Unless you have a 10 or 12 person household, I just can’t see the value in terms of time OR money. It takes me about 30 seconds to wash a single place setting, so even if I have friends over for dinner, it might take me 5 or 6 minutes to wash dishes for a dinner of 6 people. Then of course there are the pots and pans used to cook the food, so add on another 4 or 5 minutes.
Other cons: I spend several minutes fiddling with the precise arrangement of dishes but invariably several things need to be rewashed by hand anyway. And then there is this thread where most seem to agree that you shouldn’t put anything really nice into a dishwasher: Should I put high quality pans and knives in the dishwasher?
I am looking at a kitchen renovation some time next year and I’d really like to recover the space wasted by the dishwasher and use it for pots & pans storage. I’m wondering how much of a turn-off this might be to a buyer when it comes time to sell the place. But it’s a one bedroom condo so it’s not like the Brady Bunch is going to move in.
The dishwasher gets my vote for the most useless kitchen appliance.
It takes me 30 seconds to wash a single plate or a single fork. Dad washed his dishes by hand because he said the dishwasher didn’t get them clean enough. I learned to wash dishes by watching dad. Maybe I’m neurotic, but my dishes must be absolutely clean.
I had a roommate once. He washed dishes once. Once. I re-washed them, since I could see they weren’t as clean as they should have been.
If I had a dishwasher (not the one sitting beside the house, which stays there because I don’t want it cluttering up the kitchen – I want a built-in) I’d use it.
I live with my girlfriend, and its just the 2 of us. So on an average day, we may use a couple of glasses for some juice and cofee in the morning, then some forks and maybe a plate in the morning. This gets piled in the sink. Then, dinner is at 8pm after work and gym and may dirty a pot, a spatula, a few plates, a couple of glasses, a cutting board, a knife, 2 forks, a spoon or 2, maybe a couple of wine glasses after dinner. This gets set on the counter next to her random tupperware from lunch containing random salad dressings and crackers and stuff (that stuffs hard to wash).
So, is that alot of dishes? No, but its now 9pm, and I don’t feel like doing dishes so the next day its doubled, and now doing dishes takes a half hour at 9:30 at night.
God forbid we make a meal involving many pots pans utensiles, et…
That is why I yearn for a dishwasher. One less thing to do before ironing, showering, paying bills, cleaning, vacuming, and getting to bed before midnight.
As the oldest child of eight, I was the main dishwasher for many years. A mechanical dishwasher is worth its weight in diamonds to me.
I do wash knives, the broiler pan, plastics, etc. by hand, but the appliance that enables me to just stick the basics in it and run it every two or three days may be the best thing in my kitchen.
Oh man, do I love life now that I’ve moved in to a house with a dishwasher.
I cook. Boyfriend does not cook. I do not cook in a dirty kitchen.
I do not do dishes. Boyfriend does not do dishes.
But he will load the dishwasher. Now we enjoy a home cooked meal almost every night instead of the old “There is now way in hell I am going to spend all night cooking and then spend the next week having to yell at you and nag you and live in a dirty-dishes cesspool and then eventually do them myself” argument. The dishwasher is also soley responsible for me taking up baking and making lots of multi-pot dishes instead of the old one-pot stews I specialized in.
Not at all. I moved into my current place 5 years ago and I’ve used the dishwasher only five or six times. I just think they’re a terrible waste of time and water.
When cwPartner and I had the kitchen remodeled, we considered not installing a dishwasher. The original kitchen did not have a dishwasher. Neither had our previous place. We mentioned this to cwPartner’s parents, who were in the process of building and outfitting a new house. I will share with you my FIL’s considered opinion on the idea:
“Don’t be stupid. Get a dishwasher.”
He was right. Unless you don’t cook much and use few non-disposable dishes, a kitchen just works better with a dishwasher.
Another thought, only an issue if you ever want to sell the place: You may be fine without a dishwasher, but what about the next people? If your kitchen lacks both a dishwasher and a convenient place to install one (or park a portable), buyers may find the kitchen unworkable.
I resisted getting a dishwasher for years but eventually got one when we had the kitchen re-fitted last year. I was advised that, even though we’re not planning to sell in the near future, we should at least include space for a diswasher so I decided to go the whole hog and get the machine itself.
I like having it; it does save time and work. I only wish I could put everything in it instead of having to load up the diswasher and then do a sinkful of handwashing as well.
Yeah, that is another thing - there really have been too many nights where, when comtemplating what to make for dinner, I have decided on the option that involves the least amount of dishes.
I always catch those 30minute cooking shows where the lady makes this great dinner in a short time and then I realize that she just used 2 place settings, 2 different pans, 2 pots for sauces and boiling something, 3 mixing bowls, 2 oven trays, countless service utencils, etc - basically her gourmet quick meal results in me spending an hour doing dishes if I don’t have a dishwasher.
as quick follow up, in relation to some responses in this thread - its always the single guy in an apartment by himself who eats take out 5 nights a week that sits astonished that people complain about doing dishes.
Without a dishwasher in the house for years growing up, and loathing hand washing them, when we finally got one it was considered a blessing. I never took that thing for granted.
Years later, when I moved in with a “friend”, who refused to get a dishwasher with her house (even though it would have come free), apparently because she knew I’d be moving in with her (she thought I’d be there for years, and when I moved, she would get a dishwasher, I found out later): she used me as her own personal Cinderella. She would waltz in from a day of shopping, never removing her mud-caked shoes despite the freshly-washed floor, use every pot and pan she and I owned, cook the greasiest, messiest, spatteringest, “snack”, and then demand I clean it all up if I wanted to continue living there. (I paid board, half utilities, and most of the groceries, even though she ate it all.)
Eventually, my mother told me suck up my stupid pride, and she and my brother came to help me move the hell out of there. I had dishpan hands up to my elbows.
Never again. I love my dishwasher. My husband refuses to move me into an apartment that doesn’t have a dishwasher, since he knew the whole situation.
I’d kill for a dishwasher, and I live alonie. I tend to do a lot of cooking, and my cooking tendsd ti be a little… out of control, so I end up dirtying a lot of dishes. At the end of a day, I’ll have an hour’s worth of handwashing to do.
Not a whole lot. We have one now that was built-in as part of the kitchen, but before that I went without for about 14 years, and I don’t think my wife’s family ever had one. It works well, but it isn’t all that much of a labor-saving device.
