this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
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Is there a real difference in water and electricity consumption? Personally, I don't use a lot of water to wash my dishes (by hand), but maybe I should install a flow meter to make sure.

What is your opinion on the subject? Do you have any evidence or studies available that could confirm your intuition? Or do you have other alternatives in mind?

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[โ€“] Jentu@lemmy.ml 12 points 4 days ago

Technology Connections and his stranglehold on dishwasher conversations lol

[โ€“] lime@feddit.nu 42 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (5 children)

dishwasher. it uses way less water than even filling the sink once. it obviously uses more electricity than doing it by hand though. you gotta think about the value of the time saved as well.

[โ€“] Tenderizer78@lemmy.ml 16 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Depends whether you wash in hot or cold water. If you use more hot water washing dishes by hand then it'll consume more electricity too.

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[โ€“] Berengaria_of_Navarre@lemmy.world 36 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I have 4 children. I would literally sell a kidney to buy a dishwasher, if I couldn't afford one. Fuck washing dishes by hand. Anyone who doesn't agree with me is either brain damaged or a masochist.

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[โ€“] JackbyDev@programming.dev 7 points 4 days ago

Dishwasher. It saves a fuck ton of time. I've heard it saves water, but I haven't seen studies. I have a hard time believing it could use more if it's full. Regardless, it's faster. I hate chores. Make machines do them.

[โ€“] chris@l.roofo.cc 21 points 5 days ago (7 children)

Everything into the dishwasher. Why would I waste my time with washing dishes. Dishwashers are more efficient and often more hygienic because of higher temperatures and optimized wash and rinse cycles. I put everything in there, even the stuff that doesn't belong. Apart from my good knives. I hate washing by hand...

One tip though: if your machine is connected to hot water. Let the hot water on the tap run until the water is hot. This helps the machine get a better cleaning result.

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[โ€“] Mongostein@lemmy.ca 6 points 4 days ago

Dishwasher for dishes, pots and pans get scrubbed by hand, simply because I can fit 6 or 7 plates in the same space pots take while it only takes a few seconds to scrub a pot.

[โ€“] jerebear39@slrpnk.net 2 points 3 days ago

I never had a dishwasher growing up. When I moved into my current home and It had a dishwasher, I thought it was dumb, till I started using it... But I do a little bit of both, on the days where I am super lazy and let the dishes pile up, I would put them in the dishwasher just to get them clean, but on the days where I am truly responble adult, I would just take the 5-10 minutes to wash the little bit of dishes by hand. So in short, both.

[โ€“] burrito@sh.itjust.works 14 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Dishwashers are definitely the way to go. They use less water than hand washing (source: https://www.popsci.com/environment/science-of-using-dishwasher-vs-handwashing/).

I'm so firmly in the dishwasher camp that I installed a second dishwasher in my kitchen a few years ago and it has been one of the best upgrades I ever made on my house. I don't think I'll ever be able to live somewhere with a single dishwasher again.

Also, there's no need to buy any expensive pods or dishwasher detergent. The cheap store brand powder detergent works the best. Personally I use the Great Value brand powdered detergent and have been very satisfied with it. I do not pre rinse any dishes either. I just lazily scrape off my dishes in the garbage and put them straight in the dishwasher.

If you do go the dishwasher route, be sure to do your research and get a good dishwasher if you have a choice. I went with Bosch dishwashers based on reviews from Consumer Reports and have been highly satisfied with their performance. They're so quiet my wife sometimes opens them mid cycle and gets a surprise. I find this hilarious because they shine a red spot on the floor to let you know that it is running.

[โ€“] bluesheep@sh.itjust.works 2 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Can you explain the second one? Do you alternate them between dirty and clean like some kind of extra cupboard or is there more to it?

[โ€“] burrito@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 days ago

We run 2-5 loads of dishes a day as we do a ton of cooking at home. With a single dishwasher we'd have to immediately unload and load the next batch or we wouldn't be able to keep up and it was exhausting. With two we can keep up with the dishes a lot better. It's awesome to have another dishwasher available to put the dirty dishes in when the other is running. And when we host stuff at our house it's awesome to be able to wash everything at once.

Hello fellow Technology Connections watcher.

[โ€“] whelk@retrolemmy.com 3 points 4 days ago

By hand. I find it relaxing and a good time to get lost in my thoughts or listen to audiobooks. It's also nice to just have some things that you do manually. I don't like the idea of a world where machines take care of everything.

The dishwasher never does a good enough job anyway

I use a dishwasher. It's easier and uses less water.

[โ€“] TechnoCat@piefed.social 15 points 5 days ago

Dishwasher. I've done hand washing and dishwashing depending on where I'm living each year. Dishwasher does a better job than me, uses less water than me, and saves me time. I run it at night and put away the dishes in the morning.

[โ€“] pyria@kbin.melroy.org 2 points 3 days ago

Little of both. If the sink is full of dishes, they're going in the dishwasher. If there's a handful, probably by hand.

[โ€“] octobob@lemmy.ml 5 points 4 days ago

By hand. Haven't had a dishwasher or air conditioning for at least 10 years

[โ€“] RBWells@lemmy.world 3 points 4 days ago

Dishwasher for us, though the powder detergent suggestion absolutely did not work, big degradation in the results for us, went back to the orange pod things. Too many people and almost never eat out, so much cooking.

When it broke I had to fill a sink with hot soapy water (luckily ours is double) and everyone parked their dishes in there, scrubbed but left the water dirty, poured boiling water in occasionally to keep it warm and at the end of the day drain the water, rinse and dry. It worked and the easiest way I could manage but wasteful compared to dishwasher.

I never had one before living with my husband, and always hated washing dishes. Used to buy paper plates and bowls because with a big family and a job it was just too much, nobody wanted to do so many dishes.

Some things a dishwasher does not clean off the dishes. Avocado, eggs. And it doesn't work if you let them sit too long. But in general it does a good job and saves time and effort.

By hand. I've only lived in a place with a dishwasher for 1 year. During that time I felt like the dishes never got truly clean. Like if shit was stuck to a plate or bowl it would need manual intervention. If a pan sat for a day and shit got really caked on it wasn't even worth putting it in the dish washer. I don't see how it saves on water either. Like I don't leave the water running while I wash the dishes. I don't fill the sink. I rinse a plate. Turn the water off. Scrub it down. Rinse it again. Water is on for maybe 5-10 seconds a dish. Scrubbing does all the work.

Mentally, it's kinda like taking a shower in the sense that my mind goes to a completely different place and all things that bothered me before are flushed out. That change in activity or environment really lets me process shit in a way that meling in front of a screen doesn't.

[โ€“] AnAverageSnoot@lemmy.ca 7 points 5 days ago

Dishwasher! Only my cast iron and stainless steel as well as my knives by hand. I spend too much effort sharpening them to throw them in the dishwasher.

[โ€“] sudoer777@lemmy.ml 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

I use a dishwasher, but half of the dishes either don't get cleaned or aren't dishwasher safe so I have to wash by hand. I tried cleaning the filter, using detergent in the prewash, and running the water until it's hot before starting the dishwasher, and none of it did shit.

[โ€“] Skysurfer@slrpnk.net 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

You are they lucky one today! Here is just the video for all your dishwasher woes!

[โ€“] Xavienth@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's been a while since I watched that video, but didn't the person you reply to address every point stated in the video?

The only other point not stated in the video (but is mentioned in the more recent video) is to not use a brand that also sells pods, because they're likely making the powder shittier to upsell you on pods.

[โ€“] sudoer777@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago

Yes this is the video I watched lol. Also I use powder detergent

[โ€“] JASN_DE@feddit.org 11 points 5 days ago

Machine, except those items that cannot go in (mostly wood and good knives)

[โ€“] dandelion@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I hate dishwashers, I wash dishes by hand.

[โ€“] winkerjadams@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 4 days ago (1 children)
[โ€“] AnnaFrankfurter@lemmy.ml 2 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

They hurt her feelings. But truth is she just used shit soap pods instead of good quality powder.

[โ€“] HubertManne@piefed.social 5 points 5 days ago

dishwasher.

What am I, a caveman?

[โ€“] Sal@mander.xyz 6 points 5 days ago

By hand. We are only two people, and we usually clean after we cook/eat. When one is cleaning only 2 plates + a pot/pan at a time, it is easy to use little water. Spray of soap, metal scrub, sponge scrub, and then turn the tap on to rinse for a few seconds. Utensils get individually scrubbed and then all rinsed together for a few seconds.

Maybe when we have kids a dish washer will make sense.

[โ€“] communism@lemmy.ml 8 points 5 days ago (2 children)

By hand. I don't have a dishwasher. The place I rent didn't come with one, and I don't have the space for my own (plus no money). I think I've only ever met one person with a dishwasher, although I suppose I wouldn't know if someone has one unless I either go to their house or they bring it up. I don't see the issue with doing dishes by hand, and I pay a flat rate for water so water usage is not a concern to me.

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Recently, I was house-sitting for friends, and the dishwasher broke. I had to pause it every few minutes to empty the water by hand. It amounted to 2 shallow oven dishes' worth of water. And not filled to the brim, either: I had to be able to bring them to the sink without spilling.
It was a really, really small quantity of water.

[โ€“] Flickerby@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 days ago

My sink is made for someone a good 3-4 inches shorter than I am and it absolutely kills my back to hunch over like that for any period of time so gimme that machine convenience over my slipped disk

[โ€“] GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml 6 points 5 days ago

Dishwashers are superior to handwashing in basically every regard, and as such I lean towards it for everything in my kitchen that can handle it.

[โ€“] GreyShuck@feddit.uk 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I have read comparisons in the past. I don't have them to hand, but the conclusion was that dishwashers were more efficient in terms of water use and energy. However, the type of hand-washing that it was being compared to was itself a very inefficient style of washing (tap running continuously? two full sinks for rinsing? I can't recall, but not the way that we do).

So handwashing the way we do is probably more efficient but it seems that there isn't THAT much in it either way, and given the time taken and that we cook from scratch almost all the time, we use a dishwasher for the vast bulk of stuff.

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[โ€“] AstroLightz@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago

Dishwasher for sure. Many years ago, I had a dishwashing job where I had to wash everything by hand, and that made me really appreciate dishwashers ever since.

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