The Dishwasher Cost Kit

Know what every load really costs: a load priced from its label, each place setting in it, the loads your dishes really need, your own sink measured with the hot water priced, and whether a new machine would ever pay for itself

gDishWashers' calculators each answer one question, and on their own they leave gaps. The running cost calculator prices a cycle but never a dish, and takes cycles per week as a guess. The handwashing calculator compares water only, while most of what a sink of dishes costs is the energy to heat it. And the repair calculator says efficiency gains belong in the decision without pricing them. The Dishwasher Cost Kit puts the site's tools in the order a kitchen spends. It costs a load from its label: 240 kWh a year on 4 loads a week is 1.154 kWh, water heating included, so with 3.5 gallons and a pod an example load is 48.8 cents, half of it the pod. It divides the load by the place settings in it (4.1 cents full, 8.1 half), sets the loads a week from a week of dishes (5 full loads instead of 7 take an example year from $177.69 to $126.92), measures your sink with a gallon jug and a thermometer and prices every hot gallon (a 12-minute running tap costs 70.6 cents a day, 59% of it heating; two basins 17.3 cents), compares a year of the same dishes with a break-even (5.2 minutes of running tap in the example), prices the rinse before loading, and works the payback on a replacement: $950 installed saving $26.93 a year takes 35.3 years, so the repair decides. Every figure in the kit is computed by the site's own tools and stated physics from examples you replace with your own; the one regulatory figure cited is the US limit for new kitchen faucets, 2.2 gallons a minute at 60 psi. It quotes no study averages, recommends no brand, and makes no food-safety or sanitizing claims; it carries the safety basics (detergent pods locked away from children, dishwasher detergent only, the open door, knives point down, a qualified installer). Included: 7 steps, four printable working pages, a cost reference, a quickstart, and a personalised sheet worked from the figures you enter in the running cost, loading capacity, handwashing and repair calculators.

Look inside

Two full pages from the kit, exactly as printed. Click either to read it at full size before you decide.

What is in it

• The Label Rule: a load costed from the label's yearly kWh (water heating included), plus water and detergent
• The Full-Load Rule: what each place setting costs, full, three-quarters and half full
• The Dishes-Decide Rule: loads a week set by a week of dishes, not the calendar, and the year it saves
• The Measured-Sink Rule: your tap timed, three temperatures, and every hot gallon priced
• The Same-Dishes Rule: a year of the same dishes, machine against running tap and basins, with break-evens
• The Scrape Rule: the rinse before loading priced per load and per year
• The Payback Rule: a replacement's yearly saving and payback years beside the 50 percent repair rule
• Four working pages: a label card, a one-week dish log, the sink test and a keep, repair or replace sheet
• A cost reference (heating a gallon for three heaters, the electricity in a load) and a safety page
• A personalised sheet worked from the figures you enter in the running cost, loading capacity, handwashing and repair calculators

The kit picks up where the free Dishwasher Running Cost Calculator leaves off. The calculator prices one cycle; the kit costs a load from its label (water heating included), divides it by the place settings in it, sets the loads a week from your dishes with the Loading Capacity Calculator, measures your own sink and prices the hot water the Dishwasher vs Handwashing Calculator leaves out, and works the payback on a replacement beside the Repair or Replace Calculator. It makes no food-safety or sanitizing claims and recommends no brand. The worked figures are examples.