Eco-friendly money-saving dishwashers - minefield!

cathd6

I thought this would be an easy lunchtime decision *doh!*

Ancient fitted kitchen in bought-last-year house comes with ancient fitted dishwasher which besides being crap is costing us a fortune in water & making our solar panels work too hard

We live in the SW - hence the fortune in water.

We only fill the dishwasher every 2.5 days or so.

Plan was to buy a more efficient, but also smaller dishwasher, so that we could get our crockery back in the cupboards quicker and save £££.

It doesn't work like that though, does it? From quick comparison it seems that we would be better off buying a standard (eg. 12 place setting) dishwasher, as there are models available that beat the pants off any of the smaller ones in terms of water consumption, and very similar energy consumption.

So we would actually be better off getting a new 12 place dishwasher (eg Bosch SMS65E12GB) and not worrying too much if we don't always fill it? I appreciate that 1/2 load programmes are not necessarily a good option but if you're consuming 6.5 litres per load rather than 10 litres per load for 9 places, who cares if the 1/2 load adds anything or not?

Please don't hold back if I'm missing something obvious, really welcome any advice. Am I right in that it just doesn't agree with what common sense would otherwise dictate?

GordonGowk

Having never had a dishwasher of my own and having never managed to load my father's one to his standard of perfection, I would be interested to know what the attraction of dishwashers is?

They seem to cause access issues with the dishes and cutlery and finish tablets are £2.99 for about 16 tablets. My washing up liquid costs under £1.00 for umpteen loads of dishes and I'm never deprived of my necessities in the kitchen.

Furthermore, unless you have a huge kitchen, doesn't the dishwasher just deprive you of useful cupboard space?

I'm not trying to be difficult, I just don't see the attraction at all. WOuldn't it save more money to wash by hand?

Ben84

I think you might as well buy the bigger one if it uses less water and about the same energy per cycle. It would of course be best to fill it and use all the capacity from an environmental and economic perspective, but not always filling it compared to a slimline that cannot ever hold more isn't a major problem.

The energy/water cost per cycle for 9 places (full slimline or partially filled full size model) is still about the same and the times you do use the extra capacity in the full size one will bring down the average consumption over the year as you won't have to run it as often. Basically, to wash the same amount of plates over a year with two different size dishwashers that use about the same energy/water, you'll almost certainly use less with the bigger one.

Try to buy liquid or powder so you can dose for smaller amounts or less dirty loads. Detergent is one of the bigger costs of using the dishwasher and it's not very environmentally benign either.

Cardew

GordonGowk wrote: »

Having never had a dishwasher of my own and having never managed to load my father's one to his standard of perfection, I would be interested to know what the attraction of dishwashers is?

They seem to cause access issues with the dishes and cutlery and finish tablets are £2.99 for about 16 tablets. My washing up liquid costs under £1.00 for umpteen loads of dishes and I'm never deprived of my necessities in the kitchen.

Furthermore, unless you have a huge kitchen, doesn't the dishwasher just deprive you of useful cupboard space?

I'm not trying to be difficult, I just don't see the attraction at all. WOuldn't it save more money to wash by hand?

There are many studies that conclude that a full dishwasher is more economical than washing by hand.

Of course I suppose if you piled up all the dishes for a couple of days and then washed them in a litre of tepid water;) hand washing would be cheaper!!!

Surely the big advantage of dishwashers is the convenience of putting dishes out of sight and then washing them far better than hand washing - particularly glassware.

With reference to not stacking dishes to your Father's satisfaction, I can completely emphasise with him;) My wife and daughters can place 2 dinner plates at 45 degrees to each other so they occupy all the space in a rack for 12 plates:mad:

It is a family joke that I re-stack the dishwasher regularly. I cannot understand how 3 females with 9 degrees between them, do not appreciate where certain crockery and glasses fit best.

It must be a female’s lack of spatial awareness!!! Ducks for cover!

GordonGowk

. . . and over the years my family have given me so many of their glasses that they no longer wanted because the dishwasher made them cloudy! I just hate the way the dishes feel when they come out the dishwasher - like fingernails on a blackboard. I just have to be awkward sometimes - just can't help it!

NeverInDebt

Had a dishwasher on for 3 years never had any issues with cloudy glasses occasionally had to rewash things when it needed a clean with white vinegar on high temperature wash but thats rare. I dont buy expensive tablets either usually ones on offer at any time.

MikeyMacbeth

NeverInDebt wrote: »

Had a dishwasher on for 3 years never had any issues with cloudy glasses occasionally had to rewash things when it needed a clean with white vinegar on high temperature wash but thats rare. I dont buy expensive tablets either usually ones on offer at any time.

Yep that's me too:D

I always wait until I see them on offer then stock up big style.

That plus cutting the tab in 2 (a tip I picked up in the old-style forum here - thank you MSE!) so I'm only using half as many and always using the eco-wash programme (does just as good a job IMHO as long as you are washing more or less straight away so the food's not had chance to dry on).

To my mind dishwashers are worth it only when you have dishes from 3 or more people to wash up after so that it's reasonably full but not stacked to the limit. There's 4 adults in my house and my slimline integrated dishwasher (Baumatic BDW45.1) seems to cope ok - I find I may have to re-wash the occasional dish about once a week or so - usually because somebody (:() who always remains nameless has left a plate in their room for 3 days and decided to just dump it in the DW and I haven't noticed ...

I never do pots in the DW as I've never had great results - just plates, dishes, glasses and cutlery

Flibbertygibbet

NeverInDebt wrote: »

rewash things when it needed a clean with white vinegar on high temperature wash

Am I missing a trick here? do,you add vinegar to a wash to improve the performance or are you talking about giving an empty dishwasher a spring clean every year or so?

Peter_Pan

I have started using white vinegar instead of rinse aid and all seems well so far and thinking about trying a homemade recipe for the dishwasher detergent as well.

Debbie

savemoney

I use it too to clean the dishwasher just adding it into the machines cleans the machine out, I also clean filters ever now and then

Flibbertygibbet wrote: »

Am I missing a trick here? do,you add vinegar to a wash to improve the performance or are you talking about giving an empty dishwasher a spring clean every year or so?

Peter_Pan

If you google make your own rinse aid it comes up with white vinegar.


Debbie