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Washing up by hand ...
 

Washing up by hand , really that difficult? 🤔

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2 Stacking it on the drainer..never enough room, thing fall back in the sink, don’t stack properly, just a waste of time.

You need a better system - there’s a skill in stacking. My pile of washed pots is a work of art! 🤣🤣


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 10:01 pm
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I'm contemplating moving the washing machine into the bog, so we have space for a dishwasher.
I get eczema, so the detergent aggravates that. My hands don't fit in most marigolds and even then my hands still itch with the marigolds.
We generate a daft amount of washing up. OH thinks nothing of grating cheese into a bowl then putting the cheese on the food. Rather than just grating the cheese directly.
The other trick is chopping up chicken, then using a fresh board and knife to do the salad. Whereas if you do it the other way round, you don't need a separate board/knife.


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 10:02 pm
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I hate to think how nasty the chemicals must be

Yeah it's just a simple caustic chemical that dissolves grease. It's possible because you don't put your hands in it.

We've been putting ours on overnight to take advantage of cheap electricity. But this means not waiting til it's completely full of plates, so that means filling it with whatever needs a clean like grillpans and chopping boards that take up too much space in an otherwise full dishwasher. Consequently they all come out super clean which is lovely.


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 10:21 pm
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Wow, very definitely two camps here. A few of the comments prompted me to check ours out, it's so quiet that a light shines onto the kitchen floor to show that it's on and a beeper sounds to tell you that it's finished, ( that's the noise argument sorted). The spec sheet says that it uses 9.5 litres of water per wash in economy mode, we have a large family , it holds 14 place settings when full and I can't wash those in a bowl in 15 minutes or with only a couple of gallons of cold water and one tab of detergent no matter how I try. Drying our after dinner debris with tea towels would create an even bigger problem and bottleneck at the washer/dryer so that's another benefit. The energy rating doesn't look good however at 'E' , if I've read that right. Even so , all in all at our house it's a yes for the convenience, labour saving and environmental economy. Yay !


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 10:21 pm
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Just the pots and pans get handwashed here as it means the dishwasher will take 2 days worth of the small fiddly stuff that I really can't be bothered to wash and dry.

My wife thought it was frivolous at first so had to test my theory with one off Freecycle. It wasn't dead for long before I was told to get another.

FiL took one out of his new house as he seems against any technology his mother didn't have growing up with the exception of gas fires which are run so economically that you would have to lick it to know if it was on.


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 10:21 pm
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@mashr

Three meals all home cooked. Do want a menu? 😜

Ah go on then....

For breakfast we may have Porridge to start with followed by poached eggs on toast with fruit and yogurt to finish.

Lunch could be soup with a toasted cheese and pastrami croissant.

For our evening meal how about spicy Mexican chicken tortilla wraps with a mixed salad. Apple and rhubarb crumble with ice cream for dessert.

I'm starting to feel hungry again now 😅


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 10:27 pm
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why have a dishwasher and hand wash pans?   thats just weird


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 10:32 pm
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A dishwasher is the greatest thing I've ever purchased, I hate washing up with a passion so even avoid going on holiday somewhere without a dishwasher. I also dislike that you can almost certainly tell when someone doesn't own/use a dishwasher as their crockery is dirty.


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 10:34 pm
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I also dislike that you can almost certainly tell when someone doesn’t own/use a dishwasher as their crockery is dirty

Twaddle!


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 10:38 pm
 Aidy
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Is it that difficult? No - but neither's arithmetic, and I still use a calculator.


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 10:46 pm
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Without a dishwasher I would quickly slip into a world if unhappiness. Once I thought it has broken and I actually cried. Luckily the outflow had just frozen up.

It is more than I can handle to go to work and cook and wash dishes. I would live off toast if I didn’t have a dishwasher. It is rumoured that I am getting remarried just to deal with the things that don’t go in the dishwasher.


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 10:48 pm
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themuffinman - there is no doubt at all that my pots and pans are much cleaner than they were.  Crockery not so obvious


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 10:59 pm
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@tjagain decent non stick fry pan and mostly steamed veg means the pan washing isn't that bad and I'm pretty good at putting sauce pans to soak. Quick wash down and good to go again.

3 of us and a slimline dishwasher means this method just works for us as we get 2 days worth of eating in the machine. If circumstances were different I'd probably do something different.


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 11:01 pm
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Family of six, so dishwasher runs overnight

Every night


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 11:02 pm
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Even when we had one pots and pans never went in the dishwasher. Take up too much space.

And ours had nice wooden handles! 😀


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 11:04 pm
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Loathe washing up. Hateful job. Why I’ve never bought a dishwasher I’ll never understand. I seem to be perennially procrastinating doing the sodding pots.

I love my life but washing up and paying council tax should be banned.


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 11:24 pm
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If I had room I would have two dishwashers and create a routine where I took clean dishes out of one while I fill the other and rotate on a daily basis. I wouldn’t need cupboards.


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 11:34 pm
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why have a dishwasher and hand wash pans?

Because two pans take up the space of about 20 plates, or several dishes with baked on grease and crud. Hand washing saucepans that have only boiled veg, say, is trivial and much easier than washing the aforementioned stack of plates or oven dishes.

Usually the pans are in the dishwasher, but there's a calculation to be made when there's not room for everything.


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 11:40 pm
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Moved into a house with a Boshe dishwasher and didn't use it for few months as I never saw the need for one. But now I'm a fundamental evangelical dishwasher addict. Eat, put dishes it in a box come back and it's clean. Magic.


 
Posted : 01/12/2022 11:58 pm
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Apparently dishwashers are more environmentally friendly after a certain number of dishes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000zkzq?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 12:15 am
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It's not that washing up by hand's hard, it's that every time I finish, some bastard dirties up more dishes. It's a dishiyphusian task. And the logistics of "stuff to wash" "stuff that is drying" "sink is full and I want to do something else involving the sink" is just an absolute minefield.

Hands up anyone else that's drinking out of a flowerpot or something because all the mugs are inexplicably dirty


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 12:42 am
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Is this the new 'I don't own a tv'? It is, isn't it....


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 12:49 am
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If I had room I would have two dishwashers and create a routine where I took clean dishes out of one while I fill the other and rotate on a daily basis. I wouldn’t need cupboards.

There must be a cupboard where the dishes live now. If you put stuff from wherever your second dishwasher would live in there, now got the space for the second dishwasher.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 7:46 am
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With two adults (who work full-time) and two under 10s in the house life's too short to wash up the endless stream of stuff by hand.

I'd never had a dishwasher until my wife insisted a few years ago, now I'll never not have one 😆


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 7:54 am
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Is this the new ‘I don’t own a tv’? It is, isn’t it….

Yes it really is, see also tumble driers which during the winter are definitely the way to go.

Obviously a dish wash owner here, can clearly tell when glasses haven't been cleaned in the dishwasher. Only major drawback is the obvious inability of some people to stack them and using them half full on destroy the planet mode because there is one item in there that's needed (that's what the sink is for).Despite the dish washer we still have the it's just soaking in the sink issue until the water is cold and disgusting meaning you can't use the sink for other things but that's just user error rather than the fault of the dishwasher.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 8:20 am
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My mate insists hand washing is better for environment, so I looked it up. My dishwasher on eco uses 0.8kwh and 9 litres of water, albeit 3.5 hours.

A new miele is down to 7 litres and 0.7kwhr, not worth binning a perfectly good old one yet but they are getting better all the time.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 8:27 am
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We've just had the kitchen redone, and were washing up in the bathroom basin for about a month. That really made me appreciate my dishwasher!


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 8:29 am
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There's been a dishwasher in our kitchen (whether mine or my folks when I was a kid) pretty much my entire life - and I'm 57.

My folks got one in 1970 - Mum hated domestic work and when she went back to work after my little brother started nursery they bought one. Ordinary working folk. It wasn't until I was late teens that other folk started to get them.

It was also the first appliance I got when I bought my first flat, 1986, and I've had one ever since. I've also had cleaners for the majority of my life too, and still do (twice a week).

Do you folk without also use twin-tubs or is it a Mangle in the yard?

No one laid on their deathbed and wished they'd spent more time at the kitchen sink.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 8:31 am
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Yes it really is, see also tumble driers which during the winter are definitely the way to go.

I'd like to see the science behind this claim.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 8:35 am
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We fill a repurposed lobster pot with our dishes then lower it out of our living room window on a rope into the river Irwell for a few hours. Lasagna dishes etc take overnight


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 8:36 am
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Tumble driers on the other hand are the devils spawn


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 8:41 am
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When there's 5 of us (plus regular friends over), a dishwasher gets well used in the house.
When it's mrs_oab and I, we hand wash. We don't leave things to soak or pile up, other than a couple of coffee cups.
I find cleaning up is a nice time to whack some music on, pop the kettle on while I'm cleaning ready for a brew at the end.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 8:53 am
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There’s something of the loom-smashers about this thread… 😂

About 6 or 7 years ago our dishwasher packed in and on Christmas Eve, right in the middle of preparing 4 days worth of food for people we had over during the festive period. Could have cried? I think I probably did. What a total PITA. Although we had lots of willing volunteers Christmas lunch alone took an an hour and a half to wash up. What a total waste of time, that in the non Christmas period, I simply do not have! Hateful, hateful job.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 9:02 am
 hels
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I have never owned a dish washer and don't own a tumble dryer.

My kitchen is small and open plan and it would take a week to fill a dishwasher. If your dishes are cleaner in one than hand washing you were doing it wrong.

My parents in Enzed have one of the two drawer dishwashers, one can be filled while the other is washing which is handy when you have fed loads of guests.

I hate tumble dryers they are for lazy disorganized people, wreck your clothes and are noisy and wasteful. A washing line, hoist or clothes airer with dehumidifier works fine and keeps things in better condition.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 9:06 am
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Tumble-dryers are for lazy people…? Ha ha ha. How about a family, all doing different sports every day, plus school clothes, in winter… where on earth do you propose the 2 washes a day end up drying? We dry as much as we can in the house or on the line but living in the wintry pennies, outside drying is not practical (weeks of 100% RH) and there’s only so much space to dry stuff inside. Sadly, we do have to use the tumble-dryer a few times during the week.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 9:17 am
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Although we had lots of willing volunteers Christmas lunch alone took an an hour and a half to wash up. What a total waste of time, that in the non Christmas period, I simply do not have!

That time - that quiet washing up time on Xmas day is bliss. Gives me an excuse to leave the lounge and get away from everyone. 'You need a hand?', 'No, I'm fine thanks!' (Now sod off and leave me with my bottle of beer!) 🙂


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 9:18 am
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If your dishes are cleaner in one than hand washing you were doing it wrong.

There was a thread not so long ago that started a small international incident when I mentioned that I don't fill the sink and instead use a running tap, let's not go there again.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 9:22 am
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Washing up by hand?

Maybe sharp knives, some pans, and crystal glasses. For everything else there is the dishwasher. Dirty plates and cutlery go in, clean and dry plates and cutlery come out.

As essential as a machine to wash your clothes. Unless folks are advocating a return to coppers, wash dollies, and scrubbing boards?


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 9:23 am
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@the-mudffin-man TBH pal, I quite like my family. You’re not into canal fishing as well are you?


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 9:25 am
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I live alone, I don’t have enough stuff to run a dishwasher.L, I can’t afford to run a stock of Snow Peak Ti flasks (UK RRP £180!). I have autistic tendencies and have ‘favourite’ items (said flask, particular plates and cutlery). So I can’t really see how it wouldn’t work for me. I’m happy enough hand washing.

I remember one Mother’s Day us kids (4 in number) clubbed together to get one for my mum. She loved that. A family of six is a different can of worms though.

Had dishwashers in places I’ve lived but can’t say I’ve ever used one personally. When I didn’t live alone we had friends over and one of them, trying to be helpful, put some stuff in the dishwasher… it took me three months to find that out…

I am also not a fan of tumble driers. I live in the Highlands and managing to get my weekly laundry runs (esp. bedding) line dried is, well, challenging (and that is just me). My dehumidification is wiping the condensation off the windows of a morning. For a family though I can see the difficulties…

Oh, I also haven’t had a tv in well over a decade. Just so you all know that i am one of those


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 9:27 am
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We had a new kitchen 2 years ago. I wanted 2 (slimline) one dirty, other clean (effectively a cupboard). Mrs was not having it, no way. We’ve got one slimline and would not be without it. Still think 2 would be nice.

This. If I ever get to put a new kitchen in (I'm tight so unlikely), then I will have 2 dishwashers. Makes total sense.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 9:32 am
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@the-mudffin-man TBH pal, I quite like my family. You’re not into canal fishing as well are you?

No - but there's a few members of my family I'd gladly push into a canal! 🙂


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 9:32 am
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When I put in my kitchen, I kept the old dishwasher & plumbed it in where I had a space, so now have 2. For big family dinners and Xmas, it’s a godsend.

It’s cheaper to run a dishwasher than run the hot water for hand washing.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 9:46 am
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They cause more house fires that deep fat friers for instance-

By percentage or overall numbers? I’d guess there are a lot more houses with dishwashers that fryers.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 10:01 am
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No – but there’s a few members of my family I’d gladly push into a canal! 🙂

Ha ha, those ones don’t get an invite! My house my rules.


 
Posted : 02/12/2022 10:18 am
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