[HN Gopher] Dishwashing detergent hack: Two ingredients (2015)
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Dishwashing detergent hack: Two ingredients (2015)
Author : superasn
Score : 77 points
Date : 2020-08-12 19:10 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.whatlisacooks.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.whatlisacooks.com)
| khazhoux wrote:
| Wow, author runs dishwasher twice a day, sometimes three times a
| day on weekend. That's insane. Life-hack: reuse dishes and
| glasses when possible throughout the day. Wipe off crumbs after
| breakfast and lunch and set the plates aside. Don't freak out if
| there's a little left-over grease smear on the dish or dried up
| fruit-water in the bowl from three hours ago, it won't kill you.
| If the dish is actually in gross shape (caked on cheese or
| whatever) then fine, throw it in dishwasher and grab a new one.
| munk-a wrote:
| For 6-8 people in a household twice a day is unreasonably
| frequent. Most of those people are probably kids so it's not
| like you're racking up tons of wine glasses. So, while it's
| nice to use an environmentally friendly detergent - the most
| environmentally friendly thing you can do is just reuse dishes
| when possible - did you eat a bagel on that plate? Give it a
| rinse and use it again!
| plutonorm wrote:
| Kids.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| When we doubled the size of our household, we quadrupled the
| volume of dishes and laundry.
| halfFact wrote:
| We switched to cloth diapers and need to do a load every
| day or 2.
|
| Hopefully this is better for the environment than
| disposable.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| This raised my eyebrow too, but then I saw that she has 6-8
| people in her house and it makes sense. With 2-3 people we
| usually wash about 2 out of 3 days, I can see if you have that
| many people running twice a day.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| For decades, I used the dishwasher exclusively to wash my
| dishes, but once the pandemic began, I started washing my
| dishes by hand and have been doing so ever since.
|
| I used to hate washing dishes by hand, because I found touching
| the leftover food and grease to be really gross, but since the
| pandemic I started using nitrile gloves when washing dishes by
| hand, and then since the leftover food was no longer touching
| my skin I didn't find it gross any longer.
|
| In fact, I was surprised to find that washing dishes became
| sort of a meditative experience for me, when I took a break
| from whatever I was involved in in my day-to-day life, and for
| 10 minutes or so focused on just doing the dishes. So I almost
| started to enjoy washing dishes by hand, and only rarely run my
| dishwasher any more. Really, the only time I run the dishwasher
| now is when I'm too exhausted to do the dishes by hand, instead
| of every single time.
|
| It's also nice not to have to wait for hours for the dishes to
| be washed and dried, and not to waste so much electricity to
| just do a handful of dishes.
| chromaton wrote:
| Since it's HN: Bill Gates has mentioned he likes washing
| dishes. I can't stand it myself.
| taldo wrote:
| Dishwashers are usually much more water efficient than hand
| washing.
| sukilot wrote:
| ...if you only wash a full load and your hand washing is
| extremely hot water with the faucet at max flow.
| shard wrote:
| How does it balance out when electricity use is taken into
| account? Saving water might be better in water-poor
| locations, but saving electricity might be better in high-
| electric-rate locations. In water-poor locations, it might
| be more advantageous to use the gray water from hand
| washing for other uses, such as watering the lawn or
| flushing the toilet.
| andechs wrote:
| Most of the electricity usage is due to the drying cycle
| of the dishwasher. If you want to be super efficient, set
| your dishwasher to skip the drying cycle and either prop
| the door so that the dishes can drip dry, or hand dry the
| dishes coming out of the dishwasher.
|
| Generally, when hand washing dishes, hot water is used.
| Typically ~5-10 times more water is required when hand
| washing, which results in more water needing to be heated
| (and is less energy efficient as a result).
| eigenvector wrote:
| Sure, if you run the tap the entire time that you're hand-
| washing. But you can just fill the sink with water, plug it
| and wash many dishes with that water. I once worked with a
| guy who lived in a cabin without running water for most of
| his life. Needless to say, he was very efficient at hand
| washing dishes with very little water.
| kn0where wrote:
| Keep in mind though, that dishwashers use less water than
| washing by hand.
| amatic wrote:
| That depends on the dishwasher and the dish washer, though.
| globular-toast wrote:
| Keep in mind that marketing departments will pick and
| choose statistics that make their product look attractive.
| Dishwashers use more power and the water savings only apply
| if people don't rinse the dishes first, which many do.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Not to burst your soap-sud bubble, but modern dishwashers use
| less water than washing by hand[1], and by extension less
| electricity (purifying water is high-electricity usage,
| moving it around within your dishwasher is not)
|
| [1] https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/11/24/564055953
| /to...
| mvn9 wrote:
| There is some meditation that goes along the lines of:
|
| How do you know that you actually enjoy your tea if you don't
| enjoy washing the bowl?
|
| It would be nice if somebody could point out a source for
| that idea.
| kangnkodos wrote:
| Sounds like something Uncle Iroh would say, but I can't
| find the quote.
| dsr_ wrote:
| Four humans, all home all day long. We cook.
|
| Minimum one dishwasher run daily, maximum 3, average is about
| 2.
|
| If the sink isn't clear, I can't refill the water tank for the
| chiller. If I don't refill the water tank, people don't drink
| enough water.
|
| Running the dishwasher is cheaper than medical bills.
| mdoms wrote:
| > If I don't refill the water tank, people don't drink enough
| water
|
| Huh? What's wrong with water from the tap?
| dsr_ wrote:
| It's clean and tasty -- but it isn't cold. I can convince
| my family to drink water when it's cold. So I have a
| chiller that I refill from tap water, and everyone drinks
| water, and all is good.
| animal_spirits wrote:
| Not everywhere has perfectly clean tap water. See
| https://www.today.com/news/family-discovers-their-tap-
| water-...
| ksenzee wrote:
| > If your water starts fizzing, that could be a red flag.
|
| You don't say.
| ksenzee wrote:
| Depends where you live. Where I live now, I filter all my
| drinking water. Across town where I grew up, the tap water
| tastes so good you could bottle and sell it. Both places
| have safe water; it's just a question of how it tastes, and
| that's highly variable.
| PostPlummer wrote:
| Five humans, all home most of the day. We cook a lot. Minimum
| one dishwasher run daily, maximum 3, average is about 2.
|
| And all of the pans, special cooking / prepping utensilien
| are done by hand.
| [deleted]
| globular-toast wrote:
| You actually think you're going to get sick if you don't run
| the dishwasher multiple times a day? How do people become
| this detached from reality?
|
| I grew up in a family of seven and we didn't even have a
| dishwasher. Believe it or not, we're all still alive.
| floren wrote:
| I read it as "the family will become dehydrated and need to
| go to the ER if there's not water in the chiller, because
| straight from the tap is UNACCEPTABLE"
| dsr_ wrote:
| Correct. As it happens, my wife's side of the family is
| prone to kidney stones, and also has an incredibly high
| pain threshold.
| eigenvector wrote:
| You may want to consider a simple detachable hose you can
| connect to the faucet to fill up something external when the
| sink is full. I use such a thing for filling a bucket of
| water that can't actually fit in the sink. You will find it
| in your local hardware store.
| tomohawk wrote:
| Other hacks.
|
| Instead of fabric softener like downy, use same amount of white
| vinegar. It is cheaper, your clothes smell fresher, and anyone
| with allergies will thank you.
|
| For cleaning a tub or shower, make a mixture of 50% white vinegar
| and 50% dish detergent (like dawn). Spray the mixture on
| tile/tub/curtain/doors. Let sit for 15 - 30 minutes. Spray down
| with water. Done. This is way cheaper than the industrial
| cleaners, much less smelly, and usually works better.
| meatmanek wrote:
| A fun trick is to google for the safety data sheet (SDS) of
| household chemical products. They'll tell you rough proportions
| of some of the ingredients. (Not all, just the ones they're
| required to -- the more dangerous ones.)
|
| For example, the SDS for Cascade Pacs[1] tells us that there's
| ~40% sodium carbonate (washing soda, a fairly strong base), a few
| percent of sodium percarbonate (washing soda + hydrogen
| peroxide), and a few percent of an ethoxylated alcohol, a
| surfactant.
|
| There are also some notes further down about Subtilisin, which
| apparently is a protease, an enzyme that breaks down protein.
|
| (I'm not a chemist, so my interpretations of what these chemicals
| are/do is based on search results for the chemical names / CAS
| numbers.)
|
| I bet if you looked up the SDS for Dawn dish soap, it'd be mostly
| surfactants, so sodium bicarbonate + Dawn dish soap is a
| reasonable approximation of sodium carbonate + surfactants.
|
| OxyClean is also sodium carbonate, sodium percarbonate, and
| ethoxylated alcohols, so it'd also probably do just fine --
| whether it's safe to use in a dishwasher depends mostly on the
| toxicity of those ethoxylated alcohols.
|
| 1.
| https://www.pg.com/productsafety/sds/SDS_2018/SDS_Feb_2018/C...
| 2.
| https://www.ahprofessional.com/_downloads/sds/SDS%20OxiClean...
| mdoms wrote:
| But..... you already have dish soap? Just.... wash the dishes?
| chromaton wrote:
| I think it's your day to do dishes.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Everything I know about dishwasher detergent is that it is
| formulated to clean _chemically_ , i.e. with enzymes etc. that
| actually _break food down_ over the course of tens of minutes or
| hours.
|
| Dish soap does NOT do that. (It's also why you shouldn't wash
| dishes by hand with dishwasher detergent, because the chemicals
| are too harsh.)
|
| I don't doubt that this "hack" does _some_ cleaning, but for
| things like crusted-on tomato sauce, hardened cheese, dried egg
| yolks, etc. -- it 's just not going to work as well. Dish soap
| simply doesn't break these things down. It's not meant to.
|
| (Washing by hand with dish soap works because you're applying
| intense pressure and abrasion, neither of which a dishwasher can
| do -- which is why it does it chemically instead.)
|
| I just don't find it credible that "the results are identical".
| Either the author isn't paying enough attention, or else they're
| doing extensive "pre-washing" of their dishes before loading
| them, or they're washing so incredibly quickly after eating that
| food never has the time to dry/harden in the first place.
| zaxu wrote:
| Maybe the baking soda emulates some of the mechanical action of
| manual washing.
| twic wrote:
| I once met a chap who told me he used his dishwasher without
| any powder or soap at all, and it still worked.
|
| Now, maybe he was making it up. But i suspect that there is a
| common class of dish dirt where prolonged steaming and jetting
| with hot water is adequate in practice - i'd expect anything
| water-soluble to dissolve in hot water! So, residues from tea
| or coffee, water-based pasta sauce, fruit juice, jam, etc. It
| won't work for everything, of course, but it might work for a
| surprising range of things.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Exactly, even friction with hot water will definitely do some
| level of washing. You can't really estimate the effect of
| dishwasher detergent until you actually try with and without
| (which is akin to using placebo for drugs).
|
| The same is true for washing machines in laundry, running
| them without detergent will still remove some stains.
| rootsudo wrote:
| To be fair this is what I do, I always make sure everything
| is in the dishwasher less than 30 mins after I'm done and no
| issue.
|
| Then again I have one of those small half size ones that look
| like a cabinet door.
|
| I do this with the same set of plate(s) and utinsils and rice
| cooker it's great.
|
| Granted, I cook daily for myself, and I steam everything and
| avoid oils/grease in general with chicken/fish.
|
| But it's possible, the only issue I have is hard water stains
| but better than scrubbing it with a sponge.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| > I just don't find it credible that "the results are
| identical". Either the author isn't paying enough attention, or
| else they're doing extensive "pre-washing" of their dishes
| before loading them, or they're washing so incredibly quickly
| after eating that food never has the time to dry/harden in the
| first place.
|
| They run the washer many times per day... al the food is
| probably still fresh and not dried up and hard to remove. Same
| is true for professional/restaurant dishwasher, where dishes
| are put inside immediately and washed in a few minutes.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Everything I know about dishwasher detergent is that it is
| formulated to clean chemically, i.e. with enzymes etc. that
| actually break food down over the course of tens of minutes or
| hours.
|
| This may have changed recently, but dish soap used to have
| enzymes too.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Dawn still does:
|
| https://www.pg.com/productsafety/ingredients/household_care/.
| ..
| tyingq wrote:
| Was curious about this, so I looked it up. Sounds like it's
| usually bacillus protease and amylase, to digest protein and
| starch, respectively.
| andrewla wrote:
| Do dishwasher manufacturers publish any sort of guidance for
| detergent companies for what kinds of detergent are acceptable or
| problematic for the dishwashers? Or has this become a chicken and
| egg problem, where the manufacturers design for the currently
| available detergents and the detergent manufacturers design
| against current machines?
| throwaway889900 wrote:
| The dishwasher itself is pretty much all plastic for plumbing
| and doesn't have any problems with any detergent; it's the
| dishes that might not react well to specific
| detergents/temperatures/etc.
|
| The two don't really design for/against each other outside of
| small stuff like the detergent holder being able to take a
| detergent pod instead of loose powder. Dishwasher manufacturers
| are more concerned about form factor and efficient power use
| while detergent companies are focused on cleaning efficiency.
| parliament32 wrote:
| There are typically a lot more ingredients in detergent, so YMMV
| depending on a number of factors, including the composition of
| your dishwasher (corrosion), how well you clean the dishes before
| putting them in (a few drops of Dawn isn't going to penetrate
| 3-day-old melted cheese), how much you care about disinfecting
| (bleach), etc. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher_detergent#Compositi...
| colonwqbang wrote:
| Lifehacker news?
| every wrote:
| You can also use straight baking soda as an emergency laundry
| detergent. Depending on the machine and size of the load, 0.5
| cup/125 ml to 1.0 cup/250 ml. Just put it in directly with the
| clothes. No dispenser. Also, definitely __NO __dishwashing soap
| should be added...
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Here's another solution. Next time you run out, buy two bags of
| dishwasher soap. Then when one bag is done.... wait for it... USE
| THE SECOND BAG!
|
| All that's left is to put one bag of soap on your shopping list
| and you have 5 to 20 days to manage to buy it before you're back
| in fish soap and baking powder hell.
| ascorbic wrote:
| Well done for never running out of any household item
| evil-olive wrote:
| A related strategy - always keep a spare of crucial household
| items like this (dishwasher soap, toothpaste, etc). Don't buy a
| new one when you run out entirely, buy a new one when you use
| up your primary and switch to the backup.
|
| eg, I'm about to "run out" of toothpaste, in that the tube on
| my bathroom counter is almost empty. I have a full tube sitting
| in one of my bathroom drawers. When I pull that one out, I add
| toothpaste to my shopping list, and the new tube goes into the
| drawer as the new backup.
| aethertap wrote:
| Another related strategy: Pay an extra month on any recurring
| bills at the start (for services that allow you to maintain a
| credit balance). Then, just pay your bills as normal, except
| that you have an automatic one month of grace period for
| everything because you have a credit balance. This has saved
| me numerous times because of absentmindedness.
| gruez wrote:
| >This has saved me numerous times because of
| absentmindedness.
|
| Aren't you costing yourself tens of dollars per year in
| lost interest by doing this? You're essentially giving them
| an interest free loan. A calendar/reminder app doesn't have
| this problem and is more reliable (on the off chance you
| forgot twice in a row, for instance).
| xwdv wrote:
| Only worry about lost interest after you have maxed out
| all your investment and are holding no cash. Once you run
| out of cash to invest, then you can tap into these
| reserves. Most people though keep cash on hand anyway,
| accruing no interest.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Also, buy in bulk and when it's on sale. Those things usually
| last a long time, and there is a very very low chance you'll
| end up not needing those items anymore in your household, and
| even then you'll have bigger problems than 5 tubes of
| toothpaste left over in your drawer.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Literally addressed in the article...
| cryptoz wrote:
| That trick only works if you have lots of money. And lots of
| space.
|
| Do you apply it to other things too, like garbage bags? Or
| olive oil? What about hand soap?
|
| All of a sudden you're spending 2x normal for a while. Not a
| lot of people can do that.
| davchana wrote:
| Its not twice always, its just twice once. Its like getting
| ahead of the usage schedule.
|
| When you start, buy one. You assume its good for 20 days. Buy
| next one on Day 10. Voila, you have the backup now. Now buy
| next ones, one at a time on 30th, 50th, 70th day. You are 10
| days ahead of usage, you always have at least 10 days of
| runway ahead of you.
|
| Yes, I do it for Grocery, Ice cream, Watet, Olive, Garbage
| Bags, Dryer Sheets & anything I use regularly.
|
| The ones in use are required in their place. The spare ones
| can be stuffed at upper shelves, under the sink, under bed or
| such.
|
| I have seen second toilet roll in many offices & homes,
| almost every car has a spare tyre, & many other things.
| PostPlummer wrote:
| With a little planning like described it gets even better
| since you can buy stuff when it's on offer, which is never
| when you suddenly need it.
| loco5niner wrote:
| I figure I'm buying my time back with very little upfront
| cost. That also leaves more energy to do things like... earn
| more money/manage my space better.
| tsm wrote:
| > All of a sudden you're spending 2x normal for a while. Not
| a lot of people can do that.
|
| Then stagger it--an extra box of dishwasher tablets this
| paycheck, an extra box of garbage bags next paycheck. Overall
| consumption doesn't double.
|
| The space concerns are very real though and probably harder
| to solve...that's my bottleneck
| davidivadavid wrote:
| Yes, that's the reason why shopping at Costco isn't the
| solution to everything. I don't want to store 300 toilet
| paper rolls.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Also, Costco isn't always automatically the best price
| per unit anyway. Especially for staple items, I find that
| Fred Meyer (Kroger) is frequently less expensive on a
| per-unit basis for really common household items. It's
| deeply ingrained that buying in bulk must be cheaper, but
| pricing in grocery stores isn't always that intuitive.
| fortran77 wrote:
| Many poor people don't even have dishwashers! Perhaps this
| whole topic we should refrain from discussing.
| hangonhn wrote:
| That's a fair point but if you can afford two, buying twice
| the amount is actually cheaper since you can buy it at
| Costco, etc. I do have two rolls of garbage bags, etc. but I
| also recognize it's not doable by everyone. GP's tone is a
| bit off putting even if it is a valid suggestion for some
| people.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > That trick only works if you have lots of money. And lots
| of space.
|
| No, detergent is cheap nowadays, and detergents are way more
| compact now (thanks chemistry) than they were 50 years ago.
| So space should hardly be an issue.
| colonwqbang wrote:
| Ah, the garbage bag. This elusive luxury item which
| throughout history has been reserved only for people who have
| lots of money.
| cryptoz wrote:
| I'm not sure if you're being sarcastic or not. But yes,
| waste disposal has been done much better for the rich
| historically than the poor.
|
| I listed garbage bags specifically because I've noticed
| recently that the "good" ones (like, large, or strong) are
| actually quite pricey and often only are available in large
| quantities (40 count or something). So the price to buy
| trash bags might be like $20 or something. Buy 2 at once?
| $40 on garbage bags while grocery shopping? I mean that's a
| lot, no? To get the good version of something, twice? Not
| exactly an item for the poor to double-up on.
|
| And suggest the poor buy the less good trash bags that are
| cheaper? Well then we have shown that garbage bags can
| indeed be a luxury item even today.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| If $40 to buy two is a lot of money, then $20 to buy one
| is also a lot of money (since, after all, it's the same
| price per unit), are you sure you can afford to spend 50
| cents/bag for garbage bags?
|
| We buy the big store brand box ($15 - $20 for 200). The
| box is a bit too big to put under the sink, so we put
| half in another smaller container under the sink. When we
| refill that container and the box is empty, then it's
| time to buy more.
| colonwqbang wrote:
| You do realise that your consumption of garbage bags does
| not double because you buy two rolls at a time. If you
| are wealthy enough to save up for a one-time investment
| of 1 roll of garbage bags, you are able to implement the
| scheme suggested by the original poster.
| cryptoz wrote:
| Yes I realize that consumption does not double simply
| because you buy double. I am not commenting on garbage
| bags (the topic is detergent); I am commenting on the
| strategy being used for more than 1 thing. If you use
| this strategy for 1 item, okay, I get it, the expense is
| fine. But if the trick is used for other things (as seems
| logical) then the initial expense of starting to do this
| could be large.
| colonwqbang wrote:
| You are arguing against yourself. You made up this idea
| that if you buy extra detergent (because you keep running
| out of it) you also need to buy more of everything else.
| Klinky wrote:
| I did grow up in poverty and indeed garbage bags were one
| of the luxuries I "treated" myself to when I started living
| on my own as a teen.
| nate wrote:
| > I buy like 4 or 5 packages at a time, just to make sure we
| don't run out.
|
| It sounds like that's how they normally solve this too.
|
| But this pandemic has messed with a lot of our supply chains.
| Things we counted on being there on the next visit or order
| just aren't there. Automatic Amazon orders that we've been auto
| piloting for years and years aren't so automatic anymore.
|
| So any hack around not having something is still something I
| think most of us should keep in a back pocket ;) Even for the
| most prepared of us.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Another solution is to stock up on such commodities - most
| people have enough space to store toilet paper, detergents and
| the like since you are anyway going to use them sooner or
| later. You might as well stock them up, just in case, as you
| never stop needing them.
| rootusrootus wrote:
| As a bonus, when the next pandemic hits and everyone is
| panicking for a roll of toilet paper, you can rest easy
| knowing you have enough for a year or more.
|
| Thank you Costco.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| This technique worked fine for me for decades, until semi
| recently.
| sct202 wrote:
| It's also not a surprise when cleaning supplies run out,
| they're used at a fairly steady rate; like you have weeks of
| notice if you see the bottle/box is running low.
| Swizec wrote:
| Yeah resource management is really not that difficult for
| this kinda stuff.
|
| 1. Do dishes
|
| 2. Oh there's fewer than 7 tabs left
|
| 3. Buy new pack on your next weekly trip to get groceries
|
| You can eyeball the number 7 and you even get a daily
| reminder.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| The problem is the gap between 2 and 3 -- unless you keep a
| list (and follow it when you're at the store), you may
| still run out.
|
| Online shopping has helped me with this -- I usually add it
| to my online cart as soon as I'm running low.
|
| I think this is the problem the Amazon Dash buttons were
| supposed to solve -- keep a Dash button in the cabinet with
| the dish detergent, and when you see that you're running
| low, hit the button to order a new one.
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Kitchen chalkboard + mobile phone camera. Bonus points if
| your wife sends you the picture of the shopping list with
| a cute emoji.
|
| Adulting: it's not that hard, but it's not kid stuff
| either.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| On the topic of dishwashers, can anyone tell me why no dishwasher
| let's me fill it with, say, 20 loads worth of detergent and then
| it just dispenses it as needed? My dishwasher can do that with
| "rinse aid"(which I don't use), but I've never seen one that can
| do it with regular detergent.
|
| Another "hack" is that the tray you're supposed to fill with
| detergent is almost always way too big. People think "more soap
| -> more clean", but that is only true to an extent. You will be
| just fine filling it only halfway up, even if you have a full
| load in there. The same goes with laundry detergent.
| analog31 wrote:
| One design issue would be keeping the reservoir and chute dry
| enough that the detergent supply doesn't cake up. Another is
| that dishwashers are designed to fit into a very specific space
| in a typical kitchen, and any extra gadget takes away from the
| capacity of the tub.
| jandrese wrote:
| My dishwasher can't do that, but my clothes washer can. The
| limitation is space inside of the device for the reservoir. In
| a clothes washer there's plenty of space between the
| cylindrical wash basin and the square housing, but in a
| dishwasher there is much less available space between the
| square dish cavity and the housing, and that space is generally
| filled with sound deadening and thermal insulation.
| twic wrote:
| You're not buying expensive enough dishwashers - Miele have
| recently launched machines which do just that:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQPmumBcAF4
|
| They use a proprietary disposable reservoir, so there's an
| opportunity to get hacker points by working out how to refill
| it yourself!
| amluto wrote:
| GE makes dishwashers that do exactly this. You look up your
| water hardness in a table, push some magic buttons as described
| in the manual to tell the dishwasher how hard your water is,
| and you pour detergent into the reservoir. Interestingly, you
| are strongly advised not to mix chlorine-based detergent with
| enzyme-based detergent at risk of turning the mixture into
| hard-to-remove goo.
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| Seems like determining water hardness would be something the
| dishwasher could do.
| analog31 wrote:
| Probably not worth it, since your hardness doesn't change,
| and is a number that you can get from the water utility.
| amluto wrote:
| The inexpensive ways to measure hardness are colorimetric:
| you add some reagents to the water and look at the color.
| Electronic colorimeters exist but are not particularly
| cheap. Electronic colorimeters with automatic reagent
| dispensing also exist and are quite expensive. And you need
| reagents.
|
| I'd rather save $500 or more on my dishwasher and type in
| the hardness. Even without my utility report, hardness
| tests are cheap if a human operates them.
|
| The main annoyance is the fact that there are a couple
| different units for hardness.
| citiguy wrote:
| Have you ever taken a dishwasher apart? I have and it's an
| unbelievably simple machine that they charge you big bucks
| for. There's a lot it could do but manufacturers are in the
| business of making money, not selling complex, hard to
| maintain machines.
| Loughla wrote:
| They are very simply constructed - and I think that's for
| two reasons: 1, it's cheaper, and 2 - My experience with
| dishwashers is that they are sort of intended to be
| disposable. They're relatively cheap, and replacement
| parts for the things that can fail regularly are very
| nearly as expensive as the actual machine.
|
| The control board is the thing most likely to go
| (electronics and water); everything else is floats and
| switches. It's also 7/8ths the price of an entirely new
| machine.
|
| This is one conspiracy theory I whole-heartedly subscribe
| to.
| ydant wrote:
| My experience (and this may be brand or price-point
| dependent) is the opposite. My Bosch had a couple of
| failures (that ideally would never happen, of course),
| but because the parts are fairly standardized and the
| design is very elegant, I feel like it's one of the last
| few "owner-repairable" items in the house.
|
| The replacement parts were very reasonable (a fraction of
| the original cost of the dishwasher), easy and quick to
| obtain (from a particular retailer which also does very
| informative non-pushy YouTube videos for
| reparing/diagnosing problems), the diagnosing was
| straightforward (like debugging code), and the
| replacement was manageable (if a little cramped).
|
| There may be a price cut-off where this starts being
| true, and where it stops being true. My particular
| dishwasher was ~$1k 10 years ago, has had ~$120 of parts
| replaced over that period, one of which was cosmetic, and
| has otherwise worked flawlessly. All in all, I'm very
| happy with that trade-off.
|
| I just checked, and there are two control boards that
| could be replaced - each $150.
|
| I'm pretty enamored with the engineering elegance of the
| dishwasher. Until I opened one up and had to fix
| something I always thought it would be a lot more
| complicated than it really is.
| asdff wrote:
| This is like Apple charging half the phone to fix a
| cracked screen.
| acd wrote:
| Another environmentally friendly hack you can do is to use pine
| oil soap for machine washing clothes. Naturally you may not want
| to run this on your finest shirts and pants. But for other old
| clothes that you do not care that much about it is just fine. If
| you do this try it with very little soap first so it does not
| cause to much bubbling in the machine. Also check if your water
| is hard or soft, if its soft its more likely to work well. Hard
| water can cause too much bubbles with pine based soap.
|
| You can use pine oil soap for lots of other cleaning tasks,
| cleaning the oven put a drop out on stuck dirt, heat oven up to
| 80-100C, wipe off. You can also use green soap for washing the
| toilet and sink.
|
| For washing the coffee maker use vinegar mixed with water, run it
| a short wile so waster circlulates through the pump, stop. Wait
| for 30 minutes.
|
| For dirt stuck on stove, use vinegar let it stay for a while wipe
| off.
|
| Good natural cleaning items: Baking soda, Vinegar and Pine oil
| Soap.
| bredren wrote:
| White Vinegar / Water also replaces Windex! I didn't want to
| believe it because I thought we needed the blue stuff in the
| spray bottle. The product. But we were out and push came to
| shove we tried it. I was wrong. It works.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| 50/50 white vinegar and dawn detergent will keep your shower
| and toilets looking new.
| bob1029 wrote:
| My dishwashing hack is to simply clean them in the sink by hand
| and to never use the dishwasher.
|
| I find this encourages efficient reuse of dishes wherever
| feasible, and ensures that things are always cleaned to my
| expectations.
|
| You might think this takes some extra time, but there are major
| advantages to having a sink full of hot soapy water available to
| you each morning. Wiping down arbitrary surfaces, mopping floors,
| etc, is a trivial next step after you finish with the dishes.
| halfFact wrote:
| I'm not sure you sold me on any time savings.
| ValentineC wrote:
| We have a dishwasher in our local hackerspace. I personally
| insist that most kitchenware go into the dishwasher before they
| get placed back on the shelves.
|
| In a communal space with a lot of generic kitchenware, would
| you trust a random person to clean their own dishes thoroughly
| enough before someone else uses them?
| tropdrop wrote:
| In my experience, dishwashers use more water, not less. Growing
| up, we used a dishwasher regularly, and the process looked like
| this:
|
| a) remove all bits of food with regular washing, stack next to
| sink
|
| b) transfer from next to sink to dishwasher
|
| c) (after running dishwasher) wipe off hard water residue from
| all glass dishes
|
| d) put away dishes
|
| When I moved out on my own, I discovered the joy of a simple
| wooden dish rack next to your sink:
|
| a) remove all bits of food (and oil) with regular washing,
| stack next to sink
|
| And the above is _all_ one has to do! The dishes dry naturally,
| and putting them back into the cabinet is optional. Notice
| almost identical step a). How am I supposed to believe
| dishwashers save water? We used twice the water simply to get
| rid of oil! After my partner got tired of wiping hard-water
| residue, we abandoned our dishwasher and never looked back.
| adrr wrote:
| Modern dishwasher have a garbage disposal system that uses a
| motorized blade to chop up food bits. No need to rinse. High
| end dish washer have built in water softeners to prevent hard
| water film. They also make the detergent more effective at
| cleaning.
| citiguy wrote:
| I have a dishwasher that I use regularly. I never do step a.
| I usually just take a napkin and dump anything left on the
| plate into the trash before putting it in the dishwasher. My
| manual says no pre-wash is necessary and I have never had a
| problem with this.
|
| Using a rinse agent takes care of c (at least for me).
| [deleted]
| fortran77 wrote:
| They use less water.
|
| https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=dishwash.pr_handwash_.
| ...
|
| https://austintexas.gov/department/save-water-while-
| washing-...
|
| https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2017-10/documents.
| ..
| fendrak wrote:
| I used to have this problem, and found it to be caused by a
| combination of two factors:
|
| 1) Growing up in a house with low water pressure. If the
| machine doesn't have much pressure to work with, it seems to
| do a bad job more or less regardless of what you try to do
|
| 2) Given you have sufficient water pressure, using cheap
| detergent. After switching to a "top of the line" dishwasher
| detergent packet, a dishwasher went from "borderline useless"
| to "more clean than I can get them by hand".
|
| Number 2 was by _far_ the most impactful thing I've done; I
| can essentially now scrape dishes of large food chunks then
| put them straight in the dishwasher, and have a >= 98%
| confidence they'll come out completely clean.
| tropdrop wrote:
| Very interesting. Can you tell me what specific brand this
| is?
| adrr wrote:
| I'll second the cascade platinum recommendation. I though
| my dishwasher was broken when we used another detergent
| brand. I took it apart to see if the filter was plugged
| and even put a GoPro camera and led light in it to make
| sure the washing arms were spinning. Turns out it was
| because we used a cheap detergent.
| kxrm wrote:
| Not the person you asked, but Cascade dry powder
| detergent is all I need. No pre-washing necessary.
|
| If you use a modern dishwasher and your plumbing is up to
| spec your dishwasher will be far more efficient then hand
| washing.
| fendrak wrote:
| Cascade Platinum, thought I've gotten similar results
| from the "Complete" version one step down.
| Retr0spectrum wrote:
| > a) remove all bits of food with regular washing, stack next
| to sink
|
| Sorry, what? Sure, you can't put large chunks of food in a
| dishwasher, but isn't the main point of a dishwasher to...
| wash the dishes for you? If you're pre-washing, what's the
| point of the dishwasher?
|
| That said, I also do not own a dishwasher, since hand washing
| is so quick and easy.
| tropdrop wrote:
| The "what" is exactly my point. One would assume
| dishwashers are supposed to do this for you, but what
| actually happens is the plate comes out with the (yes,
| small) bits of food hard and stuck to the plate (someone
| else mentioned "caked on cheese" in this thread).
|
| I've tested this effect in multiple dishwashers at this
| point, always wanting the technology that was promised, but
| always in vain.
| lozenge wrote:
| Maybe the water hardness is set incorrectly or the salt
| hasn't been added? A dishwasher doesn't need pre rinsing.
| kxrm wrote:
| Strange, I only ever saw this happen on 20 year old
| dishwashers. Every modern dishwasher I have used, so long
| as your have correct plumbing and use a solid detergent
| requires no pre-washing.
|
| I put my dishes in caked in pasta and sauce and large
| food bits. The only things that don't go in are anything
| that would disrupt a disposal unit. No bones, no stringy
| things like tomato vines etc.
| paxys wrote:
| Aside from the time/effort spent, manual washing also uses 5x
| more water on average than a dishwasher. And I'd rather not
| clean the rest of my house with dirty dish water.
| jasonhansel wrote:
| Washing dishes by hand can be a surprisingly meditative
| experience. (Granted, I live alone--hand-washing dishes for an
| entire family would drive me insane.)
| bob1029 wrote:
| I also find it to be highly meditative. Its almost like a
| mental switch when I put on the gloves now. Sometimes I find
| myself avoiding washing dishes temporarily because I
| subconsciously know I will be forced to think slowly through
| whatever is bothering me instead of frittering away time
| clicking across the internet at hyperspeed.
| reaperducer wrote:
| I agree. A few years ago I went a year without a dishwasher,
| and while I complained about having to do the dishes every
| day, while I was doing it, it was kind of an escape. I
| eventually looked forward to it.
|
| Time to listen to a podcast, or some new music, or to simply
| be alone with my thoughts because nobody wanted to be around
| the guy doing dishes. Very therapeutic.
| superasn wrote:
| Came across this hack for using ordinary liquid soap in
| dishwasher. Posting it here since a hack is a hack :)
|
| tldr: use a few tablespoons of baking soda with the regular
| dishwash soap. The reason for not being able to use regular
| dishwash soap is because it makes lots of suds which floods your
| dishwasher. But baking soda prevents that from happening.
|
| Would love to know the pros and cons from an expert here.
| analog31 wrote:
| An additional function of the powdered detergent is that it's
| an abrasive, so it helps scour the dishes.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _The reason for not being able to use regular dishwash soap is
| because it makes lots of suds which floods your dishwasher._
|
| And by "floods your dishwasher" he means "makes enough suds
| that they escape from the bottom of the dishwasher door and
| spread themselves across the entire kitchen in a giant soapy
| mess.
|
| Found this out when my grandmother, who had never seen a
| dishwasher before and had no concept of "dishwasher detergent,"
| came to stay for a while.
| refurb wrote:
| I was a chemist in my past life, but not a soap chemist, so no
| doubt someone will be along to correct me.
|
| At a high level, soap is soap. They are basically molecules
| with a greasy end (long carbon chain) and a polar end (ionic
| group). The molecules form stable micelles that looks like
| little cell membranes almost, with the greasy ends pointing
| inward and the polar ends pointing outward (in contact with
| water, which is polar).
|
| That allows the soap to combine with greasy molecules you are
| trying to clean away. You're basically suspending the grease in
| water using the soap molecules.
|
| Now, there are a ton of different soap though. The polar
| functional groups can be carboxylic acids (typical homemade
| soap, hydrolyze fats with lye), or phosphate groups (now banned
| as the phosphates end up in waterways and cause algae blooms)
| or sulfates (the most typical last time I looked). There are no
| doubt others I'm not as familiar with.
|
| Now soaps all do the same thing, but there are important
| differences. So this "hack" works in terms of providing a soap
| and killing the foaming with baking soda (we used this trick in
| the lab all the time to break up foams and emulsions). The
| baking soda can also act as a water softening agent.
|
| That said, dishwashers are usually made for specific detergents
| because you don't want build up from leftover soaps and you
| also don't want to corrode any metal parts.
|
| So this works, but probably not as good as actual dish
| detergent (but it might not matter if your dishes aren't that
| dirty), but you are taking a risk that continued use might gunk
| up your machine. Or maybe it won't.
| pedantsamaritan wrote:
| I think most dishwasher detergents switched to enzymes to
| replace phosphates: https://www.cnet.com/news/appliance-
| science-how-dishwasher-d...
|
| That article implies the enzymes do some work, so that
| surfactants/soap can carry away the tougher components
| (protein and starch)
| twic wrote:
| I speculate that bio laundry powder would be better than
| dish soap, as that has similar enzymes in. No idea if it's
| similar enough, or if there are other things in laundry
| powder that would be a problem.
|
| Oh no, hack trouble:
|
| https://www.idealhome.co.uk/news/washing-machine-
| hack-242903
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I could believe the enzyme bit. Soaps require 3 things to
| work well: sheer force, concentration and temperature. The
| higher the better for all 3.
|
| Dishwashers can't do consistent sheer force unless the
| sprayer hits your dish just right.
|
| So makes sense that their cleaning agent will use some
| other mechanism just requiring application/soaking and not
| sheer force.
| twic wrote:
| Dishwasher powder is also extremely alkaline, i believe.
| I (cosmetically) ruined an aluminium Moka coffee pot by
| putting it through a dishwasher.
| refurb wrote:
| Yes, there can be a lot of additional ingredients added to
| dishwasher soap and I had heard of enzymes before.
|
| I have to admit I'm a bit skeptical of their effectiveness.
| Enzymes can usually be denatured pretty easily and if they
| are in a solution of hot detergent, I'd be amazed they'd
| stay intact enough to actually do what enzymes do.
|
| That said, there are enzymes that are pretty robust, so I
| could be completely off base.
|
| Edit: I am off-base, apparently there are super stable
| amylases that can survive 106C water.[1]
|
| [1]https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S15709
| 6391...
| Domenic_S wrote:
| that is literally what the article says to do
| jccc wrote:
| Commenter is the submitter. Often someone will submit a post,
| and then add the first comment.
| giarc wrote:
| To be fair, it takes about 4 paragraphs for the author to get
| to that point.
| noxToken wrote:
| I ran out of dish soap a few weeks ago, and I came across this
| same recipe. I found that my dishes were clean, but glassware and
| ceramic had a film on it. It wiped off easily with a towel.
|
| Note that I tried this exactly 1 time.
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Adding a teaspoon of Lemi-shine (which is just citric acid,
| which you can buy in bulk online) to the late rinse cup will
| solve that problem.
|
| (The late rinse cup is the one with the door that seals; the
| early soap cup is the one the door doesn't seal; it is labeled
| "pre-wash" in the article photo. The pre-wash cup is where you
| should put the baking soda/Dawn mixture.)
| wrycoder wrote:
| Adding some TSP should help.
| core-questions wrote:
| TSP is magic. I put it in the laundry from time to time.
| Used to be built into laundry detergent back in the day,
| right? Banned now. Well, I only use it for nasty stains and
| really dirty stuff.
| Tagbert wrote:
| TSP - Tri Sodium Phosphate
|
| It was an effective cleaner and an even more effective
| fertilizer that fed toxic algae blooms in aquatic
| environments. Not the best choice unless you don't have
| anything else.
| core-questions wrote:
| Oxi-Clean is what I use 99.99% of the time. TSP is a
| rarity, and since the vast, vast majority of people here
| are never putting it in the drains, I don't think it's
| going to be the end of the world.
| exabrial wrote:
| I would probably _not_ do this long term without expertise from
| someone that understands the 'why' on the ingredient list on
| commercial detergents... but my limited intuition says it's
| probably ok in the short term. The hotter the water the better,
| and always dry as hot as possible. Dishwashers save a ton of
| water, definitely use them when available
| phalangion wrote:
| Why dry as hot as possible? I was always told that the dry
| cycle was a waste of energy unless you need the dishes dry
| faster.
| exabrial wrote:
| Sanitization. Your dishwasher spreads dirt and bacteria
| around and tries to remove as much as possible with a clean
| water rinse. Bacteria get into every micro-pore and nano-
| sized crack, where detergent is unlikely to penetrate
| effectively. Heat doesn't discriminate (unless we're talking
| prions, but I digress) and will kill everything that remains.
| reaperducer wrote:
| Does it really get to 150degF inside a dishwasher?
| woobar wrote:
| Sanitize mode on Bosh gets to 155degF, They claim it
| kills 99.9% of bacteria.
| joosters wrote:
| I can't see how that's true. A quick search tells me that
| dishwashers can get up to a max of around 60c, that's
| nowhere enough to kill most bacteria, especially ones
| hiding deep inside cavities. Maybe you could pasteurize
| milk in an extra-long run of your hot cycle, but it won't
| come close to sterilizing stuff.
| idoh wrote:
| Fair enough, but let's say the goal isn't to kill
| everything, but common bacteria that causes problems,
| such as salmonella and e coli. 60c is enough to handle
| that.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| 60degC is enough. I've made chicken at 60degC in a sous
| vide without any issues
|
| Here's the pasteurization table:
|
| https://www.seriouseats.com/2015/07/the-food-lab-
| complete-gu...
| brokenkebab wrote:
| It's non-issue in any case. Quite a few people on the
| planet really need to sterilize their plates, spoons, and
| forks just to have a lunch. And with rare exceptions
| 60degC + soap is more then enough for all that stuff to
| be safe.
| dialamac wrote:
| I haven't seen any quality evidence that dishwasher dry
| cycles effectively "sanitize" anything. Really not trying
| to be a "but actually" dick, but without this information
| it's just marketing mumbo jumbo.
| Cerium wrote:
| Here [1] is a reference of a citizen experiment to test
| the sanitize cycles. There are also experiments regarding
| clothes and apples that are quite interesting on this
| website.
|
| [1]: http://www.dranniesexperiments.com/dishwasher-
| testing
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| They get contaminated as soon as you unload the machine.
| pixxel wrote:
| Could someone please confirm what "dish soap" is please for those
| of us that aren't American. It's soap for cleaning dishes in the
| sink, right? (as opposed to soap for washing hands). In the UK we
| refer to dish soap as washing-up liquid. Don't want to use the
| wrong stuff!
|
| Thanks in advance.
| amagumori wrote:
| Yeah, dish soap is soap for washing dishes. Us Americans can
| get pretty craaazy with our naming conventions!
| vinay427 wrote:
| > Us Americans can get pretty craaazy with our naming
| conventions!
|
| This really goes both ways. :) Wait until you find out about
| "public schools" in the UK, or at least England.
|
| (They're independent private schools which are not
| government-funded, and are in fact far less public than
| government-funded state schools. As I understand it, they
| came to be known as "public" because they were successors to
| traditional homeschooling in a private environment.)
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Washing up liquid. (Would you care for a cup of tea, love?)
| dbg31415 wrote:
| You people say, "I'm in the toilet..."
|
| Eww. The bathroom (or restroom) is the room the toilet lives
| in. Water Closet is fine I guess, just sounds so antiquated.
|
| The toilet is the thing you poop in. When a Brit or Aussie
| says, "I"m in the toilet..." I just see someone standing in the
| pot trying to flush themselves down.
|
| Also, watch out when you ask simple questions like, "Which team
| do you root for?" because apparently those perverts across the
| pond think that's a filthy question to ask.
|
| At work someone asked me for a rubber. I sort of knew what they
| meant, but I had a condom in my travel bag so I gave it to
| them. The look of like shock was worth it.
|
| Localization man... it's a bitch. Idioms take time to learn.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _You people say, "I'm in the toilet..."_
|
| A good number (most?) don't say that. They say, "I'm in the
| bathroom."
|
| A bathroom is the room with the bathtub, and since the
| plumbing is also there, there's usually a sink and toilet
| next to it. Variations include a shower instead of a bathtub,
| and sometimes a "water closet" -- a small room that is part
| of the larger bathroom where the toilet is. This smaller room
| is sometimes called the "toilet room."
| analog31 wrote:
| My parents are both chemists. They use "soap" specifically for
| soaps that are made from fat and lye, and "detergent" for
| synthetic surfactants.
|
| Oddly enough, powdered dishwasher detergent contains neither.
| At least the stuff I use is mostly sodium carbonate, which is
| alkaline and combines with fats in the food to make them
| soluble by turning them into soap. It is also an abrasive. And
| cheap.
|
| A functional difference is that in areas with hard water (such
| as where I live), soap forms soap scum, which is calcium
| stearate. You used to be able to buy bar soap that was actually
| detergent, but it's no longer made -- there's a glut of tallow
| and lard that makes "natural" soap cheaper. So my family now
| uses liquid body wash instead of bar soap in the shower, and I
| don't have to spend every Saturday scrubbing soap scum away.
|
| None of this gets to why some stuff is called "soap" in the
| vernacular. For instance, I call everything "soap."
| throwaway889900 wrote:
| Dish soap is for dishes. Hand soap is for hands. Bar soap is
| also for hands.
| y2bd wrote:
| Barkeeper's Friend is definitely not for hands though!
| 3pt14159 wrote:
| Canadian here. Detergent is what you put in an automated
| dishwashing appliance. Dish soap could be either detergent or
| dish soap for washing things by hand. Dish pods are pre-bundled
| detergent with liquid that helps stains from forming.
| jandrese wrote:
| Sometimes you see "dishwasher soap" or "dishwasher detergent"
| for the stuff you put in the machine, as opposed to "dish
| soap" which is used in the sink.
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