What are your dishwasher/dishwashing habits? Any you swear by?
Do you run a dishwasher daily? Or wait for it to get full? Monthly sanitizer? Preferred arrangement? Preferred soap agent??
Now that kids are gone I probably run ours every couple of days. When they are here, maybe twice a day!
I am Team Sort The Silverware - different bins for spoons, forks, knives, utensils. Usually as the article states - handles down for spoons/forks, handles up for knifes.
I WISH I had a shallow top shelf for utensils.
I swear by Dawn Powerwash to clean a random dish or my pots/pans in the sink. Probably my product of the year for 2023.
One of my least fav household chores is unloading the dishwasher.
There are only two of us, and we hand wash a lot of what we use like pots/pans, utensils, knives, and anything we might need before the next DW run, so we run it only once or twice a week. I don’t care how it’s loaded, what type of soap/pod to use, and whoever opens it first after the run will unload. The DW does not create a chore; it removes one. I don’t think twice about it.
We don’t have a DW at the cabin. It’s funny. You’d think we be happy to get back to the DW at the house but, instead, we find ourselves doing more handwashing here than missing the machine there.
When we redid our kitchen I couldn’t wait for the dishwasher to be removed! 20 years it sat unused. I hate a dishwasher. I prefer handwashing and don’t mind doing it. I hate putting dishes away. What a “chore” it is for me!
We run it only when full. We don’t rinse dishes first. Have a shallow top shelf for utensils, where flatware is not sorted/organized. Use Costco pods. We wash pots and pans and other random stuff by hand, there I use Dawn…only and forever.
DH and I have a race to the bottom…meaning, we both hate unloading the dishwasher. Ultimately someone breaks down, but it can take awhile since it’s mostly just the two of us and we have two dishwashers.
My first dishwasher in a home I lived in was our second house purchased in 1998 - so did the hand wash for a family of 5 for quite a few years - thrilled to give that task up!
We also don’t use any paper products unless it’s a big gathering so every meal or snack time dish needs to get washed.
I shoot for a daily or at least a few times a week run. Use it or lose it - I was babying our last dishwasher, and it died prematurely. The repair person said Miele likes to be used frequently. Sitting unused is not good in the long run.
We used to run it every 1.5 days or so. H would get twitchy if it sat longer than that. When the kids were home, that was about how long it took to get full. I wash all of the pots and pans by hands.
However, our new dishwasher takes 3:20 to run, and I refuse to let it run while we are asleep. H hates that, so he won’t run it as often. Now I would estimate we run it every 2.5 days, maybe 3 unless the kids are home.
Over the holidays my SIL was over and was astounded when the dishwasher only took an hour. I always use the one hour quick wash - never a longer cycle. Dishes are spotless and hot when I open it!
Do you prefer a long cycle or have a shorter one??
We also handwash a lot and only run when it’s full (unless it’s been sitting too long). Our older kid never handwashes dishes as he uses them, so when he’s home, it gets run a lot more than when he’s at college. Younger kid handwashes nearly everything he uses and sets on the drying rack.
I do most of the cooking (but clean up well as I go). Spouse does most of the dishes but dislikes bending down to put things in lower cabinets (has resulted in bad back tweaks previously). I didn’t realize that for years and was quietly annoyed until I finally asked why and then I was like “oh, sorry! That’s a good reason”
So lower cabinet stuff gets stacked on the counters for me to put away. But then I injured my back recently so we’ve been in a bit of a hilarious standoff with all the clean cookware piled on the counters, though one of us caves to gingerly put it away eventually. Our younger kid has been doing more of the loading/unloading recently as well.
And blue Dawn, always and forever. We have little bottles of it anywhere we may need it.
I don’t know if this is true or not, but I replaced my old dishwasher because the inside kept getting moldly. It might have been yeast, I dunno. But it was gross, and I’d clean it and it’d be OK for awhile and then come back faster and faster. The repair guy said that was because I used the quick wash all of the time. My dishwasher was 8-9 years old and not an expensive one, so I was OK with replacing it. This one is stainless steel on the inside. My other was white. But I’m not using the quick wash feature anymore!
I grew up in a family of seven, and we didn’t replace our dishwasher when it broke. I really disliked my turn at washing dishes. I appreciate the convenience of a dishwasher as a result.
I run the dishwasher when it’s full. If there’s room on the night I run it, I put knives and pots/pans in if they fit. Otherwise, I wash knives and pots/pans as I cook (or right after dinner). I was raised to never leave dirty dishes in the sink, so it is second nature.
I clean my dishwasher out every couple months, which involves cleaning the parts. It’s amazing how gross they can get, even though I scrape and rinse dishes before loading.
We don’t have a dishwasher at our cottage, so I tend to use heavy duty disposable dishes if there’s a crowd. If it’s just a couple of us, I don’t mind handwashing dishes, since I need to wash cookware and utensils, anyway.
Ugh, ours is so old and has so many broken pats that can no longer be replaced, H uses zip ties, floral wire and appliance glue very often (we need a whole kitchen remodel so we are dealing with old appliances). When the kids were home we ran it daily, now every 2 - 3 days. I will not run it unless it’s full, I’ll throw in dog bowls, microwave plate, stove grates, coffee machine parts… H empties it 2 - 3 times a month, my son has never done it, I don’t think any of my kids has ever emptied it. I really can’t complain, I’m a SAHM to zero kids at this point, I’m the housekeeper.
Run ours only when full. That can be multiple times over a weekend if we have people over. In regular weeks, probably run 2-3 times during the week.
We got a new Bosch about a year and a half ago. Now, I finally put the dishes in only with a quick prerinse - they come out spotless.
Related question - I load mugs in the top rack. Even though they are slightly slanted, the top always has some water - doesn’t dry completely. Anyone else with this problem? How do you load the mugs so water drains away completely?
We run ours when full, which lately has been about daily. We use the generic liquid detergent from Aldi. Since our water is reasonably soft, we fill the detergent dispenser only half way. We have the cheapest model GE, and it works great. I like that the filter is so easy to get at. I clean the filter every Sunday.
For handwashing, I never never never buy Dawn. I’m not sure what ingredient is the culprit, but I feel like whenever I use Dawn, within a few days my kitchen is overrun with Serratia marescens (the pinkish-orange bacteria that has that horrible “musty” odor.)
I hate washing dishes by hand. I think our sink is too shallow but I can’t do it without getting water all over my front. I don’t mind unloading the dishwasher at all, so I put everything that can possibly be washed in it. We are one of those “one person is a Swedish engineer and the other is a rabid raccoon” couples in terms of loading but I try to overlook his inefficiency and just run it instead of moving things to make rooom for more. Thus we run it about every other day when it’s just us. I have trained two of my sons-in-law in my preferred loading patterns (the ones from the instruction manual, of course) so they are in charge at family gatherings.
Edited to add: I let everyone who loads choose their own level of rinsing. I’m a scraper but if someone wants to prewash, whatever. And we don’t use pods, use Cascade liquid and about half of what the line says. I also discovered that using a rinsing aid keeps the inside of the washer cleaner so I’ve been trying to remember to keep that compartment full.
