Everything is a cost/benefit tradeoff. The financial and time cost/benefit tradeoff of doing all dishes by hand vs doing some dishes by hand and the rest by some combination of hand and dishwasher not in the machine’s favour.
Yeah, but doing the dishes by hand is, what - a 10-15 minute job, and then it’s done. You don’t have to come back in an hour or two to finish drying all the things the machine couldn’t dry, re-wash all the items the machine couldn’t clean, and then put everything away.
I’ve used dishwashing machines, of various types. Where I live now has one. The last place I lived had one. The next place I move to will probably have one. I’m familiar with all the limitations you’ve all talked about, along with some others which haven’t been bought up yet, because that is my point. The bloody things are almost ubiquitous, they all suck in some ways or others, and they all require manual inputs at various stages. The cost/benefit is not in their favour.
I’m with you; except in cases of big parties/get togethers. (For those specific occasions, a dishwasher is actually very useful.)
If I have to clean (or “rinse”) the dishes beforehand, then I might as well just wash them myself.
Not to mention the energy/money saved on my electric bill.
That’s not exactly an equitable comparison; as doing dishes is merely a mundane chore that pretty much anyone with working appendages can do efficiently, once you teach them how.
Whereas if you let someone like me “calculate a CPA” by hand, the end result is going to be disastrous, as my math skills past a certain point are fucked.
I agree, which is also why they’re really useful for bars and restaurants; high volume + short loiter time = very useful. But that’s the opposite of most households, most of the time.
I also might be just the tiniest bit biased, because I was the only person in my household who washed the dishes regularly for years… and then, after I left for college my mom bought herself a house with a dishwasher.
Having a dishwasher that functions properly, I don’t have to finish drying anything, nor re-wash anything.
Putting everything away happens either way, so that’s, shall we call it, a wash. And it washes most things, particularly glassware and cutlery, far better than I can by hand, and never leaves any soap residue. Ever drop a slippery, soapy tumbler or pint glass, smashing it to bits?
I can turn it on, forget about it, and come back the next day to unload it, and during that entire time there is zero clutter aside from whatever gets dirtied in the interim. It’s great.
It’s obvious you believe this with all your heart, and yet from my perspective it’s entirely false. And we’re both right!
Of course, about as often as I’ve had to pick broken bits of glass out of the bottom of a machine from when the water jets have knocked it into something unforgiving And, frankly, sweeping the floor is a much easier and safer supplemental chore.
I don’t have to finish drying anything, nor re-wash anything.
Nothing? Nothing at all? Well, you must have a magical machine and/or dishes then. Or pre-wash everything to the point where it’s basically already clean before it goes in
As an aside; I’m quite partial to PJ’s solution to this issue, though I’ve never been in a position to actually try it out
Put all the plates and bowls on the floor after you’re done eating; same goes for any empty pots and pans
Let the dogs lick those clean
At the end of the day, collect all your “dirty dishes” and spoons and forks in the sink
Get one dish tub, fill to half with hot water and Dr. Bronner’s soap (which is potassium-based, not sodium-based); scrub or sponge plates and bowls first; glasses and cups; utensils; then pots and pans last
Get another dish tub, fill to half with clean water, rinse the soap off
I’m seriously positive that I could teach you to do this. I can’t calculate one from the top of my head, because I did it once in my life. But the learning part did cost the guy teaching us maybe 20 minutes. He did spent more time explaining what a PCA was, what Eigenvectors are and so on. But the calculations aren’t complicated.
I think my analogy falls short because you can teach a kid of maybe six to load a dishwasher. That might not be the age to do many calculations, subsequently, by hand, and write down the numbers.
I think our friend @JonS clearly is underestimating the time it takes to do the dishes of a family. You and Jon, you both agree that parties are a good reason for a dishwasher. Let me ask you, both: three people? Four? Or are you talking ten to 20?
You guys might mock me for the length of my previous post, but I was merely explaining all the variables. Exhaustively.
I did the dishes by hand for a six person co-op (plus guests) for what, 4 years? Then we bought a second-hand Miele dishwasher which was, at the time of purchase, 23 years old.
I furthermore lived with another person for five years, without a dishwasher. The dishwasher we got after that time is one of the household utilities we most often praise. No kidding, at least once a week one of us is saying out loud something in the line of “thank Glob for the dishwasher”.
Also, I recently visited a friend to stay overnight.
Guess what?
Every now and then (once a week? every two weeks?) a plate or a fork will come out with a bit of food on it. That isn’t nearly enough of a failure rate to sour me on the machine.
My spouse tends to do more pre-rinsing than I do. I don’t believe it to be truly necessary, so I concern myself only with conspicuous solid bits.
On the other hand, your horror stories have me wondering if the UK (safe to assume you live there?) is cursed with the world’s worst appliances.
I think our difference of opinion probably comes down to personal style, in some sense. We’re lazy slobs who consider hand-washing dishes to be drudgery. We don’t have a ton of free countertop either.
Accordingly, when we’re living without a dishwasher, they tend to pile up until somebody has to cave and just wash the fuckers. If you aren’t like that, I’m sure life without a dishwasher (or without using the one you have) is much easier than it is for us. But from where I sit, the thing is a godsend.
Hey, we live next to a great lake, but we too make the most of the canine prewash option. The cat does her part too. Not only does it make for happy animals, but it really does make washing the dishes a lot easier!
There are issues with letting pets eat or lick clean some dishes. There are ingredients that can be harmful to pets. For example onions are bad for both cats and dogs, not lethal mind you but its still not good for their health.
Also i would not eat at someone’s house if they let their pets lick their eating utensils, even if they were clean.
I wouldn’t eat at a restaurant that had animals lick all of their utensils and dishes. Even if they washed and sanitized everything that’s a hard no for me. I don’t consider myself a germaphobe but i certainly do not like animals licking me and the thought of them being all up on eating surfaces is not something i could overcome.
I say this respectfully, despite the tone of my previous posts. I definitely would not imply that i have any opinions on people that choose to do this, its just a hard limit on what i’m willing to go through.
I straddle the line. As I confessed in the 'Hand Dryer = Poo Aerosolizer post, I used to drink out of the livestock tank as a shorty, and much to many people’s chagrin - I’M STILL HERE! …but I kept spreading Streptococcus throughout my school. A lot of animals - especially dogs - carry Strep in their guts, and transfer it to their mouths when they lick their butts. Then their mouths spread it to anything they lick.
Strep is easy enough to cure with cheapo Penicillin G, but it is deadly to people who are not healthy little kids or don’t/won’t seek medical help for a persistent sore throat. 7 year-old-dies of untreated strep
That being said, I seem to be permanently marked with some invisible, indelible dog target that signals strange dogs to run at me and lick me on the lips in spite of my frantic attempts to dodge. I just assume all pet owners think their animals are magically dispensing lucky fairy dust when they lick me or the dishes. Thank God for dishwashers and caustic detergent.
I’m pretty blasé about germs under most circumstances, maybe too indifferent at times. Stuff related to pets licking me or their owners really grosses me out.
OTOH, there’s not monolithic agreement about what is forbidden. Here’s a raw-food dog food maker using coconut (something the ASPCA lists as bad for dogs) in this mix (which I have to praise because it includes a wise use of feral hog meat–or so I am guessing):
We cook and eat at home most of the time. Every single thing we can put in our dishwasher (which has a high-temperature cycle as an option) goes into the dishwasher at the end of the day. Plastics are largely absent from our kitchen. Dishes, cups, pots, flatware are all sterilized [enough] for us by morning. I can’t wash dishes and sleep at the same time.
AFAICT none of us have canine-vectored diseases. In future, duly chastened, I will let all guests know we task our dog with pre-wash prior to blasting it with Whirlpool’s high-temperature scour and the mysteriously promising “SaniRinse.”
If I didn’t use the dishwasher, I’d be even more behind on chores and the dishes wouldn’t be as clean. This additive is key for our extremely hard water.
For people who don’t send out their clothes to be laundered, pressed, dry-cleaned… although Austin is lucky to have a reliable, effective alternative:
(in case breathing for a long time is something you are really into)
… washing machines are amazing things.
Our clothes washer now needs… convincing… with two needle-nose pliers and a screwdriver, so doing laundry is now creating far more “relationship distress” in our house than dishwashing. Beekeeping, car repairs, orchard work, veg plot tending, and other outdoor chores create a lot of dirty, sweaty clothes. Yeah, distress just barely describes it for me right now. We live 11 miles from the nearest laundromat. I may be throwing myself at the mercy of my neighbors very soon, until my partner and son can disassemble that LG washer (no longer under warranty) and find out WTF is going on with that damn latch and sensor.
ETA: grammar, clarity, corrected brand of dishwasher
Interesting data!
Tallies with some of my own experiences living in shared quarters with variously 2-9 other people. IMO accountability curve goes way down as the number of people living in one shared space increases, chore wheel be damned, regardless of how co-operative the co-op members claim to be when one is lucky enough to even find that well-structured, formalized living arrangement.
Sending the link to a friend in the University of Texas at Austin Department of Anthropology. She has provided many useful insights into human behavior. I owe her.
And, frankly, sweeping the floor is a much easier and safer supplemental chore.
