We dont have a dishwasher and I (the man) do the majority of the washing of dishes, my wife or daughter does the drying up and putting away. I do wash up quite quickly and they are fast at drying as we are all well practiced. It is a fun social activity too.
To one show this week did some "independent" tests of hand washing/dishwasher washing --- I wouldnt let a dishwasher maker do that!!!!!
This Saturday after our roast dinner I measured the hot water we used, 6l for washing, 6l for rinsing and soaking. It all took four and a half mins of two of us to do it all for four peoples dirty dishes.
We used less water than a dishwasher and half the electricity.
We have had our dinner service for 30 years and our glasses and cutlery for 20.
You lot should try washing by hand sometime.
GBP-Keith
15 Jun 2009, 12:55 PM
That's interesting, i do the washing up too in my household. It must be a new guy thing!
I threw my last dishwasher away in 1994. I think they are one of the worst inventions ever.
jamesingram
2 Jul 2009, 10:58 AM
washing up , good training for the kid ,if you got any forget drying up , just go and have a cup of tea for 30 minutes then come back and put it all away.
contadino
23 Sep 2009, 3:34 PM
Apologies for resurrecting an old thread, but I'm just about to get a dishwasher. It uses 13 litres of water on a normal cycle (we're off-grid for water in a hot climate so that's quite important), the water is heated by the solar panels (so the electricity consumption will be pretty low), and I've just put in a dedicated new waste for it so the water gets reused out in the garden.
However, the main driver from my perspective is the perservation of out cutlery and crockery. We had a dishwasher several years ago and hardly anything got broken, but since we went "manual" plates & glasses have been dropping like mad, and I routinely find forks and spoons in the compost heaps/chicken coop. The wife says it's down to the washing up liquid/rainwater combo making things more slippery - I just stand there and scratch me chin.
