9 ms·

Dishwashers are usually much more water efficient than hand washing.

• sukilot 6y ago
  ...if you only wash a full load and your hand washing is extremely hot water with the faucet at max flow.
• shard 6y ago
  How does it balance out when electricity use is taken into account? Saving water might be better in water-poor locations, but saving electricity might be better in high-electric-rate locations. In water-poor locations, it might be more advantageous to use the gray water from hand washing for other uses, such as watering the lawn or flushing the toilet.
  • andechs 6y ago
    Most of the electricity usage is due to the drying cycle of the dishwasher. If you want to be super efficient, set your dishwasher to skip the drying cycle and either prop the door so that the dishes can drip dry, or hand dry the dishes coming out of the dishwasher. Generally, when hand washing dishes, hot water is used. Typically ~5-10 times more water is required when hand washing, which results in more water needing to be heated (and is less energy efficient as a result).
    • shard 6y ago
      > Generally, when hand washing dishes, hot water is used. Typically ~5-10 times more water is required when hand washing Ah, is that so? I've not had a hand washing experience where hot water was used, I thought everyone used cold water. Also, I'm surprised at the efficiency of the dishwasher. Do people leave the faucet running while they do dishes? What I do and typically see is an initial rinse, then water is off while scrubbing, then a rinse to remove the soap. I personally direct the water stream so that the same water passes over other dishes while I rinse the one in my hand, thus reducing the amount of rinsing needed for subsequent dishes.
• eigenvector 6y ago
  Sure, if you run the tap the entire time that you're hand-washing. But you can just fill the sink with water, plug it and wash many dishes with that water. I once worked with a guy who lived in a cabin without running water for most of his life. Needless to say, he was very efficient at hand washing dishes with very little water.
  • Ndymium 6y ago
    I did some quick calculations out of interest. It seems our sink fits about 25 liters of water. Let's say half of that volume is taken by dishes, so 12.5 liters. You need a second sink for rinsing unless you run the tap (which would be worse), so that's another 12.5 liters. From experience, you need to change the cleaning side's water at least once if you have as many dishes as a dishwasher would fit. So the total would be 37.5 liters. Now I checked on Bosch's website for a standard 60 cm size dishwasher and the water usage ranges from 9.5 liters (eco program) to 18 liters (most intensive/quick program). So the dishwasher wins by some margin. Personally I don't rinse most dishes before putting them in the dishwasher, mostly just remove any solid bits of food with a knife or similar. So I'm inclined to believe that in my usage the dishwasher is much more efficient.