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Comment by delichon | Hacker News Reader

Step one: don't use a dishwasher. I haven't since I left home a lifetime ago and don't miss it. IMHO for a small family it's mostly security theater, and hand washing only a bit more than the rinsing before loading the dishwasher is all that is needed. Sterilization is overkill. Maybe I'll rue that choice when I contract some horrible bacterial disease.

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A dishwasher is a game changer, especially if you have a baby, but even if you don’t. No need for a drying rack, no guessing if you cleaned well enough, and less water usage.

If your dishwasher is your drying rack, it is hugely space inefficient compared to my wire ones on the counter. The way I wash dishes uses less water than a dishwasher. I suppose dishwasher users consider that inadequate, but I'm a filthy rebel.

And I don't really have a feel for whether more cleanliness is a benefit compared to the hormetic effect of exercising the immune system.

> The way I wash dishes uses less water than a dishwasher.

Could you elaborate on this? My understanding is even if you're using a sink/basin filled with soapy water this is still almost always less efficient than a dishwasher.

You can wash and rinse a full load of dishes by hand with 3 gallons of water? Seems possible only if you aren't rinsing, but a dishwasher rinses too...

My guess is that since I couldn't possibly fill the dishwasher before using it, it would be using 3 gallons for one person's dishes per meal, and I doubt I use a whole gallon while hand washing.

> My guess is that since I couldn't possibly fill the dishwasher before using it

Do you own very few dishes or something? That's the only reason I can imagine not being able to fill it before needing to run it. Even before having a kid my wife and I could easily fill the dishwasher daily since we cook quite a bit.

I think you don't cook much if you say this... We try to cook our food as much as possible and also we are at home almost all the time. At the end of the day there can easily be 2-3 pots, 2-3 bowls, 4-6 cups for tea, coffee or breakfast, a few glasses, 4 to 8 dishes, utensils and cutlery, some devices like a blender attachment and its jug, Tupperwares and some pan that I made sure it's dishwasher safe...

I could reduce a bit the number of glasses and cups by reusing them more but anyway,the dishwasher makes a big difference.

Nope, I cook and wash dishes twice a day. I eat almost exclusively from the grocery store and haven't been to a restaurant, etc., since 2020. Somebody had to die for that to happen. But my cooking is simple, and I very rarely use more than a single cooking vessel (mostly an air fryer drawer), plate and utensils. I wash dishes so quickly that I think I'd feel the same if I were cooking for four.

Oh, you sweet dishwasher podchild. When I lived the life of a bachelor and ate over the sink/kitchen counter, I could get by with a single set of dishes, one cast-iron skillet, one pot, a single set of silverware, one knife, and one spatula.

Now that I cook for 2-3 people and more on holidays, I know from practical experience that the number of dirty dishes generated and the water used quickly exceeds anything a dishwasher would use. The use of water also increases when you cook big batches of food, so you can have quick meals available for lunches and dinners when you're too tired too cook and/or broke to go out to a restaurant/takeout.

If someone tried to take away my dishwasher, I would put their head on a pike in the front yard as a warning to anyone else who tried.

The one thing I've learned from this article and the comments here is that I really should run a load every night, even if the machine isn't totally full, because there are always more dishes used than it looks like at first glance.

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