Hacker News Reader

Comment by nsxwolf | Hacker News Reader

Every dishwasher I've ever used, your best bet is to put everything on full blast, least efficient settings. Otherwise the dishes get "almost" clean. I always imagine the engineers standing around patting themselves on the back after testing, and marveling how their ideas worked so well most of the dishes got clean.

The dishes all need to be totally clean, every time, or it's useless to me.

View on HN

I can guarantee that the majority of the ineffective cycles are there because of environmental regulations (energy star in the US; there are equivalents in other western countries).

The big one that drives me nuts on new cars are all the auto start/stop at idle systems. They eat car batteries and starters (increase wear from oil starvation on startup too - consumer car engines are not positively lubricated; pressure has to pump back up every time the engine starts) and there is no way to disable them other than pushing a button every time you start your car (or hacking around with the wiring), but I'm sure they are critical in obtaining higher gas milage requirements so expect them to proliferate. It's crap that happens when you focus on one metric - gas milage - to the exclusion of "the big picture" such as total carbon footprint over the life of the car including the manufacturing and replacement costs/environmental impact of replacing prematurely worn out parts from "energy efficient" design decisions.

Regardless of the reason for these "ineffective cycles", I use them. They work well. Not sure what the big deal is.

Isn't this the truth. Over Christmas family was around and someone loaded the dishwater and put it on economical or whatever the 'easy wash' mode was called, i chuckled knowing they might as well waved the dirty dishes in the sky for an equilavent wash. Its like, why are the other options even there...Intensive wash, every time.

Does not match my experience. I have a fairly regular Bosch dishwasher and use the ECO mode almost exclusively without any issues.

Same experience here. This can’t be right though. Surely we are the exceptions and there really are idiotic committees forcing manufacturers to include eco settings that don’t work - rather than the other explanation of some dishwashers being crap?

My Mum has a Hotpoint because she skimped on it during a kitchen refit. It's complete crap compared to a mid-tier Bosch: the cleaning is worse, the tablet often gets stuck in the tray, and it doesn't dry properly.

That said, even the Bosch needed a new heat pump after 3 years which was an adventure in unreasonably complex disassembly.

Probably also depends on if or how carefully you rinse before putting stuff in there.

I rinse things pretty well beforehand and use quick wash and it works well.

Don't use detergent pods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04

tl;dw (but you really should watch this):

- Don't use pods

- Fill the main and prewash cups every time. The prewash is intended to be used every time, not just when the dishes are exceptionally dirty.

- Run the hot water in the attached sink to full heat to ensure the washer gets filled with hot water

Until we use the last of the pods up I've found if you put a squirt or two of Dawn Powerwash in for the prewash it works amazingly well. And before the inevitable comments come up: unlike regular dish soap (do NOT put in a dishwasher) it doesn't suds up either. Yeah, it does a little at first but by the end of the prewash cycle the foam is gone - yes, I have checked.

As an aside: Dawn Powerwash is flat out amazing in general, especially for really crusty/baked on stuff. Spray some on, come back in 15 minutes and it will more than likely wipe right off - if it hasn't dissolved whatever was crusted on and ran off already. If you haven't tried it and it's available in your area give it a try! Amazing degreaser. Works on laundry with grease stains, carpet, oil stains on the driveway (mop up with kitty litter/towels; don't wash down the street!) and all kinds of other non-kitchen uses too.

Super informative! Saying that I use pods and my dishes come out perfect. Might be because we do them daily so nothing is ever too crusted on.

Yup - the amount of excess detergent alone that is being washed into the wastewater systems is staggering when you think about how much is extra detergent in fixed size pods is wasted across the board.

My parents had a GE dishwasher that auto dosed a liquid paste dishwashing detergent. It worked great, only dispensing what the dishwasher sensed the dirt load called for. For some reason my mom hated it and they replaced that dishwasher with one that they now use pods with. Sigh - I don't think she liked the feeling of not being in control.

We humans can be so annoying sometimes.

EDIT: that GE also did it without requiring a wifi connection or firmware updates :p

As long as I clean my dishes before I put them in the washer, I never have any issues.

Was that intended to be ironic?

Nope, that's how you're "supposed" to use them.

Seriously, you too can save a bunch of electricity and wasted time by pre-washing stuff before putting it in the dishwasher.

I do agree that it sounds like satire, though.

Says who? This is from Miele's user manual:

> There is no need to rinse items under running water!

Dishwashers already pre-wash with an initial rinse cycle, the whole point is that they do the washing for you. It's also a whole lot more efficient in terms of water waste.

The problem is when you don't give that first cycle any powder to work with, ie. if you're using pods.

> The problem is when you don't give that first cycle any powder to work with, ie. if you're using pods.

That is really interesting, as I do use pods. I need to look into this more.

More generally, I have had a lot more success with not needing to re-wash things if I rinse before hand (but I don't have a miele).

The secret is to put powdered detergent into the pre-wash tray. That and make sure it starts out with hot water...

I have a Bosch dishwasher and in the manual it actually states not to pre-rinse the dishes before putting them into the dishwasher. Of course I rinse the bigger pieces of food off anyway because otherwise the filter will need to be cleaned more often (doesn't have a grinder/disposal), but it does also waste a ton of water, and energy heating that water, to pre-wash your dishes.

I believe the real trick is not to overfill the machine with dishes, and ensure your dishes are arranged properly.

> I believe the real trick is not to overfill the machine with dishes, and ensure your dishes are arranged properly.

This. Filling a dishwasher is an art of binpacking in itself. I'm pretty satisfied by my Bosch one, unless it is just a1-2 cycle before asking for the cleaning cycle, 95% of the times everything come up perfectly clean, even with the "eco" program. When something comes out dirty (if everything was properly placed), usually it will nag you to clean the dishwasher on the next cycle or the other.

I've never pre-washed dishes unless it is rice. Everything else goes straight into the dishwasher as it was collected from the table. Always comes out clean and never had problems (unless it is rice... which seems to never get fully rinsed away).

I never do, and my dishwasher works fine? What am I doing wrong? Why would I "prewash" and waste precious water and time when it's going to be washed just fine?

A bit of both, I think.

Some people put the dirtiest dishes in the history of humanity in their washer and then complain it doesn’t clean very well. A quick rinse with water to get the chunks, or the really caked on stuff off works wonders.

Mom? Is that you?

I don't have any issues putting dirty dishes in my dishwasher. Do you use pre-wash detergent in your machine? I highly recommend you watch this video by Technology connections[1], I too used to think I had to rinse my dishes before putting them in the machine.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04

We just run the normal eco program without any extras. The dishes get perfectly clean every time as long as nothing hinders the rotating arms that spray water.

Depends on the size of your household a bit. If it runs every second day, it should not be a problem. If you save dishes for a week or two, the additional water from the intensive program really helps to get rid of dried out dirt.

In that case it's called not a dishwasher, but a Cockroach Breeding System.

No, for that you have the rats eating the cockroaches.

Ours runs 2-3 times a day, but even still, I typically soak all the cutlery in a tall glass or pitcher full of water in the sink, and load it last minute. There are just too many nooks and crannies for stuff to get stuck in on a fork or knife, and they cleaning they get in a three-rack machine is too gentle for anything other than a sterilizing rinse.

This is the big cause of issues for us (Bosch 800). Either the arms are blocked or the holes clogged, or the middle rack's hose junction hasn't properly mated with the water source at the back of the machine.

Overall I'm really happy with this machine though; worth the pretty penny it costs.

My Bosch gets everything sparkling every time on the eco mode (50 degrees, but takes nearly 4 hours).

The only time it ever fails is when something blocks a rotor and half a tray doesn't get any water on the underside.

But I don't think spraying more, hotter water at the clean half will help that.

Does your dishwasher have a water softening system?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com