a lot of people tend to think you need to pre-rinse dishes before putting them in the dishwasher. no, you don't: in fact, this can remove the substrate that's needed for the detergent to be most effective.

most of my dishes, which I have a lot of: finish eating/drinking, straight in, no sink stage.

Maybe because when people get their first dishwasher, they are single and it takes days to get a full load? When food hardens overnight they work a lot less well.

Somehow I've never been able to convince my wife to stop pre-rinsing.

How often do you clean the filter in the sump?

Mine has a line that runs to my garbage disposal, so normally no special cleaning is needed.

Most dishwashers are designed to drain into the disposal, but they usually still have some kind of filter going to the sump before that line. Maybe you have some extraordinary model which truly has no sump filter, but otherwise you should still regularly examine and clean out your sump filter even if your dishwasher drains to the disposal.

The water in the dishwasher is being reused by the pump and sprayer while in cycle. The sump filter ensures no particles larger than the sprayer heads are being sucked up by the pump and pushed through to the sprayer jets, as tough food particles could damage the pump or get clogged into the sprayer heads.

Every week or so; takes a few minutes. You'll need to do this even if you 'pre-rinse', btw.

Don't most dishwashers do a rinse cycle first before adding the detergent?

> anyone here, like me, not find automated dishwashers very useful?

No, when we got our fist dishwasher after our second child was born the dishwasher was like a miracle. We got so much time back each evening. It was life changing.

> same amount of soap exposure, and time at the sink, to wash dishes by hand.

What are you doing with your dishwasher that requires any soap exposure? With ours there is none. Scrape the dish into the bin/compost, stick it in the dishwasher. Every once in a while something will require a cursory rince with cold water before just to dislodge any stubborn food bits, but most of the time no prep is required.

I've always found it a bit surprising that dishwashers were relatively slow to take off in the US relative to other major appliances.

Even living mostly by myself, I find it extremely useful and would strongly dislike not having one.

I think the calculus changes when more than one person eating is involved, especially when the ratio skews more eating than washing

I live alone, and still find the dishwasher to be the most useful appliance in my house. I cook a lot, and love not having to think about how many pots/pans/dishes I'll use and how I have to scrub them later. I don't do any prewash either. Everything goes straight into the dishwasher and comes out sparkling every time. Maybe I'm just really lucky with my machine/detergent.

It's also great because I don't need extra space for a drying rack.

> I live alone, and still find the dishwasher to be the most useful appliance in my house.

More useful than the washing machine?

I’d much prefer going to the laundromat over not having a dishwasher.

As a single person I preferred the laundromat. I could use 3-6 machines at a time and everything was done fast. I owned enough cloths for a full load of each, and so I only had to do this once a month.

As a married person with family we are doing laundry all the time anyway and so having it in the house is an advantage.

Two people in a small apartment and currently spend 15-20 minutes a day hand washing but I feel like its right on the line where 3 or more people it is clearly faster to machine wash.

We are in a similar situation, both working from home. It very much depends on how lazy we are during the day. If musli bowls and lunch plates haven't been handwashed when we start cooking dinner it's a "dishwasher day". We have a half size one, which means one day's worth of dishes fills it up at least 3/4.

I suspect it might be more water efficient and energy efficient to do this instead of repeatedly heating up water, which takes 30s or so and wastes a lot of cold water / hot water that gets left to cool down in the pipes.

I tend to wash the cookware while I'm cooking, and wash my dishes when I'm done, rather than letting them pile up. It takes a handful of seconds each time, and they're often seconds I can't spend anywhere else to begin with.

As a single person I can wash my dishes in less than a minute. Glass, plate no. 1, plate no. 2, bowl, fork, knife, no more than a few seconds each.

What about your chefs knife? A small spoon for sauces, a measuring cup perhaps, a chopping board, a spatula or wooden spoon or something to stir the dish, the pot or pan you actually used to cook, perhaps a lid for said pot.

Yes if you eat microwaved crap. Try cooking sometimes.

Or if you eat fresh foods.

Why is this being downvoted? A balanced plate may be easier to wash. Starch absorbs fat, some acidic liquid will keep the fat and starch from sticking too much. Get your plate to the dish washer, rinse, and without need none to little soap will get rid of all the residues. The fat is already stuck to other particles so won't need much soap. What's the point of teaching Chemistry if the kitchen always looks like a cumbersome time-consuming mess to most people.

What on earth are you on about? How are you going to prepare a meal with fresh ingredients with that list?

There are widely known fresh ingredients containing fat, acidic liquid, or starch (e.g. avocados, tomatoes, sweet potatoes respectively, although tortilla would be a more conventional third example given the first two).

> As a single person I can wash my dishes in less than a minute. Glass, plate no. 1, plate no. 2, bowl, fork, knife, no more than a few seconds each.

This list. Where are you going to cut your sweet potatoes? On a plate? How is this list of equipment sufficient to prepare and cook meals?

I did my dishes by hand for years after moving out; on my own, it was just once a week, took about 20-30 minutes.

Now I own a house and have a small (3 person, 4 animal) household, and the thing runs daily. To me it makes a ton of difference; to the family I wouldn't be able to rely on the others, because the one is a teenage child and the other has debilitating joint problems.

I'd rather load / run / unload the thing every day than do things by hand again.

> ... is pretty easy

It's not that it is complicated, it's the amount of it. Your threshold may vary, but I find that with 3+ adults, or 2 adults and children (one or more) then I prefer the dishwasher.

To me a dishwasher is the equivalent of asynchronous execution: load it up, start it and come back a few hours later to clean and dry dishes. In the meantime I keep on doing whatever else I need to do, which is something probably more important than doing dishes.

Another thing that helps is having extra dishes and silverware. That way I keep on loading during the day and turn it on only once before going to bed (pots and pans that are not solid metal we still have to do by hand though).

I'm looking forward to the dish washing robot to be invented. Something that can actually scrub a dish, not just spray it. Combine it with an automatic cabinet so you don't even need to unload it.

It depends what you are washing.

If you live by yourself and only have to wash one bowl and one spoon every day, a dishwasher can be overkill.

But that's not the situation for everyone. If you have a larger family with babies, a dishwasher can be very useful. Baby bottles have many of different parts and washing them by hand can be time consuming, baby toys can be washed in the dishwasher as well...

And if you cook your own food rather than buying prepared food, you'll also be washing a lot of stuff: frying pans, pots, cutting boards, blender cups, etc.

If you are single washing sex toys is useful

Same. I live alone. I have a spot for a dishwasher under my counter, and I could afford one, but I've chosen not to own one. The problem is that there are many things you can't wash in the dishwasher, and it often does a poor job, you have to pre-rinse some things. At the end of the day, it's like, whatever, I can spend 5 minutes a day washing dishes. But I agree with others, it might make more sense when you have a family with several people.

> The problem is that there are many things you can't wash in the dishwasher

I have had a dishwasher for years. I either don't buy stuff you can't wash in the dishwasher, or wash it in the dishwasher anyway because I have better things to do than pamper some random crockery.

Except my chefs knives which never get put in there, but they are the exception.

> you have to pre-rinse some things

For me (and we cook every meal) it's the minority. It's a rarity that we ever pre-rinse.

If I lived alone it might feel differently about having a dishwasher, but it was life changing when we got one after our second child was born. However, I wouldn't not get one for the reasons you listed.

Even with a family it's not that bad. The worst items are pots and pans but dishwashers don't do a great job on them anyway.

If you cook for 4+ people they are super useful. It's not just the time saving, you also can just eat your meal and relax for the rest of the evening, compared to having to wash stuff up - even for a small time.

Also therapeutic if you view it as natural upkeep.