toofrugalformycat]

In the Midwest we had dishwarshers...

My father talked like that and he was raised in the Pacific NW! Maybe it's farmers - lots of Rs everywhere.

 

[prubin]

I wouldn't be without a dishwasher. A few years ago we replaced the noisy Kenmore that was in the house when we moved in with a Bosch. It is quiet and does a great job dishes that have been barely rinsed.

 

[Moemg]

I wouldn't be without a dishwasher. /quote]


Ditto !