During the remodel {and for 2 months afterwards}, we were without a working dishwasher. Never before in my life had hand washing been a normal thing for us until this experience. And now, even though the dishwasher is up and running, I am still hand washing our dishes. Who knew that the 10 minutes a day that I spend scrubbing caked on food off of our plates would be so relaxing? Seriously, it’s like forced simplification. I can’t cram something else into my day while my dirty dishes hide in the dishwasher. It’s nice to slow down, clean them up. It’s nice, and weirdly gratifying.
Turns out, I might be doing my family a favor by hand-washing all of our dishes {who knew?!}. According to an article I read, a Swedish study found that households that hand wash most of their dishes had children with fewer incidences of eczema, “and somewhat fewer had either asthma or hay fever, compared to kids from families who let machines wash their dishes.” The theory behind this is that we live in an overly sanitized world. Kids do not get the same exposure to bacteria as they once did, and so their immune systems do not get the opportunity to build. I think this whole sanitizing everything probably goes much deeper than dishwashers {i.e. hand sanitizers and Clorox wipes}.
While hand washing has been downright enjoyable–and apparently a slight health benefit, I’ve wondered which is more environmentally conscious. I found an article on treehugger that basically went through every possible scenario. Overall, dishwashers are considered a more environmentally friendly way to wash dishes. BUT, after reading the article, I can totally justify it. Here’s how: Dishwashers aren’t nearly as efficient at heating water as full sized water heaters, so running hot water in the sink is probably not eating up any additional energy. an energy star rated dishwasher uses about 4 gallons of water per cycle. A standard dishwasher uses 6. All in all, I decided that as long as I use under 4 gallons a day to do the washing {and I do}, I am going to press on.
Simplifying is awesome. {Even if having to look up justification for my simplification is really the opposite of simplifying ;)}
~Mavis
Dana says
Sticking with the dishwasher. It saves water and makes yet another chore that much easier. I would never have sanitizing lotion, or antibacterial soap, or bleach in my house, and we have 5 furry critters running around, so we are in no danger of over sanitizing our environment, like, ever.
Susan says
I’ll be curious if this turns out to be a hot topic.:) After having no dishwasher in various houses and apartments for 15+ years (I know, the tragedy …). I vowed to have one before I turned 40. That involved removing a cabinet and plumbing one in our kitchen. Six months later, I am so grateful to have one! Yes, washing dishes wasn’t that hard, but add to that the teetering tower of drying dishes always on the counter (or conversely, the pile of dirty dishes in the sink) and our kitchen looks so much cleaner now. It’s one thing to wash up after dinner. It’s another to wash up after breakfast, after packing lunches for kids, after my own lunch (I work from home), after afternoon snacks, after dinner prep and after dinner (and put away said dishes). Bliss! Like Dana, I’ll stick with the dishwasher!
Tamara says
We used to have four (4) dishwashers, but two of them grew up and moved out, so now it is just my hubby and me. Have never had a kitchen large enough for a mechanical dishwasher and if I ever do, don’t think I would get one. Doing the dishes takes little time if I wash as I go when cooking, which certainly helps as the kitchen is small. Washing, drying and putting away literally takes minutes and serves as a slowing down, meditative time, unless my HH and I do it together. Then we chat! A mechanical dishwasher is one less thing to think about; now, I wouldn’t take ANYTHING for my washer and dryer! (And I love my clothesline!)
KAte says
We don’t have a dishwasher (world’s tiniest house) and so everything has to get washed by hand. I’d say 90% of what my husband and I fight about are dishes. I work all day (he doesn’t work) so I come home to a sink full of dishes that I didn’t create, but still need washing. How can one person use 3 coffee cups, 4 glasses in one day?!? The easy answer is he should wash more dishes of course, but life is never that simple. He has back problems and since our house is old the counters and sinks are super low. We’re both tall which amplifies the problem. Doing the dishes hurts his back, so he does very few. It makes no sense to be mad at him for not doing something that hurts.
A dishwasher would be a g***amn life saver. I’m about to pay the neighbor kid to come come over every other day and wash dishes just so I don’t have to.
Mary Ann says
I get that he can’t do them because of his back, but I’ve never understood how some men can’t just use the same mug or glass throughout the day. Mine does the same thing and it drives me nuts! Thank goodness we DO have a dishwasher or we may not be married. lol
Chris M says
He might be able to do the dishes if he sat down. I’ve done that before. I’ve also been the neighbor kid that got paid to do the dishes. Awesome, job! 🙂
Terri says
Washing dishes. I have a dishwasher, I only use it as a drying rack. I actually enjoy washing dishes. I have to rinse them by hand anyway before loading, so I just wash them! Dishwashers seem like giant petri dishes to me with the moisture and heat!lol
Miriam says
Really? I lived without a dishwasher for 3 years. I hated it. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate.
Reason 1: Tiny Kitchen. I had a dinky, hole in the wall kitchen where 2 dishes dirty and your kitchen has to be cleaned.
Reason 2: My HH hates doing dishes (and when he does it, he leaves food on the dishes, ewww. I end up redoing them anyway.)
However, now I have a bad dish washer and I feel that I should just wash the dishes by hand so they are cleaner… *sigh*
I am glad that you can enjoy something so never ending and mundane. (Even as I say that about dishes, my husband says the same thing about some of my hobbies, so no judging from me.) Maybe if I kept up on them more, they’d be more relaxing.
Pam says
I’ve never had a dishwasher……like ever. I find the only time I really wish that I had one is canning season. Both of my kids are grown and out of the house now so the dishes the hubby and I generate are too few to justify using a dishwasher for. We’re in the middle of a kitchen remodel – and I have a HUGE kitchen – and I still won’t put a dishwasher in. Just a personal choice.
Tammy says
I haven’t had a dishwasher for the past 10 years. It would save a lot of my time if I had one! So if I were to have one you can bet I’d use it! 😀
Susannah says
I have a dishwasher and I never use it. In fact, it’s turned off at the circuit breaker panel. I keep it for resale purposes, but I prefer to wash dishes by hand. We’re a small household and we have just four of everything that we use day-in-and-day-out (plates, bowls, glasses, mugs, etc.), so while I do have to do dishes every day, I also kind of like it. It’s my “me” time to veg out and soak my hands in some warm, sudsy water…ahhh! 😉
sarah says
I’m actually in the middle of planning new kitchen cabinets right now 🙂 We plumbed for a dishwasher, but I think I’m going to put a cabinet there instead. What you do, Susannah is exactly what I’ve been considering. No dishwasher and one set of dishes per person. Maybe fiestaware and we choose our unique color. I’ve always had a dishwasher, but I can’t help myself from rinsing the dishes clean before putting them in. I might as well add soap and use the space for more storage.
Pam says
Like Sarah, we’ve also plumbed for a dishwasher but we’ve put a recycle cabinet in it’s place (pull out cabinet with bins for glass, cans, etc). We just sold a house 2 years ago and not having a dishwasher in it was a real issue. We ended up pulling a cabinet out and putting a cheap dishwasher in to get it sold. Guess that technically means I HAVE owned a dishwasher – even if it was in a house I’d already moved from…..lol.
Janet says
My dishwasher is my friend. I love her every day for the time she saves me. There are still dishes to wash by hand though.
Jen Y says
I received my 1st dishwasher for my 10th wedding anniversay – per my request. 🙂 I hated washing dishes as a child. There were a lot of us so my mom assigned three of us to wash dishes rotating between us all: washing, rinsing, drying & putting them away. I traded outside chores with my sisters all the time to get out of washing dishes – I’d mow the yard, do the laundry: hang, bring in, fold & put away…anything to get out of the kitchen.
We’ve been doing some remodeling as well & I wash dishes once a day now for us my husband & me. At first it really hurt my back(I have an injury I have to watch out for) but afer awhile I’ve become used to it again. I do love the good feeling of seeing it all cleaned up & I usually call someone, put the phone on speaker & visit while I wash. I guess it takes me back to evenings in the kitchen with my sisters. 😉
CH says
I’ve been researching this exact topic A LOT. Most people use Waaaaay more then 4 gal of water to hand wash dishes. Like near 20+. So if you can effectively wash with 4 gal or less, good on you, keep on keepin on, but otherwise, dishwashers are far more cost, water, and energy efficient. I read that same Tree Hugger article and it ended with stating that it was pretty difficult to match the water use of a machine when washing by hand.
Darlene says
We’ve also never had a dishwasher, my parents never had one either, so I guess we just never had the need. We live in the country and have a septic tank. Dishwashers (and garbage disposals) are not good for them, so a good reason to hand wash here 🙂 I saw a quote in my Amish cookbook, it says a mother can always find 30 minutes by herself, doing the dishes 🙂
Karin Carson says
I grew up with out a dishwasher, ours was called, Karin,Raellen or Kristyn ha ha. My youngest sister had very severe asthma , so bad at times we had to wear coveralls when we went to the barn,chicken house Ect abd boots and remove before we came back in, I am a firm believer in “You got to eat a peck of dirt before you die” my grandmas famous saying, so I find sime discrepancy in that study regarding asthma and dishwasher, I have a Tall tub Whirlpool and it would be one of the things I would sadly miss, it’s is a part of my daily routine that I wouls miss if I had to wash by hand. We have a septic so you can have both with out any issues, it doesn’t harm your septic system. We have very hard water and I am amazed how sparkly shinning my glasses,dishes are, it gets a great work out during canning season as well.
Practical Parsimony says
I guarantee you I got and do get enough dirt and germs. I am 100% disabled, so the dishwasher is staying. Not using a dishwasher ruins the gaskets so it leaks. If you are saving it for resale, you may have to buy one for the next homeowners to enjoy. Run a rinse in it (at least) to keep it in use.
My daughter developed asthma at six months after my mil refused to allow me to close our bedroom door when we visited. So, her cat slept in my infant’s bed.
Denise says
Up until the time my spine degenerated enough to cause grievous pain, I have always hand-washed dishes–grew up that way. I find that my dishes shine more, are cleaner, and have no skunky-fishbowl smell when they’re handwashed. My daughter-in-law, oddly enough, is a staunch handwasher. I remember my grandmother putting hot soapy dishes, just washed, into the drainer, then scooting it over the sink and pouring a kettle of freshly-boiled water over all. They dried clean, fast and spotless. On the days when I feel capable of handwashing, I put on a pair of old-fashioned rubber gloves and go to town. I find that, when I wear the gloves, I can get the water from the faucet to burn level without burning my hands, and I have a sink of clean shiny dishes. Very meditative for me, kind of like ironing.
Stacey says
Now that the kids are grown and gone, I have a dishwasher for the first time in my life. I used it once and probably won’t use it again. It was so much work! First, rinse, then load, then wait an HOUR while the washer ate up electricity, then pull dishes out, set them on the counter because I couldn’t reach the cupboards, finish drying them because they still weren’t quite dry, then finally put them away. The process wasted so much time. Now, I do dishes once or twice a day and there is no way I use as much hot water or electricity as that one load in the dishwasher. I lived in Arizona for 13 years and know how to use only the water I need. A few dishes, only a little water, wash quickly, rinse a bunch at the same time. It just plain works for me, and my dishes are happily back n the cupboard much sooner so I can be done with the housework for the night!
Melissa says
I definitely enjoy the hand-washing when I do it but, after a few days, my fingers crack awfully. So, I usually only hand-wash every so often. Now, if I could hand wash the simple stuff like plates and have an industrial dishwasher that would do all the gross things like the fish grease salmon pan…I’d be in heaven.
Kate says
I go back and forth on this topic. It seems like it would be easier to use the dishwasher and, with large groups, I know it is. I’m thinking of remodeling my kitchen and I’m not sure I want to give up cabinet space for a dishwasher. We had a dishwasher on and off when I was growing up so its not like I never had one. Call me conflicted.
Alison R. says
If we have a large group of people I run the dishwasher, if just the two of us I hand wash.
Hot soapy water is “antibacterial”, companies went nuts and made everything antibacterial.
Liz says
Until recently our dishwasher has been used as an extra cupbord for random oddshaped kitchen stuff, but I decided to clean it out and start using it again. Why? Because I freaking HATE washing dishes by hand. I hate it with a hatred that borders on completely illogical. I will do all of the laundry in the house gladly and leave a pile of dishes in the sink. That being said, I still don’t always use the dishwasher now that I’ve got it up and running. We have shared custody of his two girls, so while half of the time there are four of us making messy dishes, the other half of the time it’s just him and I (and I’m the main dish mess maker). When it’s just the two of us only dirtying a handful of dishes a day it doesn’t make a lot of sense to sloooooowly fill the dishwasher just so I don’t have to do them myself. But when the girls are home? Oh heck yah I’m using the dishwasher!
Michelle says
I am a 100% hand washing gal. I didn’t have a dishwasher growing up, and although we’ve had a dishwasher in some of the houses we’ve lived in, I’ve never used it (my husband would run the dishwasher every so often to keep it from drying out).
I’m home all day, homeschooling four kids, three full meals and one snack, and I wash the dishes after every meal (in the past year though our two oldest kids take turns at dinnertime). I’ve gotten pretty efficient at it – lol. I’m not sure why I’m so against dishwashers. It may have something to do with my childhood memories of visiting a friend for a meal and their dishes had bits of hard dried food on them from the dishwasher (in between the fork tines – yuck), or that the drinking glasses seem to wear quicker… Most likely reason – I love that when I handwash the dishes, they are washed, dried and put away then and there – done.
Sallie says
I love this. Thank you for sharing!