Hacker News Reader

Comment by adhesive_wombat | Hacker News Reader

A good dishwasher.

I resisted getting one for years because the one I had growing up was pretty bad. Nothing would dry, items would come out dirty all the time and it was loud and would "chug" for hours.

However, a good (not even fancy, just mid-range from a competent manufacturer) modern dishwasher is night and day. Doesn't even need special tablets, it just gets things clean, even on the eco mode, which is the only one I use. Its not the quietest on the market by a dB or two, but its basically not noticeable.

So much better than having a huge pile of dishes taking up the entire draining rack until dry enough to put away, getting splashed with more water every time the sink is used (and the water is medium-hard so that makes a mess, but the dishwasher has a water softener).

View on HN

> Doesn't even need special tablets […]

A thirty minute video explaining why tablets are bad and that you should simply use powder:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rBO8neWw04

Also, a follow-up video:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll6-eGDpimU

Summary? I can't watch video now.

The tablets have nothing fancy in them other than some dyes, they are just soap at a mark-up. Even the cheapy store brand stuff does just as good of a job.

Additionally, depending on the hardness of your water you may need less detergent than the tablets have in them which could leave a white residue on your dishes.

Finally, with the powdered detergent you may need to sprinkle a little in the door for a pre-rinse which you can't due with the pods. Check your washer instructions.

P.S. Never use liquid detergents.

Since first lockdown in my country, when dishwasher tabs went missing in stores, I got used to use 1/2 a tab for each wash. Turns out dishes were just as clean as with a full tab. To this day I keep using 1/2 tab per wash.

To push your example even further, I once forgot to load anything and Imagine my surprise when I opened the dishwasher and everything was really clean, maybe except one plate.

> P.S. Never use liquid detergents.

Why not? I’ve switched from tablets to liquid detergent and it’s working out well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll6-eGDpimU&t=1584s He doesn't like them in the follow-up video. Powders can have both enzymes and bleach unlike gels.

https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=_rBO8neWw04&t=538

The video pretty much says “use detergent in both pre-wash and wash receptacles”. Using the pods makes this hard. Using powder lets you do this easily yourself.

That’s pretty much it.

Aren't there tablets made of two layers, one which dissolves during prewash, and the other mostly during wash? I mean the two-colored ones.

The door the tablet’s in doesn’t open until after the prewash.

At least not in the ones tested in the video.

Also, the prewash happens in a cycle, where the soap holder isn’t opened.

He tests those as well, finds that they don’t actually do a staged release like that.

No, the dishwasher dispenses the entire tablet during main wash only. Which is exactly why if you use tablets the pre wash won’t have any soap

TLDW Tablets aren’t bad but if you don’t fill your prewash compartment with detergent you’ll get worse cleaning. The prewash compartments are meant for loose powder or gel so might as well just use that detergent for both compartments

What are people washing that it doesn't wash off?! Or maybe it's just cheap machines that are that sensitive?

The only time things ever come out dirty for me is when the rotor is obstructed and half the dishes don't get any water (or detergent) on them, and that's on eco mode.

Also dishwasher design hasn't improved in 100 years, so as long as it's working any dishwasher is as good as the others.

I only watched the first video, but I really can't see the difference between his experiment (with the soap at the beginning) and his control. I'm not convinced.

Did you just skip to it or did you watch it with audio and pay attention to what he's saying?

Becaue he mentions that the difference might not be super obvious but still makes a pretty good case for it.

Why don't you just come to the point?

I watched the whole thing.

If your theory isn't borne out by experiment, you should probably revise the theory or the experiment before publishing your video.

He addresses your concerns in the 2nd video. But aside from that, logically, you should be convinced by the fact that using tablets results in there being no soap soap in the first wash cycle.

I always ran my dishwasher on the three hour power wash program because nothing would get clean otherwise. Then I watched this video and started using powder. Now the normal program works fine every time.

People over here are insane and remodel perfectly fine kitchens when moving in to a new apartment, and sell all the appliances for a pitence.

I picked up a year old Miele for 100€, it’s been chugging along like a tank.

My mum has a Miele washing machine that is almost 30 years old. As far as I know, it's never needed a repair.

Which is probably just as well as Mieles can always be repaired, but the cost of parts is, let's say, dramatic.

My fridge has a broken egg tray lid and a dent in the door. Replacing the former is £35, a freezer door is almost £300 (nearly half the cost of the whole fridge freezer). The fridge door is almost £700, as much as the whole thing!

The egg tray lid is particularly annoying as the plastic part is actually not well-designed and clearly has obvious weak points where a modest redesign would both make a breakage less likely in the first place, and allow the most obvious failure mode to be repaired with a small sacrificial part (that, moreover can be shared amongst all fridge models, so it's not even a major SKU count increase) rather than the whole lid.

Apparently, eggs stored in the fridge are more likely to break yolk when cracked. Chuck your egg tray in the bin.

The shelf is mostly used for butter in my fridge, actually, but the flappy lid thing is still useful as there's not much front lip on that shelf. That said, if I couldn't have fixed it with glue and stainless steel wire, I'd not be paying £35 for a new one!

Eggs indeed don't usually go in the fridge: in the UK, eggs aren't washed before sale, so the natural protective layer is still present. I hear that in the US, eggs must be washed, the layer is therefore lost and eggs required to be washed, the layer is lost and eggs need to be refrigerated.

Bought a new fridge in 2020, relative decent one, around $2200. Works fine but the plastic shelf parts inside are just unbelievably cheap and shitty. And the replacement parts if you would happen to break one are correspondingly expensive. Meh.

My old one was great but then it almost flooded the house when a valve got stuck and I decided maybe not a good idea to buy a used dishwasher

Ditto. I was astounded when I read consumer reports’ test regimen for dishwashers - I recall a test that expected the dishwasher to clean out baked on brownie batter. No dishwasher I used until way too far into adulthood could do that or the equivalent.

The kitchen appliance that surprised me - my current house had a double oven when we moved in. The small top oven is just perfect - it pre heats as fast as a toaster oven and can fit a whole half sheet. It can toast just about anything in toast mode but takes up no counter space. We use it constantly. I would never have just bought one, because I would have focused on the two-oven aspect, which seems like an extravagance that would only come in handy at the holidays.

How long have you had it?

About 5 years or so. It's probably done well over 1000 cycles since then. It's had one breakage, which was a heat pump, which was repaired with a part from ebay. Other than that, its going strong.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com