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Ask HN: Are Dishwashing Machines Bullshit?

by hypnoscripto on 6/22/21, 4:02 AM with 51 comments

• by sp332 on 6/22/21, 4:13 AM

  You don't have to pre-clean dishes. This video is a bit long-winded but gets the point across. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04

  One person doing one person's worth of dishes is pretty manageable. Once you get more people involved, or if you're getting a lot of utensils dirty while making something fancy, it can be a whole different story. Also, I think they use less water than washing by hand, but again this depends on how many dishes you put in there at a time.

• by jbotz on 6/22/21, 10:13 AM

  One point for dishwashers I haven't seen mentioned is that they get the dishes a lot cleaner than you ever could by hand, because very hot water. Gets the oils off much better than any amount of soap. For what it's worth.

  First time I traveled to the US (I was 13) I thought there was something odd about the dishes... they felt strange. I told my host, I said "there seems to be a film of something that feels strange". He thought about it and said, "what you feel is the absence of something... the thin film of oil that you can't get off when you wash the dishes by hand, but the machine can." He was right.

• by cpach on 6/22/21, 11:29 AM

  Modern dishwashers are effective. You don’t need to rinse the plates before starting the dishwasher. (But of course you should remove large food particles first.)

  However, for a single-person household it might not be worth it. For a household of more than two it’s definitely worth it.

• by andymoe on 6/22/21, 4:16 AM

  No, dishwashers are not bullshit. They wash more dishes with less total effort. Our family of four runs that thing at least once a day. Had washing does not scale. They are probably not worth it if you live alone and are diligent.

• by giardini on 6/22/21, 4:43 AM

  I doubt it. I have a dishwasher but don't use it. I wash and dry dishes by hand. It takes no more than 10 minutes to wash and dry two persons' dishes and cookware. I often cook and wash dishes at the same time!

  But I've been washing and drying dishes since I was a child and my early years of conscripted dish washing were spent learning to optimize washing and drying procedures. So I'm very fast and efficient.

  For a family of more than 4 persons, a dishwasher likely is handy though by no means a necessity. In the absence of a dishwashing machine, one person washed and a second dried.

  As for the "pre-clean" phase - soak dishes and utensils in a sink or bowl of warm soapy dishwater for 5-10 minutes to loosen/remove most food residue. Then the dishwasher (wo/man or machine) will work properly.

  But the true conundrum is this: in all my years of washing dishes both for myself and for commercial firms (college jobs as dishwasher) I have always washed knives - sharp knives. Yet I have never cut myself on a knife or a sharp utensil. I have learned that I can grab a handful of sharp knives from a soap-and-water filled sink blindly and quickly without fear of cutting my hand.

  Something is going on that I don't understand: possibly the soap modifies surface tension around the blades and prevents them from penetrating my skin. This happens whether my hands are dry or soaked by hours of dish washing. Any ideas what is happening here?

• by tra3 on 6/22/21, 5:17 PM

  I would never go back to living without a dishwasher. Other than the labour savings, and the clean result dishwashers save a huge amount of water [0].

  [0]: https://www.cnet.com/home/kitchen-and-household/how-much-wat...

• by throwaway019254 on 6/22/21, 5:33 AM

  Dishwasher saves us a lot of time, so it's pretty big value for us. We don't need to pre-wash any dishes, though.

• by LargoLasskhyfv on 6/22/21, 4:15 AM

  Supposedly they (at least nowadays) use less water without pre-cleaning (at least nowadays) than doing it by hand. Don't care, don't have one, don't do much dishes anyways.

• by is_true on 6/22/21, 3:33 PM

  I live alone and it's great. I use it every two days. If you have something to dry you let it there so your kitchen is clean without things in the sink.

  Would recommend.

• by proc0 on 6/22/21, 5:23 AM

  Of course not. They save a lot of time if you know how to use them properly. Load it up tightly but without blocking the water spouts on the bottom and top, then load up detergent on BOTH slits (one big hole, and a smaller one for pre-wash), then warm up the water by opening the tap for a bit, and then press start with appropriate settings. It saves hours and hours of washing for me.

• by praash on 6/22/21, 10:31 AM

  What's the issue with everyone saying that pre-cleaning is something effortful? Spending a few seconds to rinse a dish right after use saves you tons of effort later on. If you leave your lunch plates in the machine for a day before turning it on, chances are that even a decent dishwasher can't get all the gunk off. You'll end up scraping the rest with your fingers.

  I don't get it why all the dishwasher ads tell you not to pre-clean your dishes at all. It is a very quick routine that really helps against permanent stains. It's much easier and faster to wash the dishes by hand if they were quickly rinsed immediately after use.

• by sightmost on 6/22/21, 10:20 AM

  I got one for my parents so they don't have to do dishes anymore. While my original thought was to free them from something they have been doing for years, I must say I am surprised with the performance.

  Definitely no need to pre clean like others have pointed out (I believe the dishes are steamed/heated before the cleaning cycle so the heat takes care of the heavy grease and stuff).

  Uses less water, about 10 liters/ 2.5 gallons per cycle.

  May be I am taking a high ground here, but why do you want spend time doing dishes if you could afford a Dishwasher? Do something better?

  Overall, I would say a Dishwasher would be useful even for a family of 2.

• by perryizgr8 on 6/22/21, 7:36 AM

  I like my dishwasher because:

  1. It saves a huge amount of water.

  2. It saves a lot of time for me.

  That's basically it. If you feel you can spend the time without problems and water is not an issue in your area there is no need to get one.

• by airhead969 on 6/22/21, 6:09 PM

  Moms are often the ones who make you clean dishes before they can be cleaned. The thing is, you do have to clean the drain "lint screen" more if you don't prewash.

  Dishwashers require a lot of manual labor even without prewashing. Like "flying cars," I dream of robot arms that can clear the table, clean the dishes, dry them, and put them away. How hard can it be? :X

  I also thing hiring a maid and a cook are a good idea because I'm so lazy and busy.

• by culopatin on 6/22/21, 10:48 PM

  I moved from a place with a great dishwasher to one with not only a cheap one but also an OLD one. If I leave something bigger than 1/4in on the plate, it’s getting stuck in its drain until I wipe it out. It sucks hard.

  Newer dishwashers can handle dirty plates no problem, cheese or no cheese and are much more efficient.

  If this dishwasher had been my first experience I would’ve thought the same as you

• by d--b on 6/22/21, 8:51 AM

  The day I bought a dishwasher, I invited 8 people for breakfast, 8 people for lunch and 8 people for dinner.

  You really don’t need to prewash anything...

• by perilunar on 6/22/21, 1:21 PM

  If I lived alone I wouldn’t bother with a dishwasher, but for a family they are great. Biggest issue I find is unpacking them. There’s always stuff that hasn’t dried properly.

  I think the ideal would be dual drawer dishwashers that you use alternately, leaving the clean dishes in one until you fill the other, so that the dishwashers become the cupboard. Do people do this?

• by muzani on 6/22/21, 6:52 AM

  The purpose of the original dishwasher was not to save time but prevent damage: https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-institute/ieee-history/this-so...

• by cosmodisk on 6/22/21, 7:27 PM

  We are in a process of moving from a place without one to a place that has one. I can't wait to be able to use it. Our kitchen is small and we go though a tremendous amount of plates, mugs,and saucepans each day. I do not want to stand by the sink for a few hours to do them all by hand,so to me,yes, It's worth it!

• by Gibbon1 on 6/22/21, 4:53 AM

  If you only have one or two people in a house, doing dishes isn't a big deal. If you had a family of five, yes.

• by m-p-3 on 6/22/21, 5:02 PM

  It saves me from cleaning the dishes manually in a family of 4 with two young kids.

  I'll use whatever I can to free myself up from a chore and spend more time with my family.

• by musicale on 6/22/21, 7:44 AM

  I went from not having a dishwasher to having one and it's fantastic.

  I don't preclean anything, but I do follow the recommended loading procedure.