Alex Tabarrok takes on federal dishwasher regulations today:
Why do today’s dishwashers typically take more than 2 hours to run through a normal cycle when less than a hour was common in the past? The reason is absurd energy and water “conservation” rules. These rules, imposed on dish and clothes washers, have made these products perform worse than in the past, cleaning less well or much more slowly. One of the best things that the Trump administration did (other than Operation Warp Speed, of course) was creating a product class–superwashers!–that cleaned in under an hour and were not subject to energy and water conservation standards.
First off: Operation Warp Speed was a sham. All the important work had been done by Congress long before Donald Trump came up with his (admittedly terrific) marketing slogan.
But back to dishwashers. Honest question here: Why does anyone care if a dishwasher takes two hours to finish a cycle? I typically load the dishes at night and then turn on the dishwasher. The next day I unload it. Who cares how long it took?
Obviously (I guess) there must be people out there who run their dishwashers in the middle of the day and then sit on the edge of their seats until it's done. But why? This isn't like a clothes washer, where you might want to put in another load right away.
Can somebody help me out here?
I don't know, my dishwasher is fairly new (about 8 years) and it has 3 cycle choices: a one hour cycle for lightly soiled loads, a normal cycle (about 1.5 hours) for normal loads, and a heavy cycle, about 2 hours, for really dirty stuff. Any of these can be combined with the high temperature option. If I'm just doing some glasses or fairly clean plates, the 1 hour cycle works fine. If they've been sitting in the machine for a few days, the heavy option is the choice. The heavy option gets everything sparkling clean no matter what.
I'm with you. I usually start it before I leave the house and when I get back everything is clean. So what if it takes 2 hours.
I'll add this: my modern dishwasher not only has different time settings, but it doesn't damage dishes or make a ton of noise like I recall dishwashers of the past doing.
Alex Tabarrok sounds like the same sort of crank who complains about catalytic converters or phosphate-free laundry detergent: whether or not they admit it, they are valuing what they recall from their childhood, and railing against better products simply because they are new.
>Alex Tabarrok sounds like the same sort of crank
+1
Bitching is brand.
Also cool:
https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/laundry-done-right
Another thing that occurs to me is that Tabarrok could make exactly the same complaints if modern dishwashers *did* clean dishes in an hour. Why can't they clean them in 45 minutes? Or 20? Or instantly? The failure of modern dishwashers to accomodate Tabarrok's laziness/inability to plan/distaste for handwashing is a Serious Issue and the fault of "absurd energy and water 'conservation' rules."
What do you expect from Tyler Cowen's sidekick?
Complaining about laundry detergent when we now have color-safe fabrics (no need to sort), almost everything can be washed in cold water (lower energy bills), fabric softener is unnecessary (more cost savings), and the vast majority of clothes no longer need ironing is just stupid. It's never been easier to wash clothes.
I'm on Team Trumperrok for this one. Sometimes it doesn't matter, but if I have multiple loads or need to finish chores before I go out it's very frustrating. Particularly since the water savings are a bit of a sham, since the dishwasher also won't clean properly unless I run the taps out of cold water before I press start.
How do you run taps out of cold water? And if you have more than one load of dishes can't you wash some by hand?
Not the person who made the comment, but pretty sure they mean getting through the water that has gotten cold in the pipes. My kitchen sink is the furthest from the water heater, and it generally takes a full 45-60 seconds of running at maximum speed before the water stops being frigid.
No idea why they think that makes the water savings a sham, though. You have to do that before washing the dishes whether you're doing them in a sink or in a dishwasher, so it has no effect on water savings from using a dishwasher.
And correct me if I'm wrong, but don't dishwashers have heating coils to get the water up to washing temperature? I know they used to in the bad old days and can't imagine why they'd have dropped them, especially the ones that claim they can disinfect, etc. Maybe OP could try running a load or two without warming the inlet water and see whether it's any different?
It's usually an option.
Running it without the heating coils usually results in bad results, since my water is very cold.
So I never run it during peak power hours.
This is, of course, a complete non-issue. Most modern dishwashers like my Kitchen Aid have a main cycle (called "Pro-Wash" on mine) which takes 2+ hours and is designed for maximum energy and water efficiency. But there is also a quicker cycle ("Express Wash") that turns the machine into an old-fashioned energy guzzler and does the trick in about 45 minutes.
So you can choose. Like Kevin, I normally choose to use the energy efficient cycle and turn it on before we go to bed. On only a handful of occasions (like guests coming) have I used the express wash. And I should point out that the Kitchen Aid is by far the quietest dishwasher I have ever owned, which makes running it at night no problem.
I turn the dishwasher on when I go to bed and they are done when I wake up.
If he wants dishes done faster, he could do them by hand.
Fat chance that. He's an entitled What Boah snowflake.
I am the dishwasher, and yes, I'm running more slowly than I did last year.
I have no idea why this is so.
😉
Agreed
Conservatives have gotten so utterly pathetic in trying to find issues to get cranky about. I just pop a Cascade tab into the slot on the door of my Bosch dishwasher, press the start button and close the door. Sometimes I run it after dinner sometimes I'll run it midday if I notice it's full after popping in lunch dishes but it just doesn't bug me that the cycle takes about 2 hours. I'd rather save on the water and energy costs to run the darn thing.
I fondly remember the pissing and moaning over efficient light bulbs. In fairness, the early compact florescent bulbs did suck, but anyone paying attention knew that better was on the way. In any case, the complaints were rarely about the merits of the bulb, but the principle of the thing.
I wish someone could tell me why my new side by side refrigerator is humongous on the outside and smaller than my old one on the inside. (about same cubic ft). More particularly I'd like to know if this is true of all brands, or just GE. Is this for conservation?
It's more and better insulation to maintain interior temperature. The better it maintains temperature, the less often it has to kick on and cost you money by cooling down.
I try to do all my laundry on Sunday. This is easier now that the kids are older, but it was a lot when we were a family of five at home--sometimes 7 or 8 loads. We try not to run the dishwasher and the laundry machine at the same time. It would be nice if the dishwasher did not take 2 hours or more, and it sometimes does. I could still do it if I was spending the whole day at home and was focused on making sure the laundry machine or dishwasher was always running, but that wasn't always the case.
"We try not to run the dishwasher and the laundry machine at the same time."
Hence the "run the dishwasher overnight" suggestion.
It doesn't work if we have dishes/pots that are dirty during the day that we want to use for dinner.
Why do you avoid running them at the same time?
So we don't run low on hot water
Anything that doesn't waste some scarse resource is an affront to God and HIS right given to Americans to be as wasteful as they wish. Honestly, it is a conservative bedrock principle that anything government does to address externalities must be a bad thing.
I have heard that there are some commercial establishments that run their big industrial dishwashers multiple times in the day. Of course, these would obviously not be the home consumer-grade models that you expect to work overnight. It's likely Tabarrok is conflating two very different machines, kind of like being enraged because the school bus doesn't get 40 mpg like a Corolla.
His readers/listeners won't notice or care, because all they want is that daily shot of outrage. The rest of us can do a public service by laughing loudly and exposing the cheat.
Running your dishwasher after 9 pm when the electric rates drop is just smart.
We have four dishwashers. Literally true. The previous owners loved their parties. We mostly use one moderate sized one, that doesn't require bending over to load for us older folks, three or four times a week. The big one is saved for when we've done cooking or baking with large pots and pans, or have a modest party. The third one is a smaller one, underneath the moderate sized one, perfect for glassware and small plates from a party. We've never used the fourth one, from the 90's, that's in the basement. The three modern ones, all of which are about 8 years old, do take 1:40-2:15 to do a load, but all are much quieter than the ones I grew up with, use less energy and water, and do a perfectly fine job of cleaning the dishes without having to first rinse them. Their filters aren't capable of grinding up and disposing of human bodies and have to be cleaned more frequently compared to the ones I grew up with, but such is life. And as others have pointed out, we usually just run the dishwasher overnight, or when going out the door for work or shopping. It's not such a complicated concept.
Time is not an issue. It's the noise level that matters. Ask anyone which issue is the most important.
+1
And the modern machines are MUCH quieter than the older ones. My Kitchen Aid is whisper quiet and I hear the same thing about Bosch.
I can confirm for Bosch and its Thermador-branded cousins.
Yep, our Bosch is so quiet it needs a light to show you it's running so you don't accidentally open it mid-cycle.
I might imagine that people with big families* and/or people who frequently host large gatherings could need to run the dishwasher more than once for a given meal, in which case, a 2 hour cycle would be annoying.
Personally, I fit into neither category, and so overnight dishwashing works well for me. On the rare occasion when we do host enough people to more than fill the dishwasher, we either hand wash some, or leave some until the morning.
*And I believe conservatives often have more kids than liberals. I might, with less certainty, believe that conservatives would do more cooking from scratch at home for their gatherings.
I mean it was their sexual lifestyle choices to not use prophylactics and breed so many children. Not sure why their sexual choices shouldn’t have consequences like “have to plan our use of the dishwasher better” when these are the same busybodies willing to force other people to suffer consequences for their different sexual choices?
Random thoughts: Your family is large, and you need the breakfast dishes and pans at lunch?
You just gave a large lunch and need those dishes and pans for dinner?
You haven’t set the nearly full dishwasher off yet and you’ve learned you have guests arriving in an hour?
Edge cases. You know what that means, right?
Sure, edge cases, and perhaps not completely justifying. While this may not be one of them, there are “systems” which have to be designed to handle the edge cases and not simply the average.
It's called a sink filled with soapy water.
Of course, but handling the edge cases is the really expensive part of anything. In programming there was (and may still be, I'm retired) a saying that "20% of the code solves 80% of the problem." [and vice versa]
When one is buying a dishwasher, it behooves one to remember the axiom above (which doesn't apply in exactly the same proportion, but maybe 60/40) and not buy a Hummer when a Prius will do.
I used to work for a really nice guy named Rick Jones in Houston. Best boss ever.
They could’ve chosen to have fewer children and/or buy more dishwashers. Everybody else is told they have to take responsibility for their sexual choices. They can bear the consequences for overbreeding too.
It's about four hours between breakfast and lunch and five to six hours between lunch and supper. That's ample time to run a load of dishes between meals.
math is hard
for libertarians anyway
I have so few dishes that I do them by hand. I fear my dishwasher may dry out or go mouldy from lack of use. I do use it when I bake.
I love my Bosch dishwasher--silent, cleans great, but takes 2+hours per cycle. However, if you have a house full of guests over the holidays, and are cooking three meals a day for 7+ people, you have to wash the dishes several times a day. That's when the over-2-hour cycle becomes a nuisance.
Luckily, we have a 30-year-old washer and dryer that we've kept going with the help of a wonderful local handyman. Big loads, short cycles!
Eh, if there are that many people in the house, get some of them to help with dishes.
Yes, it's the holiday cooking/entertaining/houseguests when you really need to run the dishwasher several times a day. And logistics are such that handwashing all those dishes, after preparing all that food and getting ready to prepare the next meal, is just not practical. We had 10 houseguests over Thanksgiving, and the dishwasher ran at least 3 times a day. That said, the ~90 minute "normal" cycle (there are several cycles, this is the one we usually use) wasn't too much of a burdon.
Yes, this is a silly complaint, and yes, two hours is fine to wait most of the time. We, too, run our dishwasher when it's full (usually at night) and unload when it's done.
However, and to answer Kevin's question, we do sometimes have lots of dishes that require several loads. For example, during holidays or our occasional dinner party. For a big meal we can dirty a load's worth before dinner and prefer to run it before eating. When all four of our kids were home, we could generate more than one load of dishes in a day (teenagers will take a sip of water and put the cup in the sink, repeat six times). On these occasions, yes, I would prefer a one-hour cycle so we could get through the pile faster.
All that said, I'm not really complaining. It is what it is and we work with it. If cycles were an hour, we could complain they weren't half an hour.
I can see it being a pain if the dishwasher ran consistently over two hours, but I've had a number of modern ones, and none of them have ever gone more than 90 minutes.
Further, I've been using dishwashers since 1975 and the modern ones are so much better than the old ones that it's not even a contest.
Doe and Energy Star regs apply only to the "normal"cycle setting. For most dishwashers that is about 2 hours now. However, most dishwashers have multiple cycle settings. Most have an Express or quick wash setting that takes about an hour. Most have a Heavy duty/pots&pans setting. There are are no DOE or Energy Star limits on the amount of energy or water used in those latter two settings. A number of ratings groups like Consumer Reports have rated dishwashers. If one works poorly it's not linked to water or energy use but rather to quality and usually cost. Just like in the 90s before the regs changed some dishwashers work better than others.
https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/dishwashers-trump-efficiency/
Steve
I often find it hard to time all the water usage. Old pipes, one full bath, four people can make it complicated to get everyone and everything washed in a reasonable amount of time.
Luckily my washing machine has a delay start. That really helps if I can't be home all day on the weekend or have to have appliances run at night. Start the dishwasher, delay the load of clothes, start the next round of washing when I get back home. Given everything going on in our house, 2 hours is more than enough time to forget to start the load of clothes.
I will definitely look for a delay start option on my next dishwasher. Being able to run the clothes first would be ideal.
Small house and loud appliances with long cycles also makes it hard to do washing on work-from-home days. It's pretty rare to find two full hours in a row when no one has a zoom meeting, which is one reason why so many loads are done at night here.
You wrote "Obviously (I guess) there must be people out there who run their dishwashers in the middle of the day and then sit on the edge of their seats until it's done. But why?"
So I guess there's not a lot of serious cooking going on in your household ...
Or children
I am at a loss. We prepare dinner ( a serious dinner) and breakfast (serious as well) nearly every day, 3 people in the house for most meals....but we never need to run the dishwasher more than once a day at night.
Do you put your pots, pans, casserole/baking dishes and cutting boards in the dishwasher?
Some people just have to complain about something. A few generations ago, their ancestors would’ve been hand washing everything in their 3 room, 7 person tenement. But now, if the dishes aren’t cleaned in 45 minutes after every meal, it’s the worst travesty ever. Comfort breeds entitlement.
Even if you put your pots etc, into the dishwasher: There is a 4h+ break between meals; there is ample time for three cycles a day if you wash so much. Don't tell me you serve 5 courses every meal and that is why your washer needs to be speedy.
Yes!
Our family runs the dishwasher twice maybe 3 times a day. And our Bosch takes 2:09 for normal cycle (or 2:24 if we have no rinse aid, what’s up with that?). And meanwhile, all the dirty dishes are piling up in the sink. It’s a giant pain in the ass. So yeah I can’t stand the new regulations.
My dishwasher has space for 15 plates, 15 bowls, 15 cups/glasses a few large utensils and many regular utensils/cutlery.
Do you have a tiny dishwasher? Or a family of 15+?
Two parents and three teens/tweens. And I don’t feel like we make an huge amount of dishes, but one Instant Pot pot by itself takes up a third the bottom rack! I acknowledge that we could be better about always running the dishwasher right away after a meal, but still it seems like half the day it’s in use.
Maybe the 101st Airborne Division you are housing needs more than one dishwasher? 3 times a day? Go on, pull the other one.
My Bosch has a Speed60 setting and cycles in 60 minutes. We cook for very large groups. The wife actually has more dishes than your typical old fashioned department store, but if she needs to reuse some for some reason we just run them on the 60 minute cycle if we need them when doing a large dinner party of 8 or more. On that cycle the amount of water and energy used is not regulated so Bosch can run the temp and use as much water as they want. Works pretty well.
Steve
Thanks for pointing out that Operation Warp was a sham. On dishwashers, I googled and saw the availability of dozens of one hour dishwashers which indeed use more water and more energy (heat).
Occasionally - by which I mean exactly twice in my entire life - I have had upwards of 50 people in my house at the same time. It was such a pain to run the dishwasher so many times! Obviously all future dishwasher regulations should take into account this very infrequent need to be able to wash a small restaurant’s worth of dishes in less than an hour. Otherwise, Americans will be forced to spend upwards of about $20 on a hundred-pack of disposable plates, utensils and cups, while of course switching their votes to Republicans.
Brings back memories. Our family gatherings at Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years all included disposable paper plates and plastic utensils. At New Years, there were three TVs on, each with a different bowl game playing.
They already exist. You can currently have always been able to buy a dishwasher with a 60 minute cycle. Whirlpool claims there are some with cycles down to 30 minutes. Just look for a dishwasher that has an Express, Quick wash or Speed60 setting.
Steve
Current dishwashers use a tiny fraction of the water (and therefore also the energy) of old-style dishwashers. They're also much quieter. Mine has a fast cycle for those times when it's needed. An improvement all around, I'd say.
Tabarrok sounds like a digital Andy Rooney.
Conservative cranks gonna crank.
"But why?"
Frankly, I can't figure it out either. But my wife thinks it is a huge deal (on the cloths washer too). I think it is one of the easiest way to save some resources but she does not take that in, ever.
Not for nothing, but when I want my dishes washed quickly, i.e. speedily, i.e. rapidly, i.e. in short order, I scan the dishwasher controls for some button to push that might correspond with my wishes. 9 times out of 10, I press the "Fast Wash" button, suspecting that "fast" is a synonym for "rapid," et al.
Of course, when I want to post a comment on the Jabberwocking site and it happens to be a (ahem) hot-button issue, I have to wait until all the DATABASE ERROR messages go away, at which point 237 others have chimed in with an identical comment. Oh well.
Side note: My clothes washer -also- has a "quick wash" setting. Will sunders never wheeze!
I wash my dishes by hand and it takes maybe 15 minutes and only the amount of electricity to run a light bulb.
I've owned dishwashers since the late 1970s. I've never run one on normal cycle in less than 90 minutes, and they usually have taken two or more hours. I notice my newer one sometimes takes an hour, sometimes two hours. I think it has a sensor and washes until the wash water is clean. It's a lot better than the previous one that supposedly indicated how much time was left. It was as bad as those old download progress bars where the time went up, went down, went sideways.