Frivolous Poll: Dishwasher Habits

[Midpack]

DW and I are in different camps, how about youse?

 

[Koogie]

Poll ? I don't see no stinking poll...

: o )

My fingers were to fast...

voted.

 

[pb4uski]

I'm in between. I rinse and scrub them until they are clean if they will be sitting in the dishwasher for a while.... especially egg yolk. If I plan to run the diswasher straight away, I rinse or wipe off the big stuff.

 

[Jerry1]

I wouldn’t call it scrubbing until they are clean, but yes, we get all food off, primarily by rinsing.

DW and I have a disagreement about how often to run it. DW wants to fill it completely before running it. I’d pretty much run it every night unless it’s say about a quarter full or less. I see it as a never ending stream so sometimes it will be full and sometimes less than full, but if it’s half full and we have the grandkids over, then we can’t get all the current days dishes in.

 

[Dawg52]

Being a single person who does not cook much, I mostly wash what I use by hand. I have to remind myself to use the dishwasher every now and then just to make sure it still works.

 

[USGrant1962]

Quick rinse. Dishwasher and garbage disposal are two different devices.

 

[Winter]

I voted for the first option but really land somewhere between option one and option two. I rinse the dishes and scrub them if necessary. It also depends on how soon we are running the dishwasher...if it is going to be later then I make sure the dishes are cleaner when loading.

 

[Dtail]

Get the big stuff off, otherwise it won't come out clean.

 

[Lakedog]

Being a single person who does not cook much, I mostly wash what I use by hand. I have to remind myself to use the dishwasher every now and then just to make sure it still works.

+1
Before I sold my lake house a few years ago, I had not used my dishwasher for 6 years but it worked perfectly when the inspector put did a test run.

 

[ls99]

Depends. On the house guest load.


If a lot of dishes go in and will run right away, chuck them in as is.


If it will be a few days, rinse a bit.

 

[Chuckanut]

According to Consumer Reports, modern dish washers have a dirt sensor that controls how much washing goes on during the cycle. If one pre-cleans the dishes to much, the dirt sensors may think the dishes are cleaner than they really are and not do an adequate job of washing the dishes. So, they recommend scrapping off the big chunky stuff and letting the machine do all the rest. That saves you time and hot water.

Mostly, I often have several items that I don't put in the dishwasher so I just hand wash most things anyway. I try to run it 2 -3 times a month to keep the internals from freezing up.

 

[calico1597]

I just do a rinse, I run the machine about every other day, just the two of us. My cousin visited last year, would totally scrub each piece with Dawn then rinse before loading, drove me nuts. My son says his dishwasher will make a porkchop disappear!

 

[RunningBum]

Being a single person who does not cook much, I mostly wash what I use by hand. I have to remind myself to use the dishwasher every now and then just to make sure it still works.

It's a good idea. Mine locked up once after I was away for about 4 months. The tech said it was from lack of use and showed me how to free it myself if it happened again. It didn't.

 

[W2R]

Being a single person who does not cook much, I mostly wash what I use by hand. I have to remind myself to use the dishwasher every now and then just to make sure it still works.

Like you, I'm a single person who does not cook much. What I do is rinse off the dishes and let them accumulate in the dishwasher; then every week or two when enough accumulate, I run the dishwasher.

I have the (possibly mistaken) perception that running dishes through a dishwasher sterilizes them to some extent, and keeps one from catching as many colds as otherwise. Maybe, maybe not, but my late mother always said so and who am I to argue with the dead? Besides, hot water does no harm and they are shinier after going through the dishwasher.

 

[KB]

I scrub my dishes before putting in the dishwasher, but then I run it on the light dish setting. Since I was my dogs bowls in with my dishes, I want them all to be really clean. Then I air dry them.

 

[check6]

Who is the better stacker, DW or DH? My DW drives me nuts with the way she stacks the dishes. And I drive her nuts correcting her mistakes.

 

[Independent]

My wife washes the dishes with plain water and a paper towel before putting them into the dishwasher.
There is no visible food.
I always think that if she devoted an equal effort with soapy water and a dishcloth, she could dispense with the dishwasher.

I do the hand washing, but she has the same rule. Everything is "rinsed" to the point of no visible food before it goes into the dish pan.

And, yes, it bugs me.

 

[Texas Proud]

I'm in between. I rinse and scrub them until they are clean if they will be sitting in the dishwasher for a while.... especially egg yolk. If I plan to run the diswasher straight away, I rinse or wipe off the big stuff.

+1 on this...



Just had eggs this morning and when I was wiping the plate clean off all the egg I was thinking about those dishwasher commercials where they show a perfectly shiny pot that they did not rinse.... my thought was 'yea, let see them get dried egg yolk off without rinsing'....


BTW, I have put in a stainless steel pot just after making sauce and it came out 'dirty'... the food was gone, but there was still something that did not make it shiny... sometimes I just boil water in then to cook that off...

 

[Walt34]

I just scrape off the big chunks, DW rinses until they're spotless. There is no discernible difference in the results.

 

[LOL!]

My dishwasher instructions say it is a waste of water and energy to pre-rinse or wipe dishes, so I don't. I don't care how long they sit in the dishwasher before I run it either. I don't cook food that would leave big chunks though.

I imagine that most people have not even read the instructions to their dishwasher.

 

[Red Badger]

While I voted 3, DW is a strong 1. Why be a 1? When I run the DW (dishwasher), I set it to bulldozer mode. If a post inspection shows residual foodstuff, I hit 'em again.

DW could pretty much just skip the dishwasher and put 'em in the cupboards.

 

[aja8888]

I can't vote.

DW handles all the activities associated with dishes/silverware,cups, bowls, etc. I fix and maintain the cars and all other things electrical and mechanical. Works for us.

 

[jazz4cash]

My procedure is to remove the dishes DW has left soaking in the sink and load them after rearranging any dishes she has inadvertently mis loaded. Then I do a quick rinse and load. The machine runs every other day (3 in the house). The rinse is mainly to reduce any odor while waiting to be run. About 1 out of 50 loads an item will not come completely clean and it just gets rerun. Machine is > 18 yrs old and still works well.

 

[SheitlQueen]

I never use the dishwasher, I do everything by hand. Took forever to get the dishwasher full enough to run it, and the dishes I wanted to use would be unavailable if I stuck them in there.
When I did use it, I would rinse off the big chunks of stuff; no need to clean them past that.

 

[NYEXPAT]

I'm conflicted and chose the last one, because our "Dishwasher" does them by hand but I do not see what goes on after she brings them from the dining room?