Why Dishwashers Are Quietly Disappearing from American Homes
gadgetreview.com
gadgetreview.com
I bought one recently. There's a fast cycle. The manual indicates the option uses more energy and water; it completes in ~30 minutes. All the other dishwashers we looked at had a similar feature.
My family of four is usually just fine with the ~3 hour cycle. It corresponds quite well with our three meals a day; the lunch containers are most certainly clean by "tomorrow morning".
> Your dishwasher demands $600 to $1,200 upfront, plus $200 to $400 when specialized parts inevitably fail. Annual operating costs hit $60 to $130 for efficient models, reaching $218 for older units depending on local energy rates. Compare that to handwashing: immediate results, zero equipment investment, and complete control over timing. The math increasingly favors the sink.
If you value your time (and a lifetime of skin/joint wear-and-tear) at $0/hour, sure. And the sink has its own upfront ($500-$1000; https://www.homedepot.com/b/Kitchen-Kitchen-Sinks-Drop-in-Ki...) and operating (sponges, hot water, more water per washed dish) costs.
Last time I checked, handwashing is 3 times less efficient in water usage than in the best case scenario (for handwashing), and 40 times less efficient in water usage in the worst case scenario.
Plus, even if we were to assume that somehow a human manages to use the same amount of water, then you’re still warming up the water somehow. It doesn’t become magically hot by exiting the tap, so the vast majority of the dishwasher’s electric running cost would now be shouldered by the water heating unit. Except it’s now 3-40x more water that needs to be warmed up.
The trick is to reuse the water for scrubbing/soaping and "flash rinse" by quickly turning off the water when rinsing.
Also, that's not how I wash dishes by hand any more; I splurge with the warm water used per cleaned item. But I still don't let it run for more than a few seconds. It just feels wasteful.
> you’re still warming up the water somehow
This is somewhat a sunk cost for most people: Unless you turn off the warm water in your pipes, constantly keeping warm water available costs something and using a bit of it costs very little in addition. We really should be thinking of turning off water heating at times when we know for certain it's not being used, and only heat up water anticipating usage. There's a lot of energy to be saved for modern smart homes (or anyone who cares to manually regulate, or simply has to because they're using wood burners and such).
That is assuming you don't use highly isolated water bodies as thermal batteries.
That’s what tankless water heaters are for. I’ve had one for a decade, it’s lovely.
12 litres for 150 items is ridiculously good. The university of Bonn indicates that the equivalent handwash uses 100L, and in some cases 300-400L. Pre-rinsing uses 100L alone. These are averages. Some people are extremely good, others are terrible. In some countries it’s customary to let the tap run while washing dishes, etc, so that’s why the extremes vary so wildly.
I also think that sink setup has a massive impact. In my current flat (which came with a dishwasher) I only have a single sink. It’s complicated to be efficient with water, unless I use a secondary container where I can store soapy dishes together until I can rinse everything. Years ago when I lived in a flat without a dishwasher, it had “three sinks” (two large and deep ones, and a smaller area in the middle). It was trivial to have a little soapy water on one side, wash everything, move it to the other side, and literally rinse and repeat. Water usage was greatly reduced compared to my current setup.
The only thing I don’t run in the dishwasher are wooden items and the couple of non-stick items I still have left.
I completely agree. Just letting the water run for any amount of time, and the dishwasher wins.
> The only thing I don’t run in the dishwasher are wooden items and the couple of non-stick items I still have left.
I don't machine wash: Wine glasses, sharp knives, wooden items, non-stick items, too big pots, and some plastics that deform at high temperature.
I also don't machine wash if there's few enough items.
> We really should be thinking of turning off water heating at times when we know for certain it's not being used, and only heat up water anticipating usage. There's a lot of energy to be saved for modern smart homes (or anyone who cares to manually regulate, or simply has to because they're using wood burners and such).
> That is assuming you don't use highly isolated water bodies as thermal batteries.
First paragraph describes a tankless water heater. Second paragraph describes a classic water heater, with a tank. That's practically all houses.
The declining usage of, or presence of dishwashers, isn't supported in any way. Yes, they are more efficient based on a law that was passed in 2013, and another that will come into effect in 2027. The 20% usage statistic doesn't say if that's increasing or decreasing. People watching Tiktok doesn't indicate anything about their current or previous behavior. The claim about tiny homes is contradicted by the same article suggesting that people moving to the city want more, not less dishwashers.
This government study from 2015 which seems to be the source of the "20% don't use weekly" stat suggests that it's mostly the poor who don't use their dishwashers:
https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=31692
I'm guessing it's because their dishwashers are old and broken, and they can't afford to get a new one, not that they would because they rent.
Dining out is 285% more expensive than making food at home. I’ve never gotten food delivered but that adds additional costs of course.
(I live in Switzerland where water is so cheap they don't even put individual water meters on each apartment in a building but the electricity to heat the water up can be pricey)
This is why. Where I live, I and everyone can leave showers on 24/7 and there would still not be an impact in the amount of water in our area.
The only impact would be due to water treatment throughput. The various water departments refuse to increase throughput because they do not want to spend. Even with the current throughput, there is absolutely need for these water limits here.
We are being forced to live in a desert because of the Western part of the US.
Mine takes about 3.5h to clean in eco-mode. I set it to run just before I go to bed so it's everything is crisp and dry well before I wake up.
The win for me is time, less dry hands and a little happiness that I've not wasted too much clean water.
Most machines will let you disable the heating element (used for drying, they often have one for heating the water which is still needed), which will give you the best of both options. There might be some pools of water left on some items, but if the door opens by itself, the hot water alone usually has enough energy to evaporate itself.
Modern dishwashers use better insulation coupled with the residual heat from washing to do a lot of the drying. Mine (LG) doesn't have a heating element for the air, just for the water. Known as "condensation drying".
https://www.bosch-home.com/us/experience-bosch/tips-and-tric...
> All Bosch dishwashers use a condensation drying process. Instead of utilizing a heating element at the bottom of a dishwasher, condensation drying involves a number of dishwashing elements that work together to efficiently dry your dishes. Condensation drying is more hygenic and energy efficient than drying with a heating element. Additionally, since Bosch dishwashers do not use a heating element, your plastics are safe in the lower rack.
As a bonus, it doesn't vent steam into my kitchen.
And this is residential water, which is vastly more expensive (and thus less wasteful) than agricultural usage, at least here in California.
Anybody who's trying to optimize this should re-examine their priorities.
* That said, my current dishwasher takes about 2.5 hours to run, and that was never a problem. If you can afford a home in California you can afford more than one set of dishes.
It's time that's the main factor. Ten seconds per dish becomes a lot if you have a lot of dishes, and some dishes take longer than that - delicates like champagne glasses, large pans, caked-on stuff, etc.
I have some stemware that I use for martinis and white wine, along with some handblown art pieces. NONE of it is inexpensive, compared to my rugged, daily glassware.
“Don’t use too much water in the dishwasher, don’t grow almonds, don’t build too many apartments, we don’t have the water”
Getting screamed at with all this while living next to a literal Ocean of water is just so tiringly frustrating.
...be an engineering challenge that the world has not solved yet. We use a lot of water. I don't think you understand the scale of what you're talking about.
All 16000 desalination plants in the entire world combined produce[0] only about 8% of the amount of fresh water the US uses[1].
[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00489...
[1] https://pubs.usgs.gov/publication/cir1441
But don't worry. We're working on improving desalination too.
> Developers squeeze kitchens into spaces where full-size dishwashers become luxury items rather than standard fixtures.
I mean, ok, but that's just depressing capitalism making everything shittier, not actually a personal choice people are rationally making for themselves on the merits.
> Meanwhile, your DoorDash habit means fewer dishes hit the sink anyway. When dinner arrives in disposable containers, that $600 to $1,200 machine starts looking like expensive counter space you’ll never reclaim...
It feels nuts to talk about a doordash habit in one breath and the cost of the machine in the next. A "doordash habit" costs more than the price of a top of the line new machine every year.
I just pop a $30 leak sensor by my washer. The only water damage I’ve had was a broken pipe in the walls.
https://www.google.com/search?q=leak+sensor
and on Amazon:
I've never heard from media or insurance companies that dishwashers are a significant cause of fire. By that argument you'd have to be home to use laundry machines, too.
Water damage also can occur with laundry washers, hot water tanks, broken taps, and leaking pipes. It seems strange to single out dishwashers. These days, around the world, it seems like water damage is more likely to be from flooding from rain than faulty infrastructure.
Is there something less reliable about Finnish appliances or infrastructure than the rest of the world?