At least in the EU it has come to the point where you have to figure out how to 'boost' the appliances into a 'normal' cycle, as the default is just the 'eco' setting designed to pass the test's 'A+++' rating criterium under ideal circumstances.
I am 100% in favour of not wasting energy and water, just not by deception and false savings where people use more water 'pre-rincing' their dishes in the sink than a regular dishwasher used to clean them, or having to manually add 2 extra soak and spin cycles to get rid of detergent residue in a washing machine because the default cycle was 'optimized' for specific artificial test loads not resembling any real world family clothes mix.
Many machines still have a button or hidden option to set them to 'normal' operation. For others you will have to resort to trickery or plain reinterpreting of what the different programs and settings actually mean to get the right result.
Can't read TFA and archive is sending me into captcha hell.
BUT if this is about modern dishwasher taking 5h: yes, the last 2-3 hours are just drying the dishes in an energy efficient way. And it works perfectly fine for me and one cycle takes about half the electricity of my previous washer. Who cares how long a cycle takes, it usually runs over night anyway. This is the Eco program, and you can switch to an express program if you want a 2h cycle. If you have really dirty dishes (burnt stuff in a pot or whatever), you can enable extra hot water and even a high pressure zone where you can put the pot. It's a Siemens iQ300, BTW, but almost all dish washers I've seen now work this way. Is it really too much to ask people to skim the manual and figure out what these buttons do? Apparently so...
On my machine (Miele) the door automatically opens on a hinge for the last 20 minutes of a normal program to let the dishes dry. I have no idea what the eco program does. Afaict it just seems to pauze at random during the cycles, doubling the program time. I never measured the agregate energy use, i doubt much savings can be made on water use as that is extremely low to begin with.
The answer to your (and the headline's) question is:
Eco mode heats up less water, and to a lower temperature and then washes for longer to achieve the same outcome. The heating is the main power draw, compared with the pumping, so it saves energy even though it works for a longer time period.
Exactly. At least from my casual observation, most of the time, the machine does simply nothing. It let's the water soak the dishes, or for the last couple hours, it just lets the dishes dry from the remaining heat (and in the last hour opens the washer so that humidity does not condense again when the machine cools, whereas older machines needed to run a fan to remove it).
I actually prefer to just let the dishes air dry anyway because I've found they last longer.
I've wrestled a lot with the issue the article is mentioning the last few years. It's Goodhart's law applied to efficiency tests, where unrealistic standardized product tests get gamed in increasingly complex ways, and no one calls the tests on the unrecognized real-world problems being overlooked. Prerinseing, repeating cycles, mold problems, etc.
One of the most frustrating things for me is how everything has become more automatized. Laundry machines are often organized around preset clothing types, for example, rather than cycle settings, which makes it difficult to control your wash correctly.
> preset clothing types, for example, rather than cycle settings
My LG washing machine has a wifi connection and one of the advertised feature was the possibility to download a custom washing program set from the app.
I thought it kinda makes sense, because building a custom program involves many steps, timers and settings. A mobile UI would be better than the appliance's buttons.
Well, imagine my deception when I got to try the app and the custom programs is just a list of a dozen more niche presets. No customization whatsoever.
It's really like the machines we buy are no longer ours to control.
Seriously: at least if you buy a good machine, all this stuff should be and usually is covered in the manual. It tells you how to avoid mold (do a machine clean every month, for instance, there's even a dedicated button for this), if and when you should maybe rinse the dishes before putting them into the machine (usually not, because the machine does a pre-rinse and has a sensor to detect the degree of dirt in the water, but stuff like egg yolk you should rather rinse because once it is dried, it's just hard to get off), and so on. Same for laundry: a good manual will actually describe what each program does, and in what way you can modify it.
Yes, back in the day the machine would simply heat the water >60 degrees celcius and just heat the machine to oblivion to dry the dishes. Yes, that kills mold, but it's also stupid. At least here on HN, I would think that people would agree that doing things smarter is a good thing. Yes, it involves a little bit more work on your side, but at least here in Germany, where I pay 35ct per kWh, it actually saves real money.
So I stand by it: don't cheap out on these machines, and RTFM.
If your dishwasher isn't performing well on eco mode for typical loads, then you have a bad dishwasher. Good dishwashers exist. I'd recommend looking at impartial reviews, like Which?.
Spending an extra £100 on a better dishwasher, to wash at 50 °C, will pay itself back several times, over the lifetime of the dishwasher. It adds up. You're wasting a fortune by washing dishes at say 70 °C.
Also, pre rising dishes is an anti pattern, a bad habit which people have gotten into. These days the advice is specifically to not do it. Otherwise you're fooling the sensors, etc. Plus, energy efficient cycles are long, giving plenty of time for the dishes to soak and clean.
If dishes aren't coming out clean, and your dishwasher doesn't have terrible reviews, then buy a bottle of dishwasher cleaner for £3, and put that in an empty hot cycle. That'll refresh the dishwasher to as-new performance. Clean the filter too, obviously.
The previous owners of my house had a very expensive KitchenAid, which we had to replace shortly after moving in due to the stench. There was pink sludge EVERYWHERE, and no amount of disassembly and cleaning fully removed it.
Replaced with a Bosch (forget the model number, but one with the CrystalDry feature, which is awesome), which I like better anyway. I pre-rinse, because enzymes in detergent aren’t magic, and food eventually becomes a pink sludge.
Even if you do pre rinse, the soap grime will become pink sludge; the minimal required maintenance is rinsing the removable filter every month / 50 runs - a good wipe down (and lubrication of the hinges) and drain mechanism cleaning can help too.
The magic part for the food particles is that they serve as abrasives during the wash process after being ground by the dishwasher grinder.
Tbf I do religiously perform maintenance, and the previous owners did not, as evidenced by the HVAC filters being caked with dirt (and the aforementioned pink sludge).
Re: dishwasher grinder, not all makes have those. My Bosch doesn’t.
I just use a fraction of the recommended laundry detergent. Helps prolong clothing and colours too. Spot spray any actual stains.
But I also fear automotive durability is being lost in the name of fuel economy by using excessively thin oils. Not just in the motor (easy to change yourself, just ignore the label where they can’t recommend thicker oils), but also CV joints, bearings, transmissions and differentials.
I put 87 (US octane system) instead of the “required” 91 because the fuel mileage loss doesn’t make up for the added premium. But of course the manufacturer will never say you can do that because they’ll lose their fuel economy record.
It might actually matter with a turbo, but I don’t have one.
> I put 87 (US octane system) instead of the “required” 91 because the fuel mileage loss doesn’t make up for the added premium.
Octane isn’t about gas mileage. It’s about compression. Lower octane gas is prone to auto-ignition at lower compression ratios. Running lower octane gas in an engine designed for higher risks catastrophic engine damage, as ignition can happen before the piston has reached peak compression.
Meanwhile there are (a decreasing number, probably to claim better fuel economy) that state “91 recommended” but don’t require it.
Reality is modern engines adjust timings to make up for lower than expected octane, because they have to deal with other situations that trigger it (e.g. elevation).
But running an engine designed to take advantage of a higher octane at lower octane will have a fuel economy hit. But appears to be a single digit percents difference while reducing unit fuel cost by over 15% where I am.
Putting the highest-octane fuel in your car is just wasting money: there's zero benefit to it. You should only use the minimum octane recommended for that engine.
While it depends on brand, the detergents and other additives are often better in higher-octane fuels. They help keep fuel injectors and other parts of the fuel system clean, which reduces potential problems down the road (ha ha).
I’m loooooooong past warranty here. Lots of suggestions of engine thermonuclear destructions of the country (on internet for putting lower octane than “required”), but so far so good.
I believe some newer cars do store data that could indicate lower octane gas was put in.
But if you’re still under warranty and your engine blows up, it suggests a problem with the manufacturing itself. Exceptions could be if you put in E85 that’s not recommended as it has much lower energy and the engine needs to make a ton of adjustments for that which might be out of range.
I've been running "quad" rinse in my Maytag washing machine for the last 2 years because the "deep fill" selector isn't actually hooked up to anything.
The machine is designed by a psychopath. It will cycle the water solenoid valves at least 100 times per wash session. It is like these things are designed to not only function poorly but also destroy your plumbing over time. It feels intentional. No sane engineer would watch this thing operate in a lab and think "yes. I've done a good job today".
I've got a new machine on the way. No lid lock, EPA defeat switch, et. al. You cannot buy these at the normal box stores anymore. I had to argue with a boutique appliance salesman about my laundry preferences for an hour to get this sorted, despite the fact that I already knew precisely the machine I wanted.
Quickly stopping the flow of water in a pipe can cause wear (damage) to joints in the system. Ideally, the solenoid opens and closes just one time for a fill cycle.
We had a top of the line Bosch in the "Luxury" apartment we rented last, and I can assure you this is not the case for all of their models. Couldn't run it overnight without keeping everyone awake for 4 hours.
Our relatively new AEG shines a red light on the floor when it is operating (and a slowly flashing red light if the door is ajar) - turns out this is a better UI than a mobile app!
Speaking of AEG, they have some top notch lights and LED screens. Just got an Air purifier (AX9) yesterday and was impressed by the air quality indicator light and the touch screen seems to have high DPI as well.
The last dishwasher we had was also an AEG - I made multiple repairs to it over the years but then the electricals gave out and I wasn't happy fiddling with that so we replaced it.
I'm willing to bet that a lot of the times, the issues are 1) overestimating how much laundry detergent they need 2) not putting some extra detergent in the dishwasher
Meanwhile commercial dishwashers take all of three minutes per cycle. I would recommend buying commercial versions of any appliance if you're able. Parts are replaceable, made to be serviced, not choked full of eco marketing, or incompetent regulations which add to more waste in the long run.
Commercial dishwasher are more like sanitizers. In a restaurant the dishwasher is the guy scraping the food off. Home dishwashers run for a long time because they are basically liquifying the leftover food, milk, and grime.
I have done that job. I was the dishwasher. After I cleaned off the gunk on the dishes with the commercial power sprayer, I loaded the trays into the commercial steam dish sanitizing machine.
You mean those things with a door on either size so the rack goes through from one side to the other? Those are high temperature sterilizers that take hand-washed dishes and blast them so you can put them on patrons' tables.
The guy at the end of the article clearly had one of those (it looks like he probably said this but the wsj reporter cherry picked the quote, as it quotes him saying he could only use it for glasses at parties, not for plates with food residue. Bet he didn't call it a dishwasher since he's a repair guy).
> ...Donna King experimented with the various settings of her washing machine, trying to get her clothes to stop coming out covered in detergent residue....King thinks the machine just doesn’t use enough water...
A decade ago in Korea, I had a Samsung top-loader that worked great. Had to replace it and could only get a front-loader. Not only is it slow, I have to run the rinse cycle at least twice to get the detergent out. I now often resort to hand-washing and use the machine just for the spin cycle.
Government is making your life worse with its insane "environmental" policies. Just fucking turn on a few nuke plants!
God I need to buy a top-loader. I wonder if they even exist in europe anymore. Only comically small ones by the look of it. Front-loaders struggle to even wash a bath towel.
> a commercial dishwasher [...] takes about 90 seconds to clean a load of dishes instead of hours
Imagine a world in which all machines were this good.
You probably wouldn't want a commercial dishwasher at home. You must first thoroughly rinse all food particles off all items (think human dishwasher in a resturant). Then it uses the hot water it used to sterize the previous load as wash water for the next. As soon as one load completes, it will immediately expect another, as they are designed for continuous heavy use. They are very loud, require a 240V or 3 phase connection, and release truly massive amounts of steam requiring a hood/extractor to not mess up a residential kitchen. For a family of 4 people washing everything by hand would probably be less work and cheaper.
Every socket in my house has 230V, if the government manages to not screw up generation which is a possibility in the future. I hate on europe for a lot but that is one thing that is right over here.
As for rinsing that is something that must be done anyway with an average consumer dishwasher. The food clogs the sprayer nozzles and eventually the pump too. Don't worry though because manufacturers conveniently sell you another cleaning product for that!
Your point about hand washing is bordering on true. Government is making automation so poor that labor is considered.
Well, if you buy 2-star reviewed appliances appliances they'll perform shit. But plenty of energy efficient appliances perform fantastically. For example, from AEG, Bosch, Haier, LG, Miele, Samsung, or Zamisso.
> Front-loaders struggle to even wash a bath towel.
Nothing but bad experiences with AEG and their sister company Zanussi. I won't buy from them again. I also avoid anything made by Samsung as they are regularly criticised on this forum.
I've had good experiences with AEG and Samsung, but a lot of large companies are inconsistent, so I sympathise.
Too far often I've also had new and nearly-new appliances develop faults. This is frustrating, but if the warranty support is good, then at least I'm left with an efficient and functioning machine, when they're done.
Generally, I'd recommend buying appliances on a credit card, so that the credit card company is equally liable. This is case the appliance breaks, or underperforms so much that it's not fit for purpose.
I am 100% in favour of not wasting energy and water, just not by deception and false savings where people use more water 'pre-rincing' their dishes in the sink than a regular dishwasher used to clean them, or having to manually add 2 extra soak and spin cycles to get rid of detergent residue in a washing machine because the default cycle was 'optimized' for specific artificial test loads not resembling any real world family clothes mix.
Many machines still have a button or hidden option to set them to 'normal' operation. For others you will have to resort to trickery or plain reinterpreting of what the different programs and settings actually mean to get the right result.