Teach me to wash dishes more efficiently

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have a small galley-style kitchen, with no dishwasher. The sink is kind of small, a single sink with just 16 inches of counter space on each side of the sink. Beyond that, on one side is the stove and the other side is the fridge.

I don’t really mind washing dishes by hand, but I know I should be doing it more efficiently.
As it is now, I have the dish drainer on one side of the sink, and stack a few dirty dishes in the sink and put most of them on the other side. I squirt dish soap in everything, run water onto everything, and let the water run as I wash and rinse things one at a time, and then put them in the dish drainer. I put little things into bigger things to sort of soak while other things are getting washed. I dump silverware into a cup or bowl to soak, too.
Sometimes there are so many things, I lay a towel on the other side and stack stuff there to dry, too.
(There are four of us - me, my husband, and two kids - living here, so the dishes tend to pile up quickly.)

I know that letting the hot water run and run as I wash and rinse everything is pretty bad, and I need a better way to do it.

My late MIL often said I needed a dish pan, and even went so far as to buy me one a few months after we moved in here (this was years ago), because I never did get one for myself. I never figured out exactly how I was supposed to use it. Put it in the sink? What’s the point of that? It just fills with water and makes it a pain to rinse things.
Next to the sink? Do I fill the sink with soapy water and scrub stuff all at once and then rinse it in the dishpan?
As it is now, the dishpan is lost somewhere in the depths of the Dreaded Basement Mess. If someone here suggests a better way to use it, I’ll find it or get a new one, but I could never figure out how I was supposed to use it.
Do I just say the heck with the dishpan, and figure out a better way to wash the dishes?
I need help.

2

I’ve lived with single sinks for a long time, and I really think just running the water the whole time is the best way. You can presoak things that are going to take a long time or just shut off the water while you scrub, and then rinse. I don’t really think it uses that much more water than a rinsing pan that has to be refilled several times. I use gloves and very hot water, so everything rinses clean pretty quickly.

3

Well, I don’t know if my way is more efficient than yours, but I’ll tell you how I do it: like you, I have no dishwasher. We are a family of five. I find it so much easier to do dishes about four times a day than to do a bunch at once. So. . .I keep a dishpan under the sink, and that’s where dirty dishes go until I’m ready to soak them. When I’m ready to soak them, I stack the dishes in the sink so the smaller bowls are nested in larger ones, dinner plates on the bottom of everything. Then I squirt a little soap, and run hot water over them all. I let them soak for about 15 minutes, then leave very warm water running while I wash and rinse them. But since they’re already soaked, it doesn’t take long to wash them. Just before I serve dinner, I fill the sink with hot soapy water so that when my kid clears the table, the dinner dishes go right in the water. The four times a day I do dishes are: right after breakfast, right after lunch, right before dinner (so I can start with an empty sink) and right after dinner. Anything that gets dirtied after dinner (for snacks and stuff), gets put in the dishpan and washed with the next day’s breakfast dishes.

:eek: (This smilie added at the request of my pre-schooler. It has nothing to do with the post).

4

When we were living on the boat, I had a very small sink and no dishwasher. I used to fill the dishpan with soapy water and put the dishes in. I’d usually wash systematically - plates then bowls, then cups/mugs, then silverware, then cookware. As I scrubbed each grouping, I’d put the soapy, washed items in the sink. So when, for example, the plates were all washed, I’d rinse them all and put them in the draining rack. Then repeat with the next group of items. I didn’t leave the water running because we’d have to fill the water tank more often if I did.

I used the same technique at home when our kitchen was torn apart and I had to wash dishes in the bathroom sink.

5

You are absolutely right. Efficiency is always a commendable trait to have, especially where manual labor is involved. And just to clarify, efficiency is reached when productivity operates at the highest level possible, using minimal resources (like time, energy, money, space, etc.). Of course, definitions vary, but you get the picture.

You’re right, letting hot water run as you soap dishes is in clear contradiction to efficiency–you’re wasting resources, thus being abominably unproductive. Soaking is also inefficient, since it uses twice the necessary amount of energy to get the job done. In other words, you’re washing the dishes two times, but they don’t actually get any cleaner (despite popular belief).

There is no point in that. :dubious:
Waste of space + money towards dishpan = inefficient use of resources. Unless you do not have a sink, you don’t need one. Now, a dish rack is a different story, since you may need one of those for drip-dry purposes (instead of hand-drying every dish and wasting energy, hence being inefficient). And to minimize waste of space as much as possible, stick the rack inside the sink side that doesn’t contain the garbage disposal. That way, wet dishes will drip dry straight through to the drain. Yes, efficiency is a good thing.

Yes. You do. If you want to be efficient.
Here’s what I suggest:
Save energy/time. You can do this in a number of ways–have your children wash their own dishes; split up dish-washing responsibilities among members of the family; do your dishes once a day; get a dish drain doo-dad; don’t soak your dishes; have family members reuse their own drinking cups, especially if they only used them for water.
Save money/resources. Don’t waste water. For the love of God, stick with your gut on this one. You can do this through a pretty fast technique–soak the sponge, squeeze liquid soap straight onto it, proceed to squish sponge until soap is lathery; make sure dishes are stacked in an orderly way on one side of the sink, and run a quick spritz of water over them to get them wet. Start scrubbing each dish, and stacking it in a soapy tower within the other side of the sink (unless the dish rack is there, then you’d stack on counter instead). When all dirty dishes run out, and you’ve got a glistening stack of sudsy dishes, you turn on the water (as hot as you can handle, yea!!), and start rinsing each soapy dish in the empty sink side, and either restacking rinsed dishes back to the other side (for later drying), or neatly within a dish rack. Yea, it’s a whole technique, but believe me, after awhile, you get to be pretty damn fast at turning over those puppies. Without a dishwasher, it’s the next best strategy in a college house (where efficiency in any cleaning task is absolutely necessary).
Save space. Have family members stack their own dishes in the sink, with the biggest stuff on the bottom; make sure dry stuff get put away ASAP, otherwise you’ll risk clutter overload.

Well, hope these tips are useful. :smiley:

6

(below, please correct me wherever I got the proper names for regular kitchen stuff wrong, because I’ve never lived in an English speaking country and it’s in these areas that my Jane Austen-based knowledge of English has left me somewhat … handicapped)

Anyway, I was taught the order of washing dishes should be something like:

glass
cups
plates
cutlery
pans

I know from experience that cleaning the dishes right after you used them is the fastest way.

In a single sink environment (as I have now), I use a smaller plastic sink most of all because I can use the little space left on the side to rinse off dirty plates (i.e. with pasta sauce, fats, spinach) and empty not-quite empty cups (coffee). That way, the dishwater isn’t spoilt immediately.

Also, I make sure that the dishwater is as hot as I can get it. Then I hold the plater or cup or whatever so that my fingers don’t touch the water but as much of it does, and I brush off the food remains with a steeled brush that I can hold under water without getting my hands wet.

Afterwards I put everything in a rack to let it dry off (I actually use a try from a broken dishwasher), but I’ve taken up the habit of drying the glasses immediately by hand to improve shininess. Or, if I have time, I dry up (?) everything because I’m starting to appreciate the benefits of an empty kitchen counter. In your case, that’s probably the way to go.

In your case, I would definitely employ my kids as soon as they pass the age of 6-7. They can do ‘drying up’ and leave the clean plates and cups on the kitchen table, and also make the table before dinner and so on.

When I for some reason (usually visitors that I don’t want to disturb with dishes) don’t do the dishes immediately, I will soak whatever I realise needs a little time in hot water to make them weak and give in. In these cases, I will throw in all the cutlery (except sharp knives) into the washing bowl and sometimes leave some of the plates soak on the bottom of the washing bowl. Using hot water really helps a lot here.

7

A friend of mine fastened a kind of plate-rack in her top cabinets, and then removed the floor board. After washing the plates, they went in the racks to dry, and the remaining water dripped down on the counter below. At eye-level, the missing floorboards weren’t noticable, and she claimed it saved a lot of dish-drying.

Also, I find a folding drying rack offers more accessible drying space (and takes up less space when folded away) then the usual racks.
No more playing Mikado with cups and pans. :slight_smile:

It also helps to consider which things will look dirty if left to dry without towelling dry, and which things won’t. White porcelain looks okay airdried; glass and cutlery don’t.

8

First, you’re gonna need a good bottle brush…

9

Arwin --yes, that was what I was taght in Home Ec eons ago.
Glass and crystal first. Then cups/plates. Next, silverware–save pans for last.

If you need to soak a dish–do so in COLD, soapy water. Hot water will often just mroe firmly adhere the stuck stuff to the sides.

I suggest a dish draining rack (air dry: saves time) and a dishpan.

Doing the dishes alone=great boredom for me; doing the dishes with someone=fun/good conversation etc.

Hope this helps.

10

Ah, what a fun way of telling me that my steeled brush is called a bottle brush. :smiley: (and teaching me the name of a toilet brush in the process, though that word was a little more predictable :wink: ).

Maastricht, what you describe is actually quite common in Sweden, I remember. We also had it in our student dorm there.

I remember shocking quite a few students there by cleaning the electric stoves there that were nearly completely covered with a big black layer of coal. :smiley:

11

This sounds like a good idea. I can’t put it under the sink as norinew suggests (although I like that idea because they’d be out of sight) because underneath the sink is where all the Windex and floor cleaner and junk like that is kept.
I do wash stuff several times a day, because I hate having a pile of dirty dishes sitting around. I never dry stuff, unless I need it right away. I don’t mind clean dishes sitting in the drainer - I turn the ceiling fan up and let that dry them. I just don’t like a bunch of dirty dishes in the sink, mocking me. :wink:

I just need to break the habit of letting the water run.

Thanks for all your suggestions!

12

My way of being efficient is a bit different, and some people like it, but many hate it…

Those dishes in your cabinet? Those are only for dinner parties. For everyday use, go buy a unique setting for every person. So you go get 1 plate, 1 bowl, 1 mug, 1 glass and 1 set of silverware that all match in color or design. These are now your responsibility. If you want to eat, you need to clean your plate and knife and fork. Your SO and others all have their own unique design/color table setting. They are responsible for their dishes. If they want to eat, they need to clean their plate and knife and fork. Nobody touches the cabinet dishes- those are only for special occasions.

When I did this with a roommate we never had dirty dishes except after a party. I had a chinese noodle bowl and an oval platter for my dishes, he had some blue clay traditional ones. The main set lived in the cabinet above the refrigerator (so it was harder to cheat than to just clean our own). We never had any problems, it was great.

-Tcat

13

After eating have everyone rinses off their dishes. I can’t stand having to scrub dried on crap off of plates and silverware!! It saves so much time and energy washing dishes if they’ve been rinsed off beforehand.

When I was a teenager the house we lived in had one large sink so we used a small plastic dish pan for the hot soapy water and I would wash the dishes and put them in the empty part of the sink and when that side got full with soapy dishes I would turn on the hot water and rinse them and put them in the strainer to dry. I always wash dishes in the same order… glasses/cups/mugs, silverware, plates & bowls, plastic bowls, cooking utensils, pots and pans. Anything that touches my lips (glasses and silverware) get washed with the freshest water possible! All the greasy cooking stuff gets washed last!

We vacationed in Mexico last year and the housekeeper had a unique way of washing dishes… very similiar to what ShivaRox posted. She would fill one sink with about 1 inch of really hot water and she would put the silverware in it and then the cups, plates, and bowls. She got her sponge wet and put a couple squirts of dish soap on it and proceeded to use that to wash the dishes. She would put the soapy dishes in the empty sink and once she was done she would quickly rinse them off and put them in the dish strainer. She saved a lot of water and soap doing it that way.

14

I do have everyone rinse their things. The kids know they’re to dump food down the drain and rinse dishes and glasses. Woe to the child who leaves a glass with an eighth-inch of milk in it in the sink!

I’d love to have two sinks, but if I had room for two sinks, I’d have room for a real dishwasher. That’s why I kept thinking a dishpan was the way to go. Wash in the dishpan (up on the counter) and then rinse in the sink.

15

Well, the trick is to buy (and, if neccesary, cut the plastc edges to size with a hot knife) a dishpan that leaves a bit of space between it, and the edge of the sink. That way, it leaves you a gap to rinse off in (after a while, one becomes quite dexterous at aiming the flow of water tap-plate-gap) AND more counterspace.