Set Up Washing Dishes to Use Less Water

Your dishwasher can be a money sink. Not only can it use too much water for a given load size, it can heat water more than you need. If it seems like you’re doing a load of dishes every day and your water bill is suffering accordingly, here are some tips to cut down on the cycles.

Investigate the different wash cycle settings

Dishwashers are more complicated and have more settings than most of us really need. There are cycle types based on time, temperature, varieties of dishes, and more. And they’re all a little more complicated to set up than the default or speedy cycles. Therefore, dig out the old manual, and see which settings can really make a difference for you. After all, the default cycles are usually the ones that immediately make your dishwasher seem useful or powerful. The environmentally-friendly rankings and reduced water statistics are going to have a few asterisks next to them, and you’ll have to find how to program your machine to use them effective. Take an afternoon to break down which cycles should be used when you need a deep, no-holds-barred clean, and which cycles can be set for regular usage.

Consider presoaking instead of prewashing

Washing dishes by hand has gotten a bad reputation for wasting water, and that can certainly happen if you rinse each dish multiple times or leave the tap running. Washing dishes by hand can also seem like a waste of time, so cut out both variables by presoaking your dishes. If you just fried or grilled a meal and the pan is covered with burnt bits of carbon, cover the bottom with a thin layer of water and let it soften for a bit. Fill a cup with water and make that your dedicated spot for dirty utensils before transferring them into the dishwasher. Every machine has a bit of trouble with the truly stuck on bits of food, and trying to scrub it away by hand wastes a lot of water. Instead, give it a bit of water and time, so you can quickly rinse or wipe them off. 

Every small change helps with reducing water usage and shaving a bit off your water bill. Even if you only use a lighter cycle on leftover nights when you didn’t do a lot of cooking or you can only get a couple of pans free enough of burnt carbon that they don’t need a second run through the machine, they can make a difference. For more information and tips for other helpful changes, contact us today.