I’ve already heard the argument “they heat up the water far higher than one would when hand washing”, cool whatever. The part I don’t understand is how a dishwasher could ever match the precision of a sentient human when it comes to ensuring it gets every spot. If I’m washing dishes and there’s a hard spot that didn’t initially come off, I put some elbow grease in to make sure I get that spot. Dish washers can’t do that. They can spray every item, but they can’t ensure they hit every spot.
And I don’t want to hear anything about rinsing them before you put them in the dishwasher.
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If not overloaded – a mid to upscale dw will hit every surface and even remove burned on soil if lots of loose powder detergent is being used.
Dw Detergent contain silica which is like sand and enebles the dw to basically sandblast baked on soils 100% clean. Granted a heavy soil or pots cycle is best for this.
It’s the same reason power washing your deck is more effective than hand scrubbing it. While you can pinpoint a spot with hand scrubbing, it takes time. Modern dishwashers and detergents can do an equal job at spots with less human energy. That time savings is efficient for said human. The dishwasher doesn’t need laser vision as it hits every area with hot, soapy water at high velocity. Water has a lot of mass, so this indiscriminate force is typically more than the spot can handle. On the off chance it can’t handle the spot, you are hand washing one spot on one dish and not all parts of all dishes. Plus, hand washing uses dirty water to clean dishes.
They’re not more effective, just more efficient. They clean more dishes at once with less water than you’d use to hand wash, and you don’t have to spend your own time doing it. Most dishes come out clean, but occasionally dishwashers miss spots, either because dirt gets caught where a dish is touching something else, or because some dirt was really stuck on and isn’t coming off without elbow grease.
Dishwashers generally don’t heat water any more than whatever temperature it is coming from your water heater. The heating elements in dishwashers are for power drying, if you use that option.
Personally, it takes me ten minutes to reload the dishwasher. It would take much longer to wash and dry by hand. If the dishwasher does miss a spot, I’ll just hit it by hand, even if it’s not perfect the near boiling washer that gets sprayed on the dishes will sterilize any germs
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