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Comment by freyfogle | Hacker News Reader

I lived there for three years, rented a flat. Living in the Barbican was fantastic, livign in my flat was not fantastic. I used to joke it was a time machine to 1965. There was not only no dishwasher, there was literally no space for a dishwasher. Day one that seems funny, a few days later less so. I was spending a fortune in rent to spend 30 minutes every day handwashing my dishes. I did know people who had bought and renovated, they had amazing places. Oddly on my hall of 10 there were 10 flats of which 4 were empty. I don't mean someone just came occasionally I mean 100% empty with no furniture, with rich people just using it as an investment. Overall though was a greart experience, it's a fantasic place.

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I spent the first 46 years of my life living in properties in London with no dishwasher. Honestly never thought they were particularly common. In fact the one in my current house was recently out of action for 6 weeks and I tried to convince my partner we should take the opportunity to get rid of it and fill the space with something more useful!

Lived in London for 20 years, rented 7 or 8 different flats in that time, none of them had a dishwasher and most of them didn't have space for one. Didn't know what I was missing. Moving out of London and finally using a dishwasher was a lifechanging experience.

> I was spending a fortune in rent to spend 30 minutes every day handwashing my dishes.

Did you used to cook for the seven dwarves and their extended families, every day?

not seven, but yes, I had two small children at the time

> There was not only no dishwasher, there was literally no space for a dishwasher.

This is quite common for older places in the UK. Some places might have been updated to allow for a dishwasher, but there are probably rules against that in the Barbican.

To my knowledge there are no rules against it, it is just a major and expensive plumbing project requiring redoing the whole kitchen. And so as a landlord why bother, you will always find someone willing to rent, no matter how unlivable the place. This dynamic was hardly unique to the Barbican, it was the reality of being a tenant in London, and ultimately one of the reasons I left. London's housing stock is just terrible compared to every other city I've lived in.

I’ve lived in 4 different flats in the Barbican and they all had a dishwasher. I think only the studios you’d have a problem finding space for one. Of course in the others it is a preference whether you want to lose space for other things or not. It is not a lot of extra plumbing. It is usually when they want to preserve the original kitchen (or a cheap landlord as you suggest - although all the ones I had there were great)

In my last apartment, I installed a tabletop dishwasher on the balcony and had it share the water inlet with the washing machine using a y splitter.

It would probably be an eyesore and a huge space killer to use indoor on the kitchentop but thought I'd share a non-invasive solution I used.

The size of the dishwasher was decent, and with some tiny concessions around placement it was perfectly fine for daily washing although I generally prefer to wash pots and pans by hand regardless of dishwasher space fwiw

You can get a dishwasher that sits on the counter, filled from a tap connector. Space might be tight though.

you can do a lot of things. You can live as a hunter/gatherer. The question is do you want to live like that?

> There was not only no dishwasher, there was literally no space for a dishwasher.

This is just London, out of the 8 years I've spent here, 3 of them were spent with a dishwasher. Tbh I've got a dishwasher now and barely use it.

> This is just London, out of the 8 years I've spent here, 3 of them were spent with a dishwasher. Tbh I've got a dishwasher now and barely use it.

Do you wash by hand then? I'm curious why someone would opt to not use a dishwasher if they have one. In my ranking it's the third most essential appliance, after a washing machine and a fridge. I probably would rather give up warm water than my dishwasher.

Seems wasteful to me... I've never used them. But to each their own.

Dishwashers save greatly both energy and water when compared to hand washing!

On a per-dish basis, yes. But dishwashers are a classic Jevons paradox: once you factor in that the convenience of having one increases your dish usage versus the counterfactual of having to hand wash everything you use, the comparison is less straightforward.

My family does not, so far as I can tell, use a different number of dishes because of the presence of a dishwasher. The kids almost never wash(ed) up, so it makes/made no difference to them for example. And I loathe washing up, but I always use as few dishes etc as I reasonably can simply from a sustainability point of view. And I ensure that the dishwasher is as full as reasonably possible before being run, and run at the best time from a carbon/cost point of view.

If you're a single person living in a flat in a city, then you can get in the habit of rinsing your tableware right after using when stuff still easily comes off, and therefore not use much effort at all on washing, and you just reuse the same tableware over and over. This is common and the reason why dishwashers aren't much needed for some.

In my house it’s just my father and I, and we don’t really generate enough dishes to justify using an automatic dishwasher. It only takes 5-10 minutes to clean up after most meals, and it would take a few days to get it full enough to run a cycle, after which putting the dishes away seems more burdensome.

When we visit family (or have visitors at home), the utility of a dishwasher becomes much more apparent when serving 4-6 people.

buy a cheap used dishwasher and move it into one of the unused flats.

> There was not only no dishwasher, there was literally no space for a dishwasher.

30 minutes? Either you're cleaning up a sink full of dishes you neglected for a week or cleaning up after cooking a dinner for four or more. If you immediately clean your dishes after use its takes almost no time at all, maybe a minute or two.

Thanks, amigo. If you want to come by and show me how it's done, you are more than welcome. As it happens, yes, we were a family fo four.

> As it happens, yes, we were a family fo four.

Then say that, amigo.

    Withnail: Have you got soup? Why don't I get any soup?
    Marwood: Coffee.
    Withnail: Why don't you use a cup like any other human being?
    Marwood: Why don't you wash up occasionally like any other human being?
    Withnail: (Appalled) How dare you! How dare you! How dare you call me inhumane?!

I haven't lived without a dishwasher since I was a student. I am not keen on repeating the experience.

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