Why Dishwashers Are Quietly Disappearing From American Homes: ‘Federal efficiency standards transformed dishwashers into marathon cleaners’ – But Trump admin’s regulatory ‘rollback offers a rare win for function over dogma’
Gadget Review: When Efficiency Becomes Inconvenience: Federal efficiency standards transformed dishwashers into marathon cleaners. Modern machines take 2.5 to 4 hours per cycle—a far cry from the quick turnarounds families actually need. The Department of Energy’s push for water conservation limits new models to 5 gallons per cycle, with proposals dropping that to 3.2 gallons by 2027. You get cleaner dishes eventually, but “eventually” doesn’t work when kids need their lunch containers ready for tomorrow morning.
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Reason Mag: Donald Trump's Energy Department Saved Your Appliances: Decades of efficiency mandates have made dishwashers weaker, A.C. units feebler, and appliances more expensive. A new rollback offers a rare win for function over dogma. -
Marc Oestreich: My 1979 brick ranch creaks on into senescence, its heater, air-conditioning, fans, and water heater—bastions of a bygone era of appliance liberty—teetering. Replacing them likely means paying thousands of dollars for lesser-able machines. That's been the story for decades: as tech leaps forward, appliances regress. Until now. ...
Take electric motor mandates—these rules hit everything from your blender to your garage compressor. They aimed to tighten already-strict regulations and expand them to even more motors in everyday appliances. Ostensibly, the goal was to reduce electricity use and emissions. Sounds noble—until you realize what it does to the products we actually use.
https://www.climatedepot.com/2025/09/02/why-dishwashers-are-quietly-disappearing-from-american-homes-federal-efficiency-standards-transformed-dishwashers-into-marathon-cleaners-but-trump-admins-rollback-offers-a-rare-win-for-func/
