# Do dishwashers actually work?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 7, 2013, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880 "2013-07-07T17:52:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2013, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/21 "2013-07-07T19:46:02Z")
I never had a problem with dishwashers, but I never really challenged them hard… until one day many years ago.
I saw a Consumer Reports video clip where they were talking about how they tested dishwashers. They were putting in the absolute gunkiest items, and everything was coming out spotless.
So, I decided to start upping the challenge for my own (well, my landlord’s 🙂 ) dishwasher. By the end, I was just shaking any large debris into the trash and sticking the dirty items straight in. I never had any problems with stuff not getting clean. I continue this rapscallion attitude toward dishwashers to this day, and I’m happy for it.
It is important, of course, to load the dishwasher in a sane way. A good dishwasher is pretty close to magic, but it’s not entirely magic.
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### Author:  [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2013, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/22 "2013-07-07T20:38:54Z")
I like something (or someone) to do household chores for me.
If there’s any chunks left on a plate (not often - I’m a voracious eater 🙂 ), I scrape and hold it briefly under a running cold tap. Then (along with the rest of he crockery) it goes in the dishwasher.
This has worked perfectly for 23 years (I bought a decent machine. 🆒)
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### Author:  [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2013, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/23 "2013-07-07T22:00:23Z")
Hand washed dishes don’t get a good steaming cycle at the end, they just cool down and collect bacteria and mold spores on their surfaces. Even crappy dishwashers get the dishes wet and hot enough to kill stuff off. I rinse the dishes off thoroughly before they go in the dishwasher, but they come out a heck of a lot cleaner then when the go in. Plus, when you go to sell the house, one with a dishwasher has one more thing the house without doesn’t.
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### Author:  [@Apocalypso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apocalypso)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2013, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/24 "2013-07-07T22:19:16Z")
My wife has a dishwasher that she bought into our marriage which seems fairly not-new. I’ve no idea of its age, but I would guess at least 5 years (she’s not home right now so I can’t ask her). We don’t rinse unless the dish is unusually crusty, and the dishwasher cleans them fine. Most of the time (99%). Once in a great while I’ll find a little tiny speck of food on a dish that didn’t get washed off. We do use the “extra hot” and “heated dry” settings, along with those little plastic cubes of detergent. If the dishes seem especially dirty I’ll throw an extra cube in the “pre-wash” section. It works great and saves us a lot of work.
We do hand-wash our cooking pots and frying pans though. I am not sure if there’s a specific reason for that - i.e; harder for the dishwasher to get those clean - I’ll have to ask my wife. She never put those in the DW so I never did either.
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### Author:  [@doreen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/doreen)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/25 "2013-07-07T22:30:26Z")
I’ve never prewashed, just scraped the plates into the trash. And both of my dishwashers (he first one lasted over 20 years) had grinders for for any food residue left after scraping.
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### Author:  [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2013, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/26 "2013-07-07T22:43:05Z")
Many people do not put non-stick pans and seasoned pans in the dishwasher because the detergents sandblast them and the steam removes the seasoning. Find china is not put in the dishwasher by some people because it is supposedly too rough. Wooden spoons and old style rubber (not new silicon) spatulas can also be deteriorated by the heat.
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [July 7, 2013, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/27 "2013-07-07T22:50:17Z")
The biggest problem is that they don’t put the crocks away when they are clean.
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### Author:  [@Nawth\_Chucka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nawth_Chucka)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2013, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/28 "2013-07-08T00:27:12Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#):
>
> Many people do not put non-stick pans and seasoned pans in the dishwasher because the detergents sandblast them and the steam removes the seasoning. Find china is not put in the dishwasher by some people because it is supposedly too rough. Wooden spoons and old style rubber (not new silicon) spatulas can also be deteriorated by the heat.
Same w/ the crocks for slow cookers. ☹
Know what you CAN put in the dishwasher? Up to 20 lbs of potatoes that all need scrubbing. Make sure there’s no rinse aid in the reservoir and of course no detergent, run them through the Rinse cycle. This is helpful when you have a bunch of people to feed or have tendinitis/carpal tunnel inflammation, like me; they don’t get cooked this way, so they’ll keep happily in the bottom drawer of the fridge, ready for prep b/c they’re already clean.
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### Author:  [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2013, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/29 "2013-07-08T00:47:26Z")
Actually, I remember someone suggesting preparing a fish fillet in a foil packet, putting it on the top rack and running it through a cycle, to steam cook the fish.
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### Author:  [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2013, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/30 "2013-07-08T01:37:43Z")
There was a recent Mythbusters episode where they cooked a lasagne in a dishwasher. It worked, but required more preparation than an oven would.
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### Author:  [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2013, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/31 "2013-07-08T14:06:32Z")
My dishwasher is pushing 20 now. I never prewash and I routinely overstuff it full of grimey stuff. Everything still comes out spotless. Anyone who says dishwashers don’t work had never had a dishwasher.
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### Author:  [@Ambivalid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ambivalid)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2013, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/32 "2013-07-08T17:43:19Z")
> [@tellyworth](#):
>
> There was a recent Mythbusters episode where they cooked a lasagne in a dishwasher.
You can steam a lasagna?
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### Author:  [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2013, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/33 "2013-07-08T17:48:41Z")
Some TV prog here - they cooked fish on a car engine and in a DW. It worked but not worth the trouble.
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### Author:  [@bibliophage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bibliophage)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2013, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/34 "2013-07-08T20:34:56Z")
Dishwashers made in the 1960s were so crappy you really did have to pre-wash dishes if you wanted them to come out clean. I know because we had one like that when I was growing up. It was almost exactly the same amount of trouble as washing by hand, so we hardly ever used it. Dishwashers made since the late 1980s are much better, and pre-washing or even pre-rinsing isn’t really required, but I know people who still do it because that’s the way they’ve always done it. I find the only things that need pre-treatment are burnt-on/stuck-on pots and pans, and for some reason, anything that has egg on it.
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### Author:  [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2013, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/35 "2013-07-08T20:39:05Z")
> [@bibliophage](#):
>
> and for some reason, anything that has egg on it.
Proteins are long, strong, and sticky molecules, and eggs have a lot of protein in them.
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### Author:  [@moriah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/moriah)
#### Post date: [July 8, 2013, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/36 "2013-07-08T23:23:03Z")
Eggs and soft vegetable material like guacamole or pureed vegetable/fruit drinks. Gotta rinse them off first otherwise they’re getting baked on.
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### Author:  [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2013, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/37 "2013-07-09T00:15:19Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#):
>
> You can steam a lasagna?
I’m not sure that steam is the right word - it’s just heat. [See for yourself](http://dsc.discovery.com/tv-shows/mythbusters/videos/dishwasher-lasagna-minimyth.htm).
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2013, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/38 "2013-07-09T01:38:16Z")
> [@Ambivalid](#):
>
> No. It’s all a scam.
[11 years ago, I asked about cooking a turkey in the dishwasher. You can’t, but some things come out nicely.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=118335)
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### Author:  [@runningdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/runningdude)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2013, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/39 "2013-07-09T01:59:27Z")
My family has replaced, or had major repairs done to the dishwasher, about every five years. Same for our washing machines. Our dryer, though, has lasted 30+ years!
> [@Athena](#):
>
> I don’t think I’ve ever replaced a dishwasher because it didn’t work; I’ve replaced them during kitchen upgrades or to match new appliances, but that’s about it.
If you’ve replaced a working dishwasher every few years, then you simply never owned one long enough to kill it.
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### Author:  [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)
#### Post date: [July 9, 2013, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-dishwashers-actually-work/662880/40 "2013-07-09T02:29:24Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#):
>
> [11 years ago, I asked about cooking a turkey in the dishwasher. You can’t, but some things come out nicely.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=118335)
I love that the last post in that thread is by **Threadkiller**.
My last dishwasher was original to the house - 1989 construction. I replaced it in October as part of my remodel.
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