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Comment by NikolaeVarius | Hacker News Reader

I think the calculus changes when more than one person eating is involved, especially when the ratio skews more eating than washing

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I live alone, and still find the dishwasher to be the most useful appliance in my house. I cook a lot, and love not having to think about how many pots/pans/dishes I'll use and how I have to scrub them later. I don't do any prewash either. Everything goes straight into the dishwasher and comes out sparkling every time. Maybe I'm just really lucky with my machine/detergent.

It's also great because I don't need extra space for a drying rack.

> I live alone, and still find the dishwasher to be the most useful appliance in my house.

More useful than the washing machine?

I’d much prefer going to the laundromat over not having a dishwasher.

As a single person I preferred the laundromat. I could use 3-6 machines at a time and everything was done fast. I owned enough cloths for a full load of each, and so I only had to do this once a month.

As a married person with family we are doing laundry all the time anyway and so having it in the house is an advantage.

Two people in a small apartment and currently spend 15-20 minutes a day hand washing but I feel like its right on the line where 3 or more people it is clearly faster to machine wash.

We are in a similar situation, both working from home. It very much depends on how lazy we are during the day. If musli bowls and lunch plates haven't been handwashed when we start cooking dinner it's a "dishwasher day". We have a half size one, which means one day's worth of dishes fills it up at least 3/4.

I suspect it might be more water efficient and energy efficient to do this instead of repeatedly heating up water, which takes 30s or so and wastes a lot of cold water / hot water that gets left to cool down in the pipes.

I tend to wash the cookware while I'm cooking, and wash my dishes when I'm done, rather than letting them pile up. It takes a handful of seconds each time, and they're often seconds I can't spend anywhere else to begin with.

As a single person I can wash my dishes in less than a minute. Glass, plate no. 1, plate no. 2, bowl, fork, knife, no more than a few seconds each.

Yes if you eat microwaved crap. Try cooking sometimes.

Or if you eat fresh foods.

Why is this being downvoted? A balanced plate may be easier to wash. Starch absorbs fat, some acidic liquid will keep the fat and starch from sticking too much. Get your plate to the dish washer, rinse, and without need none to little soap will get rid of all the residues. The fat is already stuck to other particles so won't need much soap. What's the point of teaching Chemistry if the kitchen always looks like a cumbersome time-consuming mess to most people.

What on earth are you on about? How are you going to prepare a meal with fresh ingredients with that list?

There are widely known fresh ingredients containing fat, acidic liquid, or starch (e.g. avocados, tomatoes, sweet potatoes respectively, although tortilla would be a more conventional third example given the first two).

> As a single person I can wash my dishes in less than a minute. Glass, plate no. 1, plate no. 2, bowl, fork, knife, no more than a few seconds each.

This list. Where are you going to cut your sweet potatoes? On a plate? How is this list of equipment sufficient to prepare and cook meals?

What about your chefs knife? A small spoon for sauces, a measuring cup perhaps, a chopping board, a spatula or wooden spoon or something to stir the dish, the pot or pan you actually used to cook, perhaps a lid for said pot.

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