[Closed] Getting older musings - Dishwashers - why?

unloading where you find out all the stuff you have to wash again

you loaded it wrong.

people dont take enough care with how they load. They leave things in the way of the spinner, they put "blocking" crockery that prevents water spray hitting the surface of the dish properly etc etc.

DW are great things. They use less water (and so less energy) than equivalent sink washing.

never had one and wouldn't know how to use one if I did

completely pointless

Grandad? Is that you?

I know how to use one, I know how to stack one. Maybe if they did use as much water as hand washing they might do as good a job.

There are so many cooking items which need physical action against the surface to clean them which a DW just can’t do.

Grandad? Is that you?

Yes it is - can you pop out and get me some Werthers? 😀

I'm with the OP on this. The one we have at work is rubbish, and no one loads it or unloads it. Why not wash your on things, is it that hard?

The same at home. Take 15-20 minutes to wash and dry, maybe longer after Christmas dinner. Are we all that busy we can't manage that?

They're great, when we had our kitchen done years ago, I insisted we get one. Come in from work late and knackered make and have dinner chuck it all in the dishwasher, who wants to mess around when a machine will do the job overnight? Presumably you do your laundry at the local stream to stick with your Luddite tendencies? 😉

Need to change your name OP..

”Oldrobdob”

HTHs.

bloody good for cleaning cassettes though

I have to rewash something maybe once a month.

Sounds like your friends had a crap dishwasher and/or didn't know how to stack it properly

I can sort of appreciate the original comments as yes they are not great at removing some areas of dirt and grime, but they were never intended to.

Baked on crap needs a scrub first, just as it would need a 'soak' or scrubbing if you were washing it by hand - thus not being just a regular rinse with a hot soapy cloth and left to rinse / pass to the dryer upper.

Dishwashers for me are a god send at the end of a family meal. Sunday lunch and load 4 servings worth in whilst we all do something else instead of spending half an hour slaving over a sink.

However they do seem to get misused somewhat through bad loading and not enough care over what is put in. So much so that on the 3 we've had so far in 20 years, I've always had to take them apart at some point and clean out the water plastic maze thing that gets crudded up.

Can count on 1 hand the number of items I’ve had to re-wash in the last year or so. Must have.

If I come in late the last thing I want to do is cook a meal, let alone wash up. Quick sandwich (one plate, one knife and a mug). Simple.

Maybe it's down to the type of tablet used ..?

Never too many problems in terms of the finished article being clean but we just accept that pans will need to be washed in the sink ..my biggest bug bear is the length of time it takes to get a full load prior to switching on and then worse still ..putting everything away ..

I could live without it ..

User error.

My wife insists on cleaning the plates before they go in.  I’ve given up arguing.

Lidl Ultra tablets voted top by Which FWIW., and cheap.

never had one and wouldn’t know how to use one if I did

completely pointless

I used to think like this, until I got one. Now I think they're brilliant. Its a magic cupboard isn't it? Dirt stuff goes in, clean stuff comes out.

Lidl Ultra tablets voted top by Which FWIW.

I thjnk they were the ones we were using.

I’m with the OP.

I wonder if I’ve had my mind made up by a bad first impression because my mum was an early adopter and the one we had in the 90s was crap.

I’d like fans to tell me if it’s different these days but.

Arrive in kitchen with armful of dirty dishes. Scrape each one into the food bin fair enough, but you also have to give them a quick rinse to remove bits of sauces etc because otherwise you’re done for.

Open dishwasher, because of their size the breakfast stuff will still be in there because it’s too big to justify washing them on their own, but equally not quite big enough to have the dinner things and breakfast things in at the same time. Rearrange 3 times till it all fits knowing full-well that a few things won’t clean properly because of they’re touching something else ‘because lazy’.

90 mins later it’s done and they’re ‘dry’ well they say dry but they’re not really, open door, full kitchen with clouds of steam that either smell of a slightly off cocktail of everything you’ve eaten that day or sickly  ‘lemon’ designed by someone whose only seen a lemon in pictures and guessed what it smelt like. Leave another 30 mins to dry again.

Remove all the dishes, separating the ones you missed a bit on the pre-rinse phase which now has dried food super heat treated and welded onto it. Put the 80% that are clean (but a bit smelly) away.

Add the 20% left to the sink along with any glasses (unless you don’t mind replacing them every other week) and let them soak overnight to try to free the dried food off.

Oh and then clean the filter.

I’ve had 3 over the last 20+ years and they’ve always seemed to be a lot of hard work to be lazy.

Wash as you go FTW!

Much more effective if you let a dog run a pre-wash cycle.

When you've got a family of 5, often eating differnet things at different times they work well - dirty stuff gets stacked in there, and stays there till it pops out clean.

Biggest issue is glasses getting properly cleaned and the odd thing that really needs attacking - but if it saves me 90% of the time spent at the sink whilst actin as additional crockery storage is worth the money. It's probably cheaper than a kitchen unit anyway 😀

The same at home. Take 15-20 minutes to wash and dry, maybe longer after Christmas dinner. Are we all that busy we can’t manage that?

With a family at least its 15-20 mins 3 times a day though. Also easier discipline to get the kids to stack directly (bar a bit of fussing on my part re: spoon tessellation)

Yes OP, if you have time to write that much about dishwashers just before 8am on a Monday morning, then you are old.

Reading this has made me realise that the detractors of Dishwashers must use these two words fairly constantly in their vocabulary..

"new"

&

"fangled"

Modern dishwasher beats hand washing for us.

For a start they can reach temps that you can't touch. Second drying on ours is awesome. Fast eco wash is 25 mins and works perfectly 95% of the time.

I've no interest in washing pots when i could be on to something else.

Like the guy above, once a month it may clean one pot imperfectly.

It's like getting on a cheap bike and saying they're all rubbish.

Do you hand wash your clothes?

meh, had one in the house as a kid, but I never got one when I moved out, have since bought two houses that came with them but we never used them, so in both houses after 3-6 months of ignoring them we removed them.

Wash up as you go along, quicker, easier and need less stuff 🙂

Things might change with a big family, but that's a different scenario, definitely not as useful as a washing machine or tumble dryer, and some people get by without them.

Slimline dishwasher for a one person household here and it's used every 24 hours, it's brilliant.  Saucepans tend to be done by hand.  I make both my own dishwasher powder and dishwasher cleaner.  In my other life with kids at home and considerably more cooking done it was a necessity.

I know how to use one, I know how to stack one. Maybe if they did use as much water as hand washing they might do as good a job.

Doesn't sound like it, or you wouldn't have issue with it not cleaning stuff, but no there not going to shift baked on stuff, but neither is washing them up by hand without soaking or investing so long in scrubbing, that soaking would have been a better option. I wouldn't be without one, as I'm not wasting my life washing up thanks, but if it make you happy to feel your better than they rest of us lazy ppl, go for it.

but you also have to give them a quick rinse to remove bits of sauces etc because otherwise you’re done for.

Nope, not in my experience. We got one when we had a new kitchen fitted, 2 years ago, I wasn't really bothered about getting one, but it's great, meant we could do away with the draining board too so more usable space on the worktop.

Small family of 3 here, and it gets filled and used once a day, usually put it on straight after dinner, then I unload and put away just before bed when her indoors is doing all those mad beauty routine things that women do every night. Did a shit load of cooking yesterday, all this weeks breakfast muffins made, wife made a pot of chilli, I made a chicken pie for tea and 2 days work lunches done as well, only thing I hand washed was the pie dish and the silicon muffin tray, I can handle that.

My only annoyance with it is that plastic tubs don't flash off the water the way plates etc do, so have to be dried, but everything else just gets put away. We use a fair amount of plastic tubs as well, 3 lunches a day, hey ho.

As said above, it's all about the stacking.

*goes off to start thread about pointless dropper posts*

I was with the OP (my grandmother had an old one, always seemed more trouble than it was worth when visiting) but more recently we inherited one in a house move and despite being initially sceptical, it is regularly useful. All the standard plates and cutlery go in and about once or twice a week it gets switched on (with a short initial rinse because stuff dries on). I still do the pots and pans and odds and ends but only occasionally rather than every meal or two and it saves a lot of effort.

I don't have one myself (live alone so not much point) but my parents have had them for 30+ years, they've always cleaned really well. All you need is a quick run under a tap if there's food still on the plate but certainly don't need to pre-wash stuff. I always used to argue with my brother over whose turn it was to empty it but in the scheme of things it def saves a lot of effort. As a kid I always liked sticking my face in the cloud of hot steam you get when you open it shortly after a wash, I guess I was easily amused though.

I imagine most workplace dishwashers are  budget models so maybe that's the issue (although the ones where I work seem OK and they'd def be the cheapest they could find...). Some lazy shites I work with though just leave their cups in the sink (someone put a funny poster up along the lines of dish-washing fairies do not exist but I think management took it down). Our security guard has the job of loading/unloading it (it's probably a welcome distraction from watching iPlayer :p ).

RobDob... Am I right in guessing you're Peter Poddy's brother, right?

DrP

Mostly agree. I don't have one (well apart from the other half obviously) but there's just the 2 of us in a smallish house and they take up so much room. I can see why a family with young kids and a nice big kitchen would have one though.

I agree there really is no need for one.

Washing up is a faff but not as much as a Dishwasher.

First you have to navigate the modes

Buy salt and keep it topped up

Buy tabs

Load it

wait about an hour

Unload it (possibly soaking you or the floor due to a cup being up the wrong way)

Washing up, bit of liquid, 10-15 mins of activity and its done and away.

I put folk who can't load a dishwasher in a way that avoids all the hassle in the same category as those who find Presta valves too fragile, can't fit a tyre and lack the coordination to operate a front mech.....

.... likely the first to be bitten come the zombie apocalypse.

but there’s just the 2 of us in a smallish house and they take up so much room

Got a half sized one, small compact and really useful, just load everything and set it going in the morning, done by the time I get home and dishes ready to use that evening, great for water bottles too, quick rinse of stuff under the tap as I pack it and it's away. No rewash no hassle.

so im the only one that arrives at the kitchen , scrapes most of the food scraps into the bin and lobs it in the dishwasher (packed correctly)

returns a couple hours later and its clean?

seems theres all sorts of rituals about pre cleaning and all sorts.... no need to be precious - it only has one job you just have to stack it right !

have had a dishwasher since 92 - the same one for nearly 20 of those years. - moved to a  rental house with no room for one and suffered the pain of washing dishes by hand for 2 years  - which is fine when its just two ... but a 3 course meal for 4 killed me and i vowed it would be the first thing id buy in our next house

its a thumbs up from me ,

Much more effective if you let a dog run a pre-wash cycle.

agreed. Both our dogs seem to think that the DW is some sort of vending machine.

Baked on crap needs a scrub first,

I find ours to be exceptional at dealing with this. When we moved into a house with a DW our glass casserole dishes suddenly became much shiner than we'd ever managed by hand. Ditto soot on the bottoms of pans.

so im the only one that arrives at the kitchen , scrapes most of the food scraps into the bin and lobs it in the dishwasher (packed correctly)

Nope, me too.

What's this filling it with salt caper? is this an English hard water thing???

35 minute eco wash here.

"Life's too short to spend washing up at the sink" said this dishwasher convert.

This thread needs a Hora to finish it off..

I put folk who can’t load a dishwasher in a way that avoids all the hassle in the same category as those who find Presta valves too fragile, can’t fit a tyre and lack the coordination to operate a front mech…..

Well I’m none of those, I’ve built and restored loads of bikes, restored the house I live in myself including fitting the kitchen and bathroom amongst hundreds of other things. I have internet controlled lighting and heating etc etc.

Im sorry but I’ve used 3 or 4 different dishwashers now and they are all the same - Bosch ones at work, other quality brands elsewhere. None of them got rid of baked on stuff or porridge bits, they ruin glasses and are generally crap even when they are loaded lightly. Lightly used plates and mugs are fine.

Ive also used commercial dishwashers a fair bit and that introduces another question - how come they only take 60 seconds to clean stuff and the home ones take 1-2 hours minimum?

Because they throw loads of water and power at the job - not realistic for domestic duties, but of course there's nothing stopping you getting one.