I'm not a big fan of electric dishwashers. Energy-star-water-conserving or not, if they don't clean the dishes, you have to hand-wash the dishes yourself.
We got a dishwasher when we moved in. My partner hates hand-washing the dishes. I don't like hand-washing dishes, but I like hand-washing them after wasting water and electricity in the dishwasher even more. So after 1-2 years of using the dishwasher it started to leave a film of icky white stuff on the dishes, especially the top of cups, and hardly cleaning the silverware. Nothing I wanted touching my or my children's food. So I end up hand-washing the dishes. Bummer.
My roommate, the anal one who does most of the cleaning and hand dish-washing, is of basically the same opinion I am. If you have to re-wash, pre-wash, soak, spit, rinse and shine by hand, why the heck are you using the electronic dishwasher in the first place?
My partner doggedly insists on using the dishwasher. Me and my roommate wash by hand. It's a neverending battle. He's probably right that the residue and water sitting in the machine does it no good, but running it just for the sake of running it isn't good either.
That experience was with typical bulk-store-bought Members' Mark (Sam's Club) detergent -- your results may vary, mine stank. I bought it figuring that at least if I had to buy evil chemical waste producing dishwashing detergent, I would buy it in bulk and save waste on the garbage end of the cycle. Does anyone want a nearly-full container of conventional powdered dishwashing detergent? I didn't think so.
I may have a complete change of heart about the electronic dish washer. You see, I got the terrific starter kit for the green household cleaning products (and blogged about said green cleaning kit), and it came with automatic dishwasher concentrate powder. My partner had the conventional stuff out ready to use it, but he didn't run the dishwasher last night. I thought to run it this morning, and looked at the detergent sitting on top of the dishwasher. No Way, I thought. I put that box of detergent away, and I ran the load of dishes with the new eco-friendly dishwasher powder. One scoop in each cup -- it's a small scoop -- 2 teaspoon scoop. So 4 teaspoons of concentrate went into the machine.
And nothing's wrong with the dishes. They're mostly dry, we air dry the dishes -- there's a couple drops of CLEAR water on the rim of the bowl.
They don't smell like a dirty swimming pool.
They shine.
There are no spots -- I'm not a spot hawk, so don't quote me on this one, but I don't see the streaks and spots I've been seeing from the conventional detergent.
Everything is clean.
Everything smells safe.
I'm amazed. It's like a hundred tiny fairies were at work in my dishwasher making everything perfect. I had to blog about it immediately and let you know. I'm tempted to wake said partner and roommate and rush them into the kitchen to show them. That's why I have to blog. :) They'd kill me.
I hate having to say it, but your results may vary. Maybe we didn't have oatmeal this week. I don't know, but I know this load of dishes came out exactly the way I want them to!
No comments:
Post a Comment