Manual wash or Dishwasher? Here's a money saving tip to use less water manually.

Diego_Francis wrote: »

Added a poll just for curiosity's sake. Personally I don't understand why the average homeowner needs a dishwasher. You're using electricity to heat up water as well as water from your mains so you essentially have a secondary boiler in your house specifically for washing dishes that don't always do a great job at actually cleaning them.

Lately I've been trying to reduce the amount of water used when manually washing the dishes, in a sink.

I've come up with this strategy that may be good practice for those of you who need to get your water bills down.

Grab your kettle, pop it under the tap, now run the hot water tap.
Touch the tap and wait till it's hot. Once it is. Turn the tap off. You shouldn't have filled the kettle, in theory, but this may vary depending on how efficient your boiler is.

Now pop your kettle back on its plynth, or hob if you have one of those types, and set it off boiling.

Now the tricky part.

Get all your cutlery, drop it into the sink. Push the plug into the sinkhole.

Now starting with the glasses first, scrub with a scourer sponge the glasses with fairy liquid, or similar detergent, I use Aldi's own.

Next scrub the dishes, plates or mugs that have the least 'dirt' on them. Keep scrubbing in this order, from least 'dirty' to the 'dirtiest'. Leave pots and pans last.

So far you'll have soapy dishes that are quite messy and partially dry.
Now turn your hot water tap back on, let it trickle.
Now rinse the items you've just scrubbed and pop them in the drainer.
The rinsed soapy water should collect in the sink barely submerging your cutlery.

Now scrub your cutlery using this water to help remove the tough stains and 'dirt'.

Take them out of the sink and place your pans or pots in, run the tap again, let it trickle, rinse your cutlery and pop it in the drainer. Turn the tap off again.

Now your kettle has boiled, pour some detergent into the pot/ pan, give it a light scrub, best to use a second scourer dedicated to this part only, then pour in some of your boiled water.

Leave to soak for a bit. When you return, lift the pans out of the sink, scrub them clean and rinse with cold water until the bulk of the suds have come off. Pop upsidedown in your sink to drain or on your drainer if you have room.

Empty your water.

Now I know it comes over that I've just told you how to wash dishes and I know you're not a person who sucks eggs. The reason why I wrote it this way to hopefully ignite a little spark in that lightbulb of yours.

You've probably just realised that this method uses far less water. So much less than running the tap to get it warm - cold water wasted until heated up.
So much less than filling a sink - usually too much water which gets dirty fast which is essentially a bath of slime that your coating your dishes with.
So much less water than a dishwasher with far better results.

'But you're using a kettle which is no more efficient than using the heater in a dishwasher' yeah in theory you're right, however, that kettle of water shouldn't be full and whatever you have left over you can make yourself a brew or prep some noodles. Can't do that with dishwasher water.

From my own experience I've found by being stringent with how much water I use for washing up, it's actually made me realise how much I used to waste all the time.

Now I have trouble getting the rest of the family on board with this. Mainly because it's so tedious and anal but the good news is now that I'm insisting on doing the dishes myself, the misses can keep her feet up after dinnertime now so win win.

I don't have any figures or statics for savings made. Only been doing this for a month but I believe I am saving already. I'm not using the boiler for as long to heat up my water. I'm not wasting litres of water. And I'm utilising what water is usually wasted for other things.

Bonus, if you don't have heavily stained items to wash and don't fancy a brew, keep the water in the kettle for the next time you need hot water or just pour it over your plants etc. The above is just one example of many possibilities.

Post a comment and let this community know what you think and if you've saved money with this method. Hope it's not too painstaking for you to accomplish and more importantly I hope you do get money back. :beer:

Diego_Francis wrote: »

Added a poll just for curiosity's sake. Personally I don't understand why the average homeowner needs a dishwasher.