Cost Of Running Dishwasher

klare_2

Hope I am posting this in the right place.
the other day I was chatting with a friend after i had been to tea. she has a dishwasher but only uses it on ' special occassions' , when they have had people around to dinner so have extra pots and pans etc. However they are a family of 5 , two adults and three semi grown up kids.

In our family we are two adults and two children, with two extra kids at the weekend . we use the dishwasher everyday without fail.

My friend said the reason they dont is because it is so expensive to run. Other than on special occassions they wash up themselves.

It just got me thinking about how much it really is costing us to run our dishwasher everyday in comparrisson to washing up by hand.:rolleyes:

Just to complicate the matter, we never have our water heating on as we have an electric shower, and when we need some hot water for wiping down work surfaces, we boil a kettle. ( never need more than one kettle full).

the dishwasher is less than 3 years old and was a really good one.
We currently pay about £60 a month on our electric with powergen ( yes I know we need to move)

Just got me wondering how much we could reduce our bills by each month if we stopped this practice.

justtoclarify_2

If you run your dishwasher full, don't pre-rinse and on average once a day, its no more expensive than washing by hand assuming you like to handwash with hot water. Your hand washing method will also have a bearing, but since I favour rinsing in hot running water. Plus dishwasgers use less water.

I think a few consumer organisations have run tests and found dishwashing with the above criteria no more expensive than handwashing. Since you would have to heat hot water specially to do the dishes, you are probably better off with your current arrangements.

hb1444

Basically, a dishwasher is better than washing up. In a family of seven, we can cram breakfast and lunch in there or tea and dinner. In your case, you could put all the dishes of the day in the dishwasher, but when there's six you can do what we do!


These methods save water a lot, I think that dishwashers are better, though we only use it sometimes!

Sujamjen

I love my dishwasher! Everything comes out spotless and the kitchen always looks tidy (dirty crocks are out of sight in the DW and no dishs drying on the drainingboard) I have a family of five and my gas & electric combined is £60 a month with Scottish power. DW and WM on every night throughout the year and tumbler on everynight from about Nov to March and everyone showers everyday.

cabra1

we have a dishwasher and I have often wondered
about the running costs.

My old Hotpoint used to take 55 mins
on a 55c wash/dry cycle

My newer Bosch takes a whopping 2 hours 35 mins
on the same cycle.

We have never used the pre wash either
I cannot see how my newer energy saving
AAA model is saving me electric over
my old 17 year old Hotpoint model as
it takes over twice as long to get
through the same cycle.

Can someone clever explain to me
where I am saving,if at all ? ? ?

LittleJo

Huh,
My shiny bult in Bosch does not even have a pre-wash.
it also take forever to wash.
Jo

Cardew

There has been plenty of posts stating tests show that a full dishwasher is more economical than washing by hand.

My Bosch has 3 programmes(leaving aside the rinse)

According to the handbook it uses 1.5kWh for all 3 programmes using cold water(say 15p) and 0.5-0.8kWh using hot water(60C) (say 5-8p)

It uses between 17 and 26 liters of water.

IMO if you can't afford to run a dishwasher, you should't buy something costing a couple of hundred pounds. - and in any case the difference between hand washing and a machine is marginal either way.

Anniek1969

Just bought my first dishwasher a couple of months ago, it's a bosch and has 4 wash settings. We're a family of 5 and go through a fair amount of dishes every day, I use it at night when the economy meter comes on, mine has a timer so I can set it before going to bed and get up in the morning and the dishes are all washed and dried. I use mine on the 35c quick wash, it takes about 30 mins and have never had to rewash anything. They come out much cleaner than I could get them by hand and I don't think that it costs any more than heating water to wash by hand.

Really couldn't live without it now, saves me so much time and the kitchen is tidier.

Gambler

our elec usage has decreased by 33% over the past 12 months. Only thing I can think of that is different is that we no longer use the dishwasher.

Found it a waste of time as nearly always had to handwash some of the items as they came out still dirty.

Also used to hate coming home from work and having to empty it.

Wee_Bargain_Hunter

I think that in theory dishwashers are great. Not sure about electricity but they definately save my energy! Also think they save water as per previous posts.

In practice though it's a bit different! I've recently got my first dishwasher & am a bit fed up with it. Not sure if it defective or if it's just dishwashers generally. Maybe someone can help?
On the plus side, I love the fact that there's no dishes lying around the kitchen & there's not much effort involved. Also love my shiny, good-as-new teapot. :j

However, theres a lot i'm not happy about. It takes forever - 3 hours. Mind you, i do everything on the hottest wash as that's the only one that cleans properly. (Even at that, it dosn't clean the porridge spoons properly). The plastics & non-stick stuff don't seem to dry properly. There seems to be an invisible residue left on dishes because when i run a glass of water to drink, the water froths up unless i rinse the glass a few times & I'm a bit worried about chemicals getting into our food! :eek: Help!

xxxdarlingxxx

How do you wash your hands in the loo if you have no hot water ?