How many times per day do you run your dishwasher?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once a day. I can't leave dirty dishes overnight....even in the dishwasher. I run it right before we go to bed and unload first thing in the morning.

+1

[Anonymous]

Five people, usually run it once or twice a day, but more if I'm doing some major cooking. We have some things that need to be hand-washed, but I try to put as much as possible in the dishwasher because it uses water more efficiently.

[Anonymous]

Op, dishwashers haven't expanded in size in recent years, although efficiency has improved greatly. So your argument that you run your dishwasher 2 or 3 times a day because it is 13 years old is a false one. We're a family of four with an old dishwasher (we've been here 10 years and it was not new when bought the house). We run it every other day on average, sometimes every third day. The only time I've ever run it more than once in a day was on a major holiday, with tons cooking, and only because my kitchen is too small to accommodate someone cleaning dishes while someone else cooks. If this is routine for you, you need to learn how to wash the occasional dish by hand.

[Anonymous]

4 of us, and I run it 5 times a week usually, and we rarely eat out. I wash pots and pans by hand, knives by hand, the kid's plastic lunch dividers, and big bowls. My mom will run a load with like 5 big things and it kills me, that's a lot of water wasted for something you can hand wash in 5 minutes.

Time to get a new washer, op, and start doing some things by hand

[Anonymous]

Pp is right, the age doesn't affect the size, just the efficiency.

[Anonymous]

4 people about 1 x per day..occasionally less. We all pack lunches and try to avoid plastics bags so we use many small containers each day. That really fills the top up.

[Anonymous]

Two adults and a preschooler. 3x a week.

Even when my child was an infant, maybe daily?

[Anonymous]

2 adults, 2 elementary kids who have after school activities. (so water bottles) About 1.5 days, usually a run thrown in between. My engineer husband usually reworks my loading (grrrr) but his way IS more efficient.

[Anonymous]

This is PP- "Rinse" not run

[Anonymous]

2 adults, 1 child - every other day, if that. Just depends on what I've making for dinner, and I do put pots and pans in the dishwasher. We went without a dishwasher for 5 years in our current house, there wasn't space until we renovated, so I run the dishwasher more often than I should because I love having to not wash dishes!

[Anonymous]

5 people, 4-5 times per week. Kids are school age and they eat a lot.

OP, you need to work on loading the dishwasher properly.

I can fit 20-30% more dishes in my dw than my husband can, because I am an efficient loader.

For example, do you lay cereal bowls down flat? That is the wrong way. You should load them upright and slightly angled, spooning each other with each bowl getting its own set of prongs. That way, you can get as many bowls and small plates as you have rows of prongs. Cups and glasses should be sandwiched between rows of prongs, not one cup on top of one prong.

There is a way to load a dishwasher that does not involve a family of 3 doing 2 loads/day. That is just insane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here again. Thanks all for your feedback. My second load (not every single day) is usually when I've made large batches of baby food - I still do pureed apples, pears, peaches, and other mixed dishes. So load #2 consists of my vegetable steamer parts, food processor parts, knives, more cutting boards, etc... Or if it's a day after I've made the baby food, the load also contains the ice cube trays that I freeze the purees in. Realistically, load #2 happens about twice a week. Load #3.... well that's honestly pretty rare - like I said, if I've had family or friends over for dinner or brunch.

I also tracked down the model number on my dishwasher and I was able to find out it is a 1999 model. 13 years old - it's been a trooper!

You purée food for a toddler every day?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Once a day. I can't leave dirty dishes overnight....even in the dishwasher. I run it right before we go to bed and unload first thing in the morning.

Family of 5, with au pair, and this is what we do. Run at the end
Of the day, empty first thing in the morning. But occasionally we run it more
Than once a day. We use too many cups/glasses.

[Anonymous]

Running a dishwasher actually more energy and water efficient than hand washing dishes. If you are generating enough dishes for three loads, just run the dishwasher.

[Anonymous]

1-2 times per day. 4 people