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 for sure. Many years ago, I had a dishwashing job where I had to wash everything by hand, and that made me really appreciate dishwashers ever since.
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.
I use paper plates and bowls and throw that shit away. Depending on what I ate, I can get a couple uses out of them.
wow that’s super wasteful there, friend.
That’s life when you live in a vehicle.
I use the dishwasher for everything that can go in there, because I especially like the sanitization cycle.
When I worked at a summer camp, they had a commercial dishwasher that was amazing and could do a load / tray of dishes in about 45 seconds. But I don’t think this was particularly water saving. I could be wrong, but that was my favorite dishwasher ever.
Dishwashers are not a thing where I live.
I wash my dishes in at least two passes. First (optional) pass is to remove the gunk, no soap, as little water as possible. Second is to apply soap, with just enough water to wet the surface for the soap to work. Third pass is the rinse, and this is where most of the water consumption happens. I plug the sink, put the soapy dishes in the sink, and let the slightly soapy water from the current item fill it, making sure that the rest of the items consume as little water as possible even in this step.
I think for an after dinner washing for a family of four, I take around 10 minutes for the entire thing.
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.
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.
Handwash. I’ve only lived someone with a dishwasher once in my life.
Both because the dishwasher in our apartment sucks ass and always leaves like 5 things that need to be redone by hand.
Teeny tiny kitchen, I don’t have the space to put a dishwasher, not even a small one on the countertop.
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
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 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.
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!
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.
Really good quality cooking equipment always says it is not dishwasher safe. I don’t know how true that actually is, but washing stuff as you cook is definitely part of the process for me, so it is fine for me to hand wash.
For the record: I particularly like cooking, and bought a load of great quality cooking stuff that will last for life when I had money - I am not being a dickhead.
Depends on the type of equipment. Usually there’s a reason like there is a seam that you don’t want water pummeling constantly or with knives you don’t want them banging into other stuff and getting dull.
For a lot of good equipment in the sense of plates, food containers and stuff, the dishwasher is able to rinse at a much higher temperature than what hands can tolerate and will be able to get sanitized. So dishwashers are better in this sense as well if you want to sanitize your dishes without using a bleach rinse.
