Your Dishwasher Gets a Bad Rep – Don’t Believe It
Dishwashers are one of the most hard working appliances in your home. They work hard, day after day, and they ask for very little in return. You might think that because they’re so hardworking, and because they rarely break down or need repairs, that they must be easy to maintain. But you would be wrong. If you aren’t careful about maintenance, your dishwasher can become a breeding ground for bacteria and other unhealthy organisms which can contaminate your food not to mention your entire kitchen!
Regular Cleaning is a Must
Your dishwasher should be cleaned on a regular basis, just like any other appliance in your home. It’s easy to forget about this since it has its own separate door and isn’t visible when it isn’t running. But if you don’t clean your dishwasher on a regular basis, it’s likely to develop mildew or mold which will quickly spread throughout the rest of your kitchen.
Deep Cleaning is Essential
In addition to regular cleaning with an all-purpose cleaner or disinfectant spray, you should also deep clean your dishwasher at least once per year. This involves removing the racks and cleaning out all of the nooks and crannies
Your dishwasher gets a bad rap. Here are some things they don’t tell you about these hard-working appliances:
A dishwasher uses less water than hand-washing. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, it takes 27 gallons of water to wash dishes by hand, while using a dishwasher only requires 3 gallons. That’s because there is more control over the amount of water used per cycle, and faucet controls on newer models allow for even greater efficiency.
Dishwashers save you time. Yes, hand washing dishes can be meditative and give you something to do while waiting for pasta to boil. But so does not having to spend 30 minutes hand washing and drying dishes after dinner every night. By choosing to run the dishwasher instead, you can spend more time with your family or doing activities you enjoy.
Dishwashers use less energy than hand-washing when full and running an Energy Star model will cost less than 50 cents a month in electricity.
Dishwashers get your dishes cleaner than hand washing. You might think that a person can do a better job cleaning dishes than a machine, but tests have proven otherwise. The high temperature of the heated dry cycle on most dishwashers kills 99 percent of bacteria found on dishes
Dishwashers – Not So Bad
Are you tired of people complaining about the dishwasher? How it is just a waste of energy and water, how it is not sanitary and how it is just easier to wash the dishes by hand. Well, we are here today to tell you that this argument is just plain wrong.
First off, yes the dishwasher does use a lot of water, but so does washing dishes by hand. The average person uses over 27 gallons of water every time they wash their dishes by hand. In contrast, a new dishwasher uses around 3 gallons of water in an entire cycle. Also, newer dishwashers actually use less than older ones. In fact, newer dishwashers use half as much energy as the older models from only 20 years ago.
Also, new dishwashers do not even cost that much to run anyway! They cost around $24 a year in energy costs for an average sized family. How much do you spend on detergent alone in a year? It’s probably already more than $24 dollars! And don’t forget all of the time that you save by using your dishwasher instead of washing everything by hand yourself. That has got to be worth something too!
So next time someone complains
Dishwashers are the most misunderstood appliances. It’s not their fault, but they get the brunt of it. They’re the Rodney Dangerfield of appliances: they just don’t get any respect.
It’s not that surprising, really. They sit in the corner, under or over your counter, and do their thing with thankless anonymity. Unless you are one of those people who like to periodically clean out your dishwasher, you rarely think about it. You just open it up and stuff dishes in, slam the door shut, and turn it on.
And then you have to wait for it to finish. Or if it is still running when you are hungry enough to need a plate, you open it up and grab one and go on with your life (unaware that what you just did was probably a big mistake).
But when something goes wrong – say there is water left over at the end of the cycle – suddenly everyone knows about your dishwasher. It is embarrassing!
The thing is: most of the time when something goes wrong it isn’t your dishwasher’s fault. It’s yours. You didn’t load it right, or you didn’t use Rinse Aid (which you should always use), or maybe your drain hose isn’t
Dishwashers get a bad rap. They may not be perfect, but they are vastly superior to hand-washing dishes.
Think about it: When you wash dishes by hand, you’re essentially doing the same thing a dishwasher does, only slower and worse. You clean the dishes with soap and hot water, then rinse them with hot water. With a dishwasher, the only difference is that you don’t apply the soap or rinse manually. Everything else is the same; you even use hot water (or at least you should).
So if you’re washing your dishes by hand, please stop it immediately. Stop being so stubborn and old-fashioned. There’s no good reason not to use a dishwasher today. Modern machines have gotten quieter and more efficient.
The only case for hand-washing dishes is that it’s more time-consuming and thus less wasteful of water and energy than running the dishwasher. But in fact it’s not more efficient to wash by hand unless you’re dealing with a very small load–a few cups, say–and even then it’s not much more efficient. In any case I think this concern is overblown. The amount of energy used in a single load of dishes isn’t really worth worrying about compared to
It’s true that you can clean dishes with a sponge and soap, but it is not the most efficient way of cleaning dishes. A dishwasher cleans more thoroughly than hand washing and uses less water.
If you have a dishwasher, you should use it. That is the main message of this post.
I’ve worked for a number of years as a dishwasher. Although I have never had any formal training, I am very good at what I do. My love of dishwashers is not just because it is my job, but because this is the best way to clean dishes.
I have worked in many dishwashing facilities across the state, and they are all the same. There is a room with racks on wheels. The racks full of dirty dishes are rolled into the room and sprayed with hot soapy water. Then they are rinsed and put through a machine that dries them with heated air. This system cleans dishes better than any other method available today.
Because I have used both systems for many years, I am well qualified to tell you about their differences. Both methods use soap and some kind of mechanical action to get food off the dishes. Hand washing involves a lot of scrubbing with abrasive pads or brushes. This can scratch the dishware, especially if it is made from plastic or glass. Mechanized dishwashers use rotating sprayers that gently wash off food particles without damaging your dishes.
Hand washing uses much more water than a machine does, which causes concern among environmentalists who point out how wasteful it is to leave water