Comments on: Which uses more water, a dishwasher or washing by hand?

By: Ru4reels

Ru4reels — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 17:01:55 +0000

Much Depends on whether the hand washer lets the water run the whole time or turns it on just to rinse?
Appliance salesmen usually wil figure the hand washer will let it run the whole time while leaving to answer the phone and well you get the picture.

Actually results like any statistic can vary highly and can be biasedly skewed to make anyone’s point.

I can wash up my wife’s and mines dishes in less than five minutes even letting the water run is less than running a dishwasher for a whole cycle after all its not just water your using but electricity as well.

By: WMUser

WMUser — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 17:15:42 +0000

I’d NEVER do without my dishwasher. As for dishwasher detergents being harmful, they should be kept out of reach of children just like all household cleaning products. I use Fairy Platinum tablets and I’ve not noticed any damage on anything. Delicate glassware should always be washed on the coolest programme and lead crystal glass is not dishwasher-proof. Anything that is valuable or irreplaceable should never be cleaned in the dishwasher.

As for baskets and tricky loading, I was lucky to discover my dishwasher has fold-down spikes and fold-down wavy glass supports before buying it, so I fold down the spikes or move up the glass supports when I don’t need them. It’s always worth checking your plate sizes will fit BEFORE buying and if the upper basket height is adjustable. If buying a dishwasher online, check to see if maximum plate diameter sizes are listed.

As for saving water, I use my dishwasher when it’s as full as possible and before owning one, I’d go through bowlfuls of water and replace the bowl of water when it discolours and the bubbles from the washing up liquid had gone. I sure used a lot more water when I washed up by hand!

Hope that helps.

By: Ian

Ian — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 17:04:28 +0000

I agree with Paul about older dishwashers being superior; our Smeg PL310 (I think) circa 1990 would run rings around our new Bosch SMI50M05GB. The only thing the Bosch does slightly better is the drying part and that is all. Also the basket was better designed on the Smeg and we had no problems arranging the dishes etc; the Bosch on the other hand is a pain to load and requires constant moving around, right up until the day of the wash (we wash every alternate day, Mon, Weds etc for two people). I’m think that maybe people who eat fresh food and do not drink alcohol, are not whom Bosch had in mind. I suspect that the basket was designed for customers that have lots of wine glasses and child sized dishes and plates.

Having said all that, it is good to have a dishwasher again after a six or seven year gap!

By: Paul

Paul — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 08:50:25 +0000

The chemicals used to achieve the same result in a dishwasher are awful. The water jets are a pale substitute for the abrasive action of your hand a scrubber. They chemicals are so corrosive they will eventually corrode your glassware and the glazes on your crockery. I used to work as a lab technician for P&G and i really would not recommend them. – That said washing dishes is the worst house hold chore. Though i would use citric acid to clean the machine (they had their’s for nearly over 10 years running several cycles a day; and the fancy fuzzy logic ones don’t clean half as reliably as the older standard ones). Washing by hand is far safer and washing up liquid is not cancerous as has been suggested. You would need to take a child to casualty if it had a dishwasher tablet but unlikely if it got a bit soap foam in its mouth.

By: Mrs F Osbaldeston

Mrs F Osbaldeston — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 11:35:36 +0000

Dishwashers are marvellous machines. They do a job that I dislike far more efficiently than I can and give me time to do more interesting things. One fact that no one seems to have mentioned is that breakages seem far less frequent. In my experience crockery and glass wear get broken during hand drying, by being dropped or simply coming apart. We hardly ever break anything now that it is all done by machine. True one has to load and empty them but one has to take washing up to the sink and put it away when it is done so what is the difference?
Anyone who has room and can afford one should get one.