The Government Should Let People Buy Dishwashers That Work

[EasyAce]

By Lauren McCarthy
https://thebulwark.com/the-government-should-let-people-buy-dishwashers-that-work/

A half-century ago, dishwashers gave many people a way to abandon the “most monotonous job in the world.” Consumers were attracted to this new appliance and the escape it offered from housework drudgery. A good dishwasher was able to handle unrinsed dishes without a problem, and typically took only an hour to produce a clean, dry load.

Fast forward 50 years dishwashers are . . . less helpful. Modern dishwashers are slow—the one-hour cycles of the past replaced by two- and three-hour cycles. Despite the longer cycle times, consumers still find themselves both pre-washing and post-washing dishes, and then often drying dishes by hand.

What happened? The Department of Energy (DOE) imposed “efficiency” standards.

The DOE regulations have turned the straightforward activity of using the dishwasher into, well, a chore. As cycle times that have increased and consumer satisfaction that has decreased, the DOE has acknowledged there is a correlation: Cycle times have increased because new standards compelled manufacturers to build dishwashers that use less water and heat. Which made them not clean very well. Increasing the cycle time was the solution for the decline in performance created by the efficiency standards.

This bizarre situation led the Competitive Enterprise Institute to petition the DOE last year to begin a rulemaking process that would allow the old, one-hour machines to be marketed again. These machines would be able to clean a load of dishes in an hour by increasing the amount of water, the water temperature, and overall energy usage—items which the current DOE regulations prohibit . . . Oddly enough, the current DOE regulations apply only to residential dishwashers. Commercial dishwashers are still incredibly efficient. Some of them have cycle times under three minutes. (Not a typo.)

This isn’t because commercial dishwashers use advanced alien technology. They’re just allowed to be manufactured without government regulations in place that make them less useful.

It would be nice if the federal government granted citizens the same rights and privileges it grants businesses.

[EasyAce]

Petition granted.

And I'm all for it.

The dishwasher that came with my house blew its motor two months ago, and it wasn't exactly an old dishwasher to begin with. (I've had the house over ten years.) Since then, it's been I wash, God dries, including letting my dishes sit in hot soapy water for about fifteen minutes first. (I have a temporary angled dish drainer in which the water residue runs off into the sink.) Which is what I had to do before, anyway, because thanks to the "energy efficiency" my now-dead dishwasher could run up to three hours and still not get all the schmutz off the dishes like the oldies but goodies did. (When I was a kid, my parents' first dishwasher was a top-loading Hotpoint you rolled up to the kitchen sink, where you fastened the hoses to the tap, and the fully-loaded sucker would be done in slightly less than half an hour, including when it popped its lid as the final dry cycle began.) I'm all in favour of adjusting these ridiculous standards reasonably.

Ms. Murphy says the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Frank Pallone, Jr., objects---on grounds that allowing the revival of the good old hour-or-less dishwasher would (wait for it!) "short change consumers." If cutting the time of a particular household task is "short changing" them, this bozo needs to learn a thing or three about daily living, never mind consumers.

What's Pallone going to do next, demand we go to strictly bagless vacuum cleaners (paper waste making filter bags, don't you know, we got to save those trees!), ignorant of the fact that when you dump out the dirt chambers you're liable to get a cloud of dust recoiling into your face when the dirt hits the trash as you dump it? Thank you, no, I'll stick with my bagged old Electrolux. (Well, it's not that old, unless you consider 25 years and still purring and sucking "old.") The bag seals up when you take it out full, and I just drop it into the trash knowing I'm not going to get it in the face the minute it hits the bottom of the can or whatever else was in there first.

[rustynail]

Save the Earth!  Eat over the sink.

[goatprairie]

My wife loves her dishwasher. We've never had any problems with our dishwasher which is fifteen years old now. Came with the house.
It has various cycles, but we usually put in on the 90 minute or so cycle.
When it's done, I can tell you personally that when I open the door and start taking them out, the dishes are pretty hot. And clean. We've never had to rewash any dishes.
Occasionally a utensil needs a little more washing, but that's it.

[Victoria33]

When living by myself, I used paper plates, paper bowls, and tossed them in the trash.  If they still make paper out of trees, too bad.

Am now living with someone, and we rinse stuff off plates, out of bowls, then into the dishwasher.  They are clean at the end since we took stuff off them before they went in.

[corbe]

   My space for my Dishwasher was over a hundred years old.  I rebuilt the DW twice before I finally slayed the Ghost of the Machine and put in New Cabinets, Tile Countertops and of course this new LG Dishwasher suxs.


   Only a writer as good as you @EasyAce can make or recognize in others, the ability to make any damn thing interesting. 

[Sanguine]

My wife loves her dishwasher. We've never had any problems with our dishwasher which is fifteen years old now. Came with the house.
It has various cycles, but we usually put in on the 90 minute or so cycle.
When it's done, I can tell you personally that when I open the door and start taking them out, the dishes are pretty hot. And clean. We've never had to rewash any dishes.
Occasionally a utensil needs a little more washing, but that's it.

I hope it continues to work, because the newer ones are "energy efficient" and don't work that well.

[Elderberry]

If your dishwasher's not cleaning like it did in the Old Days, its due to the detergent, because they took out the Evil Phosphates.
From this pie chart you'll see that the phosphate(STPP) was 1/3 of the old detergent.



No one's stopping you from adding your own phosphates back to your detergent. STPP not TSP.

[EasyAce]

If your dishwasher's not cleaning like it did in the Old Days, its due to the detergent, because they took out the Evil Phosphates.
From this pie chart you'll see that the phosphate(STPP) was 1/3 of the old detergent.



No one's stopping you from adding your own phosphates back to your detergent. STPP not TSP.

@Elderberry
Eliminating phosphates didn't stop Mom's old top-loading Hotpoint from doing the job as I described earlier. (Bought in 1963 and lasted a quarter century, until she and stepfather decided to have their kitchen completely remade, when she went to work as an office manager for the Long Island distributor for Magic Maid appliances and they could get it done wholesale. She sold the Hotpoint to a friend and, so far as I know, that Hotpoint kept on ticking right for years to follow.)

And they make commercial dishwashers that can do the job just as the author in the original article described and sometimes better. I'm thinking of buying one of them myself for my house when I have a spare two grand. It's a countertop model that doesn't exactly look like a showpiece but it'll do the job properly in about ten minutes. I have enough showpiece-looking appliances that I'm not especially worried about one ugly box.

[EasyAce]

When living by myself, I used paper plates, paper bowls, and tossed them in the trash.  If they still make paper out of trees, too bad.

@Victoria33

Meet my tree-murdering filter bag Electrolux:



I bought a considerable gross of fresh bags (about 130 of them) on eBay for a sweet deal.

They won't convert me to bagless face-dusters even at gunpoint.

[EasyAce]

   My space for my Dishwasher was over a hundred years old.  I rebuilt the DW twice before I finally slayed the Ghost of the Machine and put in New Cabinets, Tile Countertops and of course this new LG Dishwasher suxs.

The dishwasher in my house that croaked was an LG.

Which I don't get, because I have a washer-and-dryer pair made by LG that both work great!

Only a writer as good as you @EasyAce can make or recognize in others, the ability to make any damn thing interesting. 

I wish I'd waxed rhapsodic over the oldie but goodie I was given---completely, guts-up restored, back to factory-original condition---as a present on my 60th birthday:





. . . and that beauty is exactly as old as I am! (Made originally in 1955.)

And it isn't one of those "energy efficient" plastic weaklings with the wimpy-ass wire beaters, either.

[roamer_1]

I never did see the point.
By the time you are done scraping em, sorting em, and arranging em in the dishwasher, all you'd need to do is add a little soap and water and you'd be all done anyway. I specifically omitted a dishwasher from my kitchen build.

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

I never did see the point.
By the time you are done scraping em, sorting em, and arranging em in the dishwasher, all you'd need to do is add a little soap and water and you'd be all done anyway. I specifically omitted a dishwasher from my kitchen build.

In theory, it gives you a place to keep the dirty dishes out of the way until they get washed.

Unfortunately, I see to be clinically unable to unload the DW until it's (a little past) time to run a new load.

[roamer_1]

In theory, it gives you a place to keep the dirty dishes out of the way until they get washed.

Unfortunately, I see to be clinically unable to unload the DW until it's (a little past) time to run a new load.

LOL! Right. Considering my propensity to leave my pants stored in the dryer, I understand your position perfectly!

As for dishes, I do them every day, at the end of the day, and put the kitchen away clean for the morning... Anything I might generate through the day is rinsed at once, and stacked for washing in the evening... I will admit the dishes hardly ever make it back to the cupboard. They tend to reside in the drying rack, even as my pants reside in the dryer. 

[corbe]

In theory, it gives you a place to keep the dirty dishes out of the way until they get washed.

Unfortunately, I see to be clinically unable to unload the DW until it's (a little past) time to run a new load.

   Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of having enough dishes to do that.

[Sighlass]

After a leak rotted a section of the floor without me knowing it, I have refused to get another one. They are more pain than they are worth in my opinion.... That said, I do my share of dishes with the rest of them. I can wipe out a bunch with the best of them and the kids know, when I do dishes, they have the job of putting them up ... and the old saying goes... a man has never been shot while working in front of the sink.

[roamer_1]

   Unfortunately I don't have the luxury of having enough dishes to do that.

I have a butt-ton of dishes... most of which never get out of the cupboard.

Couple of plates, a pot or two, and of course my med. cast iron pan, which never ever gets put away... It just lives on the stove top with the teapot.

[Sanguine]

I never did see the point.
By the time you are done scraping em, sorting em, and arranging em in the dishwasher, all you'd need to do is add a little soap and water and you'd be all done anyway. I specifically omitted a dishwasher from my kitchen build.

For one thing, I have a large family and really dislike spending an hour or more in the kitchen on special occasions washing dirty dishes.   

I love my dishwasher.  And, if the dish don't fit, I don't have it.

[roamer_1]

After a leak rotted a section of the floor without me knowing it, I have refused to get another one. They are more pain than they are worth in my opinion.... That said, I do my share of dishes with the rest of them. I can wipe out a bunch with the best of them and the kids know, when I do dishes, they have the job of putting them up ... and the old saying goes... a man has never been shot while working in front of the sink.

Many's the time I did dishes with one of my middle kids drying, and my youngest daughter standing on the countertop putting them away...

[roamer_1]

For one thing, I have a large family and really dislike spending an hour or more in the kitchen on special occasions washing dirty dishes.   

I love my dishwasher.  And, if the dish don't fit, I don't have it.

I guess I can understand that - Though for us, many hands make small work.
And for big occasions, the big house was always fitted with three kitchens, so three stations made it pretty quick. The ladies generally man the stations, and the men folk shuttle dishes and tupperware back and forth while doing the breakdown work, busting down tables and putting everything away.

I will have likewise (2 stations) once I get the outdoor kitchen done - The sink out there will be pretty industrial to better handle canning...

I doubt I will ever host anything like the big house has... No where near the same facility... more than likely no more than 10 seats... Easy by comparison.

[Smokin Joe]

I never did see the point.
By the time you are done scraping em, sorting em, and arranging em in the dishwasher, all you'd need to do is add a little soap and water and you'd be all done anyway. I specifically omitted a dishwasher from my kitchen build.

You and I must be cut from some of the same cloth. When I saw 'buying dishwashers that work', my first thought was that was banned a long time ago (1865 or so). When the kids are grown, do them yourselves.

If they're done promptly, it doesn't take near as much work.

[roamer_1]

You and I must be cut from some of the same cloth.

That seems to be the case, more often than not. 
 

When I saw 'buying dishwashers that work', my first thought was that was banned a long time ago (1865 or so). When the kids are grown, do them yourselves.

If they're done promptly, it doesn't take near as much work.

That's right. The big thing is to keep up with it. It hardy ever takes me more than 15 minutes, but then I let em dry on the rack. Water spots never bothered me much.

Every now and then I will actually cook something, and blow up my kitchen (cuz that's how it works for me). That can be a chore, but still maybe a half hour, and most of that scraping off the counters... and walls... and ceiling... 

I would be better off buying a pressure washer.

[Smokin Joe]

That seems to be the case, more often than not. 
 

That's right. The big thing is to keep up with it. It hardy ever takes me more than 15 minutes, but then I let em dry on the rack. Water spots never bothered me much.

Every now and then I will actually cook something, and blow up my kitchen (cuz that's how it works for me). That can be a chore, but still maybe a half hour, and most of that scraping off the counters... and walls... and ceiling... 

I would be better off buying a pressure washer.

That;s where multitasking comes in. While waiting for this, and in between stirring that, whatever you're done with gets washed, rinsed, and racked. It really cuts down on the 'after meal letdown' of a major cleaning project when there are just a couple of things left to do.

[roamer_1]

That;s where multitasking comes in. While waiting for this, and in between stirring that, whatever you're done with gets washed, rinsed, and racked. It really cuts down on the 'after meal letdown' of a major cleaning project when there are just a couple of things left to do.

That's right... At least rinse it all out and float some water into everything just to keep it soft. Waiting till it's all dried out will mean a whole lot of scrubbin. And don't be scared of throwing something tough back on the stove for a boil either... I hate scrubbin hard, and mostly it ain't necessary... Though my ex never did figure that out.

[Smokin Joe]

That's right... At least rinse it all out and float some water into everything just to keep it soft. Waiting till it's all dried out will mean a whole lot of scrubbin. And don't be scared of throwing something tough back on the stove for a boil either... I hate scrubbin hard, and mostly it ain't necessary... Though my ex never did figure that out.

My ex had some interesting science projects, between the sink and the fridge....she overdid that soaking thing a few times.