Dishwashers and the environment

Channel Hopper

Channel Hopper

Suffering fools, so you don't have to.
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A slight adaption to the kitchen means there is now enough space to fit a small dishwasher in one of the cupboards near the sink, and having seen differing claims by the manufacturers, I would like to know if it is true that they are more environment friendly than a pair of marigolds, hot water and some washing up liquid ?

Is there a crossover point between the amount loaded into them and their efficiency/effectiveness at cleaning stuff ?

Thanks in advance
 
A lot of greenies use dishwashers, so long as you use eco-friendly cleaning agents (Like Ecover dishwasher tablets and rinse agent), you're perfectly ok, as for loading them, it's difficult to overload a dishwasher as you can't fit it all in... :)

Most dishwashers these days have a "half-load" feature, allowing it to be part-filled and will not waste water, but giving it a full load is better for economy... :)

Overfilling impedes performance and can jam up the spinner things, so is not recommended as you'll have to run it again... :)
 
Thanks, but I was more concerned about the amount of water (and the heating appliance). Are they more efficient than using the hands and a tea-towel ?
 
Channel Hopper said:
Thanks, but I was more concerned about the amount of water (and the heating appliance). Are they more efficient than using the hands and a tea-towel ?
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I think the beginnings of an answer to that lies in the method used to heat the water you would use when washing up by hand. I believe the cheapest form of heating hot water is a gas demand boiler but have never seen any figures available to compare the two methods of washing up.The modern dishwashers use very little water indeed however again there is a variable in the hand washing as some people use just a washing up bowl full of water only and some people rinse off after with cold water.
 
A lot depends on how you use it and how you wash up otherwise. If you have enough spare plates etc to load it over a couple of days and then run it then it may use less resources than washing a handful twice a day. Where we live the house was extended so that the kitchen is quite a way from the hot tank and it takes a couple of sinks worth of water before it runs hot
 
I use a demand gas boiler for the hot water, and it is a short distance to the sink, so its more or less 'instant'. And I usually let things drip dry on the sinktop once rinsed off.
 
Channel Hopper said:
I use a demand gas boiler for the hot water, and it is a short distance to the sink, so its more or less 'instant'. And I usually let things drip dry on the sinktop once rinsed off.
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In that case if you have the time and the inclination and a small family, I would suggest it is cheaper to continue the way you are. A dishwasher makes you lazy, having said that we could not have done without one when both of us were working full time and the two kids were growing up. There were not enough hours in the day ;)
 
Channel Hopper said:
a small dishwasher [...] I would like to know if it is true that they are more environment friendly than a pair of marigolds, hot water and some washing up liquid ?
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A compact dishwasher (45cm width) has space for 9 place settings and will get everything at least as clean as the manual method even when full up. A "triple A" rated one uses about 14 litres of water and less than one unit of electricity. Whether it uses more water really depends if you rinse everything under running water. As for energy consumption the dishwasher uses more than the human, but, the human is wasted doing such a robotic task when they could be doing something much more constructive like watching Eastenders.

As well as the energy you have to look at efficiency. For example if a person were earning a reasonable wage say 50€ per hour that 1 unit of electricity would be worth about 5 seconds of their time.
 
Huevos said:
the human is wasted doing such a robotic task when they could be doing something much more constructive like watching Eastenders.

As well as the energy you have to look at efficiency. For example if a person were earning a reasonable wage say 50€ per hour that 1 unit of electricity would be worth about 5 seconds of their time.
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Thanks, I would rather paint the inside of my eyelids with battery acid than watch EastEnders.
 
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