The Energy Star program, started in 1992 by the Environmental Protection Agency, is designed to help customers make informed decisions about their dishwashers. Since its inception, it has certified more than 17 million dishwashers. The EPA says it saves at least $15 billion a year on electricity bills and reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 2.8 billion pounds annually.

The program requires dishwashers to meet certain efficiency standards. This is what you want in your dishwasher;

* The dishwasher must be able to wash dishes and silverware with one cycle. (Many older models struggled with this.)

* The motor must be able to run continuously for an hour or longer without having to cool down (which requires large amounts of energy).

* You don’t want the water level to drop too low during the wash cycle (which uses more energy).

* You don’t want the water temperature to exceed 140 degrees Fahrenheit (which wastes energy).**

The Energy Star program also focuses on five other features:

* The door should open smoothly and stay open so that you can see inside easily. (This lets you know when dishes are done.)

* There shouldn’t be any noise from the motor or other parts of the machine that might cause you some discomfort in your

The dishwasher is the most efficient appliance in the house. If you use an electric oven and a microwave, you are using energy to heat and cook food that is then thrown away. If you use a dishwasher, the food is cleaned, dried, and put away.

Just as important as how much energy your dishwasher saves is how healthy it makes the food you wash. In this regard, Energy Star has become a controversial label for dishwashers. People who believe that setting a kitchen standard for energy efficiency destroys jobs and is bad for the environment like to claim that Energy Star means “low quality.”

This may be true of some dishes that are hard to clean thoroughly or that have a lot of food residue on them. But Energy Star dishwashers will clean all kinds of dishes: plates, bowls, and glasses made of china or plastic; enameled cast iron; stainless steel; even glass mugs with no handle. They will even handle dishes made out of old newspapers or foam mailers, if they are stacked in layers on top of one another and washed by hand first.

A dishwasher is a machine that gets you clean dishes. It is also a major consumer of energy, and therefore a crucial piece of equipment in the U.S. economy.

It turns out there are some things to look for when purchasing one, especially if you want to maximize your energy costs while at the same time getting good results.

First, the dishwasher you buy should be Energy Star certified. This means it meets certain minimum efficiency standards designed to protect the environment. You can find out whether or not your dishwasher is Energy Star certified by checking its label on the back of the door or under the dishwasher itself.

Second, pay attention to how much energy it consumes per load and per hour. What this tells you is what your money will go toward (the cost of running it) and how efficient it is (how much energy produces each cycle).

Third, pay attention to what type of energy source it uses: electricity, natural gas or propane? Which one gives you better bang for your buck?

I have a dishwasher. It was an Energy Star model. I considered buying another Energy Star model, but I decided that while I’m happy with the one I have, it wasn’t so efficient that I needed to buy another one just to save money.

With a decent dishwasher, you can wash dishes at a reasonable speed and save some energy by not running the water heater all the time. But not every dishwasher is well-designed, and there are easy ways for energy-efficient dishwashers to be less efficient.

I thought about writing an article about how the Energy Star requirements are not very good, but it’s tough to make a big point from that–whether Energy Star met its requirements doesn’t tell us much about what we should do in general. And there are other issues besides how well a dishwasher works.

I also thought about writing an article about how Energy Star ratings don’t imply quality; in fact, they might imply low quality. But this is also not very interesting–just look at the inspection reports on Energy Star dishwashers and you’ll see that many of them earned “poor” scores.

I think it’s safe to assume that most people don’t know much about dishwashers. And it’s even more surprising that they don’t know enough to ask whether they are right for them. Dishwashers are very efficient. But are they right for you?

Dishwashers have six key qualities that set them apart from other appliances. Each one has a slightly different function, but all of them work together to make your life easier and the electricity bill smaller.

1.Their wash cycles can be controlled by their users

More than half of the energy used by Americans is wasted. According to the Department of Energy, some 20 percent of the country’s electricity goes to space heating, lighting, and air conditioning. An article in Time magazine estimated that as much as a billion kilowatt-hours are lost every day because dishwashers are so inefficient.

The Energy Star program was created to help consumers make better-informed choices about their appliances. But even though Energy Star appliances get better ratings for efficiency than ordinary models, there was still no reason for most people to buy one over an ordinary model, and many buyers were surprised at how good they really work.

Now this is changing a little bit. I don’t know if it’s because they are more efficient or because they have better features that make them easier to use, but the new dishwashers look a lot like the old ones with the stainless steel countertops and black trim. The problem is that they cost more than ordinary models do, and you can’t always tell what you’re getting when you go into a store and see one or two in a row on display.

Compact dishwashers typically use about 20 percent less water than standard full-size models. They also use much less energy–1,000 to 1,200 kilowatt hours per year per machine, compared to 2,000 kilowatt hours for a full-size model.

You can save even more energy by using a dishwasher’s “eco-mode,” which extends the wash cycle and delivers hotter water.

Energy Star recommends that you look for the Energy Star label on the model you like. If it’s not on the appliance, call the manufacturer’s customer service department and ask whether it will be added in the near future.