apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I am glad to hear that a dishwasher is more efficient. I grew up in a house with no dishwasher and my guilt for being lazy creeps up everytime I plop in a dishwasher tablet, start the machine and then plop on the sofa. My husband has never not had a dishwasher and is a little creeped out by eating off of handwashed dishes. I think he thinks the dishwasher is an autoclave and disinfects better than handwashing.

I have had a basset hound actually break the dishwasher door while acting as the rinse cycle.

The dishwasher does disinfect better than handwashing.

I do both. I don't like to wash pots and pans in the dishwasher, and there are things I need washed every day (coffee maker parts and dog bowls). I make sure that the diswasher is good and full which generally happens when I have run out of plates, butter knives and spoons (never forks though). I'm glad it's not a total waste.

Also - I use a dish drainer. I used a towel for so long, but hated the counter space it took. I have a little chrome dish drainer in the second half of my sink and love it.

My mother has two dishwashers, which have been more than effective. Every apartment i've had never had dishwashers, which I think has something to do with my rent. (you know, the more expensive the apartment, you get a dishwasher)

Maybe it's that I've had crappy dishwashers in the past (the problems of renting), but I always feel that dishes come out cleaner when washed by hand.

A good water saving tip when washing dishes by hand: rinse all your silverware at once. Use a clean glass (maybe one you just washed) and after you give each utensil a good scrubbing, throw it in the glass until it can't hold anymore. Then run the water in the glass to rinse all the soup out. Prevents you from standing there with the water running while you rinse one spoon at a time :)

The article doesn't take into account the carbon footprint of the dishwasher itself. It takes resources and energy to make the dishwasher and ship it to the retailer and then to your home and then when it breaks down and needs to be disposed of, its not easily broken down and contains things like fiberglass insulation which aren't exactly environmentally friendly. Chances are, you are going to have a faucet, sink and water heater installed in your kitchen / house anyway so the dishwasher really is just an additional thing that is more of a luxury than a necessity. Installing an aerator on your faucet can reduce water use by a huge amount and there are several ways to address the heating issue. I grew up in a house that had a dishwasher and I did miss it once I moved out on my own into an apartment that didn't have one. Now, I'm totally used to it. I find my self not even bothering with a dishwasher if I'm at a house where their is one.

More on hand washing vs. dishwasher here: http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/ny/how-to/how-to-green-your-dishwasher-025703

I've never been lucky enough to have a dishwasher, alas.

For those of you who have no dishwasher, but do have a double sink, my grandmother's method is very efficient:
Fill one sink with sudsy water
Put a dishrack in sink two.
Wash dishes in sink one, and transfer to rack in sink two without rinsing.
When the rack is full, use the spray gun (you have to be lucky enough to have one of those, too) to spray down all the dishes in the rack.

I have only one sink, and rinsing each dish is what makes handwashing so water-intensive.

If I don't have to hear the words "carbon footprint," "carbon offset", "green" before every other noun or verb, anything starting with "eco" ever again, it will be an amazing feat of humanity overcoming the scared bull in the herd mentallity.

PS- I love my dishwaher and that my purchase of a quality product from a reputable company helped good folks earn a living.

Seaside: After years of neglect maybe the herd has turned to the other extreme. That said, I prefer it this way then the alternative: All the cows sitting blissfully ignorant in the SUVs.

I live in a country where recycling is as normal as brushing your teeth and nobody really talks about it anymore. Hopefully in a few years the US will be like that too. Untill then, I don't mind reading a few more articles about "how to be green".

As far as dishwaters go: use commen sense. Wash the big things by hand, and only run it when it's full. If you wash by hand, don't keep the water running for 10 minutes while you do the dishes.

I am lucky enough to have 2 basins and enough counter space for my drying rack in my rental, I don't use that much water at all, and I use the rinse water to water my plants in the end. My apartment did not come with a dishwasher, I'm ok with that.

Testify! Concur wholeheartedly with Seaside.

Whoever washed those dishes in the picture should do it again now that the dog just stamped his nose all over 'em.

:S

Concur wholeheartedly with Nina79.

I'm huge into the green thing. Like, huge. But I haaaate washing dishes by hand with a burning passion. I'd rather wash laundry by hand. So for me it doesn't matter which is greener. If I had to do them by hand, I'd get lazy and use a lot more paper plates, so the dishwasher is the only way to go.

I am a renter in Brooklyn and I really hate doing dishes. So, I have a narrow portable dishwasher. I had a counter-top one before my current portable (it worked great, BTW).
I do think dishes come out cleaner in a dishwasher, IF you use good detergent. I am currently using Biokleen which is great. Before I went green, I used Cascade Complete.

I have seen lots of people hand wash dishes and there is still food or grease smudges on the dishes. Some people think that barely wiping with a sponge makes it clean.

I hate it when you are helping someone do dishes, and you hand the not-quite-clean ones back to them to redo, and they give you a look like "whats wrong with it?..."
ew. and I am not a clean freak by any means.

Just moved into an apartment last summer with a dishwasher. I tried to use it, but it would take days to fill it up, so I would have to rinse the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. So I figured while I was rinsing them, I might as well wash them.

apdesigngirl, I'm a Brooklyn renter, also. Maybe I'll check into a portable one.

Sorry but I don't buy the years of human neglect argument. It doesn't hold water seeing as how there have always been countless actors for millions of years that have contributed to the change of the planet. And it will keep happening with or without us.

So yes are we part of the problem? Yes. But one of many many parts that are far more significant than we could ever be.

So don't think that the cows in the SUVs aren't having a good chuckle as the lemmings ride their bikes over the cliff.

After not having a dishwasher for years (thanks, school and tiny 1920s condo), it is SO NICE to have a dishwasher again. Some people may find hand washing relaxing, but for me it's nothing but a pain.

How I longed for a dishwasher when I was younger, but we are now getting rid of ours! We discovered we don't mind washing dishes so much.

Our experience has been the same as soundfreak's. Our water is super hot and we feel that the dishes come out just as clean with hand washing.


A friend has the new, 2-drawer kind, though, and she loves it.

I also hate doing dishes and desperately want a dishwasher. I've looked into the small, countertop dishwashers such as the one here and wonder how they perform.

I grew up with a dishwasher. Just like jfinteriors' husband, my mother believes the hot hot water to be superior at disinfecting the dishes than the relatively not hot enough water at the highest temperature your hands could stand. I had a dishwasher in one of my apartments, that my co-habitant designated off-limits due to the way he was raised: in fear of electric bills. Eventually (see, I hate washing dishes, and I guess it was my job? to do it?), he brought home a box of dishwasher powder. It was nice. I really hate hand-washing dishes.

Whoever washed those dishes in the picture should do it again now that the dog just stamped his nose all over 'em.

A dish cannot be deemed well-washed until it's been thoroughly inspected by a very cute Basset Hound.

lol i'm gonna ditto regina.

Well, I have a dishwasher which I rarely use, because when I did, my energy bill went up. By the way this GE washer has the energy star. all appliances do. I do wash by hand everything is soaped up and scrubbed, without the water running and then I rinse thoroughly with a sink hose. So personally, I discovered that washing by hand was more energy saving.

BTW, rosenatti, I agree with your comment about the inspection. Dogs can tell you when a dish is clean when there is nothing left to lick :)

In my experience some of the people who believe that dishwashers waste water just don't care that much about dishes being clean. I will never forget the day I was in the kitchen and a relative took a knife that had been used to chop onions, ran it for about two seconds under a squirt of cold water (nope, not even soap), and then moved to put it in our dish drainer. My husband, not a neat freak by any stretch of the imagination, said, "What are you doing?" The response? "Oh, knives don't need washing." At which point he shouted, "Who RAISED you?" and we had to remove him from the room. And then I WASHED that knife. To this day we try to avoid eating at the house of those particular relatives.

Our dishwasher heats its own water to temperatures my hands can't tolerate, and with baby bottles galore, we've never run it empty. I don't worry that we're wasting water.

THANK YOU, SEASIDE!!!

Swandiver- your link only went to the compact appliance page. I had a Danby countertop dishwasher and was always impressed how well it worked. (Loud though).
I currently have a Haier 18" floor model. I think the Danby was better. Check Craigslist.

well, dot, don't come visit us either. If it's just been vegetables (ie. no fat), then we don't use soap on cutlery either. We'll wash the cutting board with soap, but for a knife that's only been used for onions? hardly.

Dishwasher - if we're thinking carbon footprints, it's important to note that you need A LOT of dishes to fill a dishwasher (And this is spoken as someone with a spouse and two kids). We could fill a countertop dishwasher, and still be able to work it out, but to fill a full size dishwasher, we needed to buy more cutlery (at value village). So I'm not sure how singles or couples manage to fill dishwashers!

We're a family of four, and we fill the dishwasher once a day! Like...completely and totally full. Of course, we are at home and cook 3 meals a day, so maybe that's why we have so many more dishes that pile up!

I hope someday I have enough time to worry about weather or not the dishwasher uses more energy or less. The important thing is, it takes a lot less of MY energy. It also keeps unwashed items stored neatly away, and keeps them there, off the minimal counter space until I am ready to put them away. Since I have teenage kids, I feel it's a LOT cleaner than if they were washing them by hand, and dishwashing is on their chore lists. One big energy saver is to have the dogs do the pre-wash by mouth. Even when our dishwasher was broken, I used it to drain/store clean dishes.

wc_canuck: I was just going to make the same point. I moved to a smaller house last summer with a very "efficient" (translation: tiny) kitchen. I had to give away a lot of glasses and mugs just to have enough space to store things. Needless to say, I don't have a dishwasher. Usually we just take the clean stuff right from the rack and use it again. I don't love doing dishes, but I do like the simplicity of my new kitchen ritual. A dishwasher is one less thing to own and one less thing to have to fix when it breaks.

pyewacket: I am going to try your grandmother's trick as soon as I can find a decent rack that fits in my small sink basin. I am sure it will save a lot of time and water--thanks!

The two dishwasher thing would be my ideal. I don't have space in my kitchen.

With my hectic schedule and a physical condition that leaves me with very little energy, I LOVE my dishwasher. I make sure to only run it when it's packed, so as not to waste energy/electricity/water.

I have to say, hand-washing does not put me at ease with knives, platters, and cutting boards that are tainted with raw chicken juices. I'm no expert--I don't know how effective the dishwasher really is at nixing that kind of bacteria, but I think it does a better job than I could by hand. The less contamination in my sink where I wash salad greens, the better.

In our first apt, the dishwasher couldn't be used because it was so LOUD. The first time I used it, I was afraid that somebody would think the fire alarm was going off (no joke).

In our new apartment, the dishwasher just plain SUCKS. It does not clean the dishes very well at all.

I don't mind doing dishes by hand, but I do like having a dishwasher in case a friend calls and says "i'll be over in 6 minutes!" because then I can shove any dirty dishes on the counter into the dishwasher for storage till I have a minute to wash them in the sink.

I think it probably depends on how efficient the dishwasher is, and also how full it is when it's being run.

My boyfriend's family has five people in it - the dishwasher is FULL after every meal.

My house has three people, we'd run out of dishes before we could fill a dishwasher. But we wash in pretty minimal water, and then when the drying rack in the other half of the double sink is full, rinse it with the hand-shower thing with the hottest water.

My dishes are as clean as soap and water can get them. Here Soap, here Water!

I *hate* doing dishes, hence the dishwasher (which I only run full every few days), but I know some folks who love that chore (no matter--I like doing laundry).

redbeard's point about the energy used to make the machine is valid. But, combined with the higher efficiency of using one, it's kinda the best of both worlds: if you have a DW and want to use it, great--you're using fewer resources, and it's already made. If you don't have one, there's no need to rush out and get one--you're saving the resources used to manufacture and deliver the machine. We all win! Yay!

Anyhow, the heck with the relative efficiency of hand vs machine dishwashing, I wanna know if Basset or Bichon tongues are more efficient dish-preppers!

I just love that pup...

Emily