7 ms·
Clearly some of these are life choices, and important ones which almost certainly make sense to you, but one thing; No dishwasher? I don't really understand t
by alexholehouse 14y ago
Clearly some of these are life choices, and important ones which almost certainly make sense to you, but one thing;
No dishwasher?
I don't really understand this. My dishwasher has a single wheel and a switch. The switch is "heated dry" [ON|OFF] and the wheel sets to one of three positions ("light wash", "normal wash", "medium wash"). If you're only washing dishes for one then I guess this makes sense, but I fail to grasp how an example of a bad dishwasher user interface is a barrier to all dishwashers (at least in terms of UI - clearly you may have environment reasons).
- mej10 14y agoYeah, mine literally just has a dial that is only used to turn it on and off. No buttons, switches, anything. You just turn the dial like 0.2cm and it turns on. I can't imagine being OK with wasting time washing dishes by hand.
- irishcoffee 14y agoIt's therapeutic, for me anyway.
- mej10 14y agoIt is funny that you describe it as therapeutic. I have several manual tasks that I would describe that way. Just not washing dishes. :)
- SkyMarshal 14y agoAfter coding all day, almost any manual labor will do. Washing dishes, mowing the lawn, helping a friend move, etc.
- joverholt 14y agoI agree, wife and I wash most of our dishes, she washes, I dry. It's a great time to let your mind wonder and think about problems. Mindless tasks like drying dishes and scooping the cat box give me a chance to actually think about things in a no pressure environment.
- jamesbritt 14y agoKind of like that for me. It takes ~10 minutes to prepare French press coffee, and since I can't really get too involved in anything away from the kitchen during this I find that I might as well wash whatever dishes are in the sink. My sink is right by the kitchen window and I can look out past our rose bushes and watch assorted wildlife gambol and frolic. (Mostly bunnies and birds.) Kind of idyllic I suppose if you ignore the all-same-look suburban houses. If there are a lot of dishes I'll wash certain things and load others into the dishwasher for later. But I sort of like washing dishes in my house.
- flatline 14y agoWe have a new kitchenaid dishwasher with a fairly simple control panel (8 buttons). We already had to have the mainboard replaced by the manufacturer. Unless your dishwasher is really old, even if it appears simple, it almost certainly is not.
- engtech 14y agoMy old Kitchenaid dishwasher had to have the mainboard replaced 4 times. One fix I found online was that if you have a hotter than normal water supply, the exhaust vent isn't big enough to let all of the steam out so the board gets wet. The service guy crimped the vent wider after I told him about that one.
- tripzilch 14y agoI really don't get what all my buttons are for. Well I know what they do, after reading the manual, just not why I'd want to use them, different varieties of partial dishwashing? I'm a single person household and I have no problem waiting 2-3 days until I have enough for the full program. So I only ever press the same two ("full program", "ON"). And it really should be just one: ON.
- drivingmenuts 14y agoNo dishwasher here, either. It takes 10 minutes, start to finish, to wash and put the dishes in the rack, if I've neglected to do them for a day or two. 15 total if I towel dry them. Yeah, the dishwasher would be more convenient, maybe, but doing it by hand is just plain faster and I don't have to multitask. Probably cheaper, too.
- icebraining 14y ago10 minutes? For how many people?
- julien_c 14y agoUsing a dishwasher actually saves water.
- thebigshane 14y agoI have a feeling this is the case as well. Can you cite any references?
- Too 14y agoLast spec i saw of a dishwasher was 10 liters / wash. But i think that's pretty low because they were bragging with it. Estimate how much you need by hand. Filling up the sink, 5-10L? And then rinsing it all afterwards, another 5 at least. Keep in mind that a dishwasher does about 4 meals while you usually do one at a time when you do by hand.
- run4yourlives 14y agoCall us when you have a family, Mr. ten-minutes. :)
- tesseractive 14y agoIndeed. Our dishwasher is DOA at the moment, and for a family of 4, keeping the dishes washed is an investment of several hours a week, spread out in some fashion or other. On the plus side, I agree that it's kind of therapeutic to do them. :)
- JoeAltmaier 14y agoMy latest dishwasher is 'energy star'. What that means is, every year they have to use 10% less energy and water. After the last 10 years, the dishwasher uses almost no enery nor water. And it doesn't get the dishes clean. And there's no way to override it. My water comes from a well. Its plentiful and free. Its pointless to save a gallon, and make me hand-wash half the dishes. </rant>
- gnaffle 14y agoI couldn't find anything to back up the claim that the appliances have to use 10% less energy and water each year. Do you have any documentation to back that up? You'd think this would show up in product reviews after a while? Doesn't you dishwasher have any adjustment to set the temperature or length of the cycle? What model do you have? My appliances are all "A" rated (EU energy label), but to get that rating for the dishwasher I have to use the "eco program", and I'd think there was something similar in the US?
- JoeAltmaier 14y agoYEah, that is not a supportable claim. Probably the appliance dealer was speaking colloquially. In any case the federal standard changes pretty regularly, resulting in an erratic dropping of electric consumption requirements. There are plenty of buttons on the washer (which is a user-interface nightmare of its own). Two help a little: 'Heavy Duty' and 'Extra Rinse'. Selecting both leaves the clothes smelling slightly less of sweat and dirt. And of course when the cycle completes, it turns off to save (miniscule) power. Turning it on results in the default settings again! Googling it, I see no hack to defeat the settings. Just a lot of talk about strange error codes and how to reset them. Sigh.
- gnaffle 14y agoOK, I'm curious what kind of model you have. Is it a top or front loaded? Mine (front loaded) has a pre-wash (2 hour program) or "soaking" mode for extra dirty clothes (4h), and I can select temperatures from 0-90 degrees celsius, but most clothes get clean at 40 degrees. I had to do an obscure button trick described in the user manual to have it remember the previous settings after a completed cycle, though.
- neutronicus 14y agoPersonally, I just don't like dishwashers. They don't seem to save any work - I still basically have to clean the dishes in order to precondition them for the dishwasher, and now they create this monumental chore (put everyone's dishes away) that all the dishwasher users are constantly trying to avoid and foist off on the other dishwasher users. No, thank you.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- emddudley 14y agoMy dishwasher does not require any rinsing. It has a built-in grinder for larger food particles that get washed off.
- efa 14y agoMy dishwasher also cleans beautifully with no rinsing (thought I usually rinse the big particles). Now drying is another thing all together. I usually have to hand dry dishes (especially plastic) when I take them out before putting them away.
- simon 14y agoWe get around that by opening the dishwasher a few inches as soon as it's finished its cycle. That way the steam escapes, and the heat in the unit finishes drying the dishes. Most of the water you see on the contents is steam that has re-condensed onto everything. Hope this helps. IIRC I saw an article on Popular Mechanics about this a few years ago and tried it and it works.
- efa 14y agoThanks, I'll give that a try!
- tripzilch 14y agoI do this too. I kinda always thought it's just part of how you operate a dishwasher :) First time I opened it right after its cycle, a huge cloud escapes, so it figures that otherwise it would condense, no? Another tip then, I don't just open it a few inches but all the way and pull out both racks. That way all the steam escapes within a few seconds and you can close up the dishwasher again. You do need a bit of ventilation but I just open my balcony door. And then, there's a few cups or glasses that have concave bottoms so they gather a bit of water. If you blow hard on them while everything is still hot, the drops will fly somewhere (it's just water), and those glasses will become fully dry thanks to the last bits of heat. Another tip. If you wrap it up real good so no soap can get to it, you can easily cook a piece of salmon in your dishwasher. It's not a great way (cooks too hot, for too long), but it does work and that's awesome. Another tip. If you got a compartment for a "shining agent", you can put a mix of white vinegar and ethanol in it. It works. Both of the substances easily evaporate in the heat so you won't get a vinegar smell or anything (unless you use balsamic--good luck with that). An expensive commercial shining agent might work even better, I never tried them. Yet another tip. Maybe you have a built-in water-softener whose ion-exchanger needs recharging by pouring dishwasher salt into another compartment. The only difference between table salt and this stuff is that the granules are big so it dissolves slower. So, buy big granules table salt instead (the stuff used in table salt grinders), which is much cheaper. Another other tip. You'll probably still do some cleaning by hand, when you need a specific utensil or something. If you use a plastic dishwasher brush, you can put that one in the dishwasher as well to clean it. I'm unsure why, but I find brushes to last a lot longer when I occasionally clean them in the dishwasher. If you can trust your dishwasher to not leave weird residue on your stuff, you can also use this method to clean plastic hair-combs every once in a while. A dishwasher really is a magical device. You can even put some lines of source code in the cutlery rack, and they'll come out with less bugs. True fact.