Washing up in cold water to save money

Mnoee

@RHemmings

We have a small sink and dishwasher (on purpose) but use a £3 IKEA 'Rinnig' dish drainer for the few items we need to handwash. I had to Google the name and see Joseph Joseph do a similar one - works really well for us, might be an idea for the new house. 

FreeBear

chris_n said:

Grenage said:

Surely a kettle is much more expensive than a gas boiler?

That depends on how much water you have to heat to get hot water out of your tap. If the boiler is at the other end of the house it could be a considerable amount. It is possible that the heat left in the pipe afterwards is useful valuable heat but that depends on where the pipes run, if in the loft or under the ground floor then it's probably wasted.

For me, I have to run some 2 litres of cold before the hot water starts coming out of the tap. Then there is 6 litres of water in the combi boiler that needs heating up before anything comes out of the tap. Heating that lot to 60°C uses ~0.466KWh before you get anything out of the tap. Boiling 1.5l of water in a kettle, ~0.16KWh - Add a bit of cold to bring the temperature down.

RHemmings

Mnoee said:

@RHemmings

We have a small sink and dishwasher (on purpose) but use a £3 IKEA 'Rinnig' dish drainer for the few items we need to handwash. I had to Google the name and see Joseph Joseph do a similar one - works really well for us, might be an idea for the new house. 

Thanks. I had a look at my local John Lewis, and they had one like this:

https://www.johnlewis.com/joseph-joseph-extend-stainless-steel-dish-drainer-grey/p4315073?s_ppc=2dx_mixed_home_BAU&tmad=c&tmcampid=2&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAiAmZGrBhAnEiwAo9qHiW5LM65OtJqhxTz-Bg-XEJZEBUzEuM0EACu5bD0soCFpqG9HpxotHxoC5WUQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds

Which is Joseph Joseph. Quite pricey at £60, but I like the little drainer thing which can keep moisture off the wooden worktop. 

Amazon has the Rinnig, but it's £16. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ikea-RINNIG-kitchen-plate-hldr/dp/B0BW8X3GZR/ref=asc_df_B0BW8X3GZR/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=668006996793&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5838524565041554999&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9046182&hvtargid=pla-2387877479752&psc=1&mcid=2111f0e26d733432b25eada844a8c10e

It's quite likely that once I've moved in that I will add a few pieces of Ikea furniture. So, I may pick up a Rinnig at the same time. EDIT: Ah, here it is: https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/rinnig-dish-drainer-double-sided-10387261/

Returning to the general conversation, I like being sustainable and not using more resources than I need to. I will look into how I do things, but if I sometimes wash in cold water then I would feel right doing more frequent dishwashing in small batches. 

Bigphil1474

Water temperature doesn't make much difference from a 'safety' point of view, so long as you scrub hard. More personal comfort. Air drying is usually 'safer' than using a tea towel, unless you use a clean one every time. The washing up action and liquid will remove any bacteria, air drying is fine for bacteria, and using am older tea towel will probably add bacteria.

casper_gutman

FreeBear said:

chris_n said:

Grenage said:

Surely a kettle is much more expensive than a gas boiler?

That depends on how much water you have to heat to get hot water out of your tap. If the boiler is at the other end of the house it could be a considerable amount. It is possible that the heat left in the pipe afterwards is useful valuable heat but that depends on where the pipes run, if in the loft or under the ground floor then it's probably wasted.

For me, I have to run some 2 litres of cold before the hot water starts coming out of the tap. Then there is 6 litres of water in the combi boiler that needs heating up before anything comes out of the tap. Heating that lot to 60°C uses ~0.466KWh before you get anything out of the tap. Boiling 1.5l of water in a kettle, ~0.16KWh - Add a bit of cold to bring the temperature down.

So, about three times as much energy if using the gas boiler. And given that my gas costs about a quarter as much as electricity per kWh (7.5p vs 30p, off the top of my head), plus most of the extra energy will end up heating the house eventually (see comments above re. pipe routing), I'll stick with using the boiler.

I do, however, use cold water for any job which will be finished before I'd have had any hot water out of the tap!

FreeBear

casper_gutman said:

FreeBear said:

chris_n said:

Grenage said:

Surely a kettle is much more expensive than a gas boiler?

That depends on how much water you have to heat to get hot water out of your tap. If the boiler is at the other end of the house it could be a considerable amount. It is possible that the heat left in the pipe afterwards is useful valuable heat but that depends on where the pipes run, if in the loft or under the ground floor then it's probably wasted.

For me, I have to run some 2 litres of cold before the hot water starts coming out of the tap. Then there is 6 litres of water in the combi boiler that needs heating up before anything comes out of the tap. Heating that lot to 60°C uses ~0.466KWh before you get anything out of the tap. Boiling 1.5l of water in a kettle, ~0.16KWh - Add a bit of cold to bring the temperature down.

So, about three times as much energy if using the gas boiler. And given that my gas costs about a quarter as much as electricity per kWh (7.5p vs 30p, off the top of my head), plus most of the extra energy will end up heating the house eventually (see comments above re. pipe routing), I'll stick with using the boiler.

About half my DHW pipe is routed through the ceiling/floor void and in the service gap behind the kitchen units (pipes insulated). That 0.466KWh does not register on any of the temperature sensors dotted around the house, so adds zero to the heating.

RHemmings

I've continued doing experiments with this. Quite a lot of dishes, particularly glass I've noted, seems to come out quite well. Anything that's fatty including things with significant margarine doesn't wash up at all. It just creates a huge mess with the solid fat just spread around everywhere, and it took hot water from the kettle to solve it. 

Concerning the general (not just cold water) dishwashing advice for my forthcomming small kitchen, I found a thing that you can put on the work surface and then a dish drainer on top of it. It soaks up any drips and is supposed to protect the worksurface. It has soaked up the drips but now the pad or layer or whatever it is called is damp and I'll need to dry that. At least I can hang it up I suppose. It cost £3. I'm going to continue looking into this and other methods of working in my supposed (assuming I get to exchange) kitchen.