How can my fancy new dishwashers “ECO” mode last 5 hours? How is that good for the environment?
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It takes very little energy to run the pump in the dishwasher.
It takes a lot more energy to run the heater.
When in eco mode, the washer isn’t running the heater, and only uses one small volume of water to wash and a small volume to rinse. It just uses it for longer.
When in regular mode, it’s preheating the water and not reusing it, so it wastes electricity and water.
Try driving your car flat out at top speed for an hour say it gets 10 mpg, at 50 mph it’s using a lot Les fuel.
Dishwasher quick hot wash may use a lot of energy but a cooler longer wash uses a lot Less on the se principal as above.
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It let’s your dishes soak with cold water for a long time, instead of blasting it with hot water. I always use the Eco program when I go to bed.
ECO is the low power drying mode for dishwashers. Takes longer, but instead of heating a 500 watt element for an hour, they lo-volt it so it only warms to about 25 watts. Just enough to put a *little* heat in the cabinet to aid the drying process.
I’m a mechanical engineer. Been repairing heat/air and appliances as a hobby for over 50 years.
If you wash your hands in a bucket of hot water the grease will come of rather quick, but there’s a cost of heating the water.
Eco mode is like using a bucket of colder water to wash your hands in, the cost is less but you need to work your hands longer in the colder water before the grease comes of.
* Heating up water takes a ton of energy.
* Spraying it around takes MUCH less energy.
Result: Heating the water to a lower temp but spraying it around for much longer does the same amount of cleaning for less energy, it just takes longer.
(Less ELI5: Water has a high heat capacity, meaning it can absorb a lot of thermal energy and not get much warmer. That’s why water-cooling things works so well. Sadly it means when you *want* hot water, that takes a ton of energy as well.)
Eco mode takes a long time for several reasons. Reason number one is that most of the work is done by the water and the detergent. It’ll spray the bulk of the junk off in the initial rinse cycle. When it releases the detergent it runs just long enough to distribute the detergent. Then it’ll run only just often enough to keep the dishes wet. That uses very little energy and let’s the water and detergent do most of the work. Most of the energy is spent during the initial rinse and the final rinse with an optional drying cycle. There’s been a big advancement in detergent technology that helps this process
tl;dr Modern dishwashers are awesome! Stop pre-rinsing. Try it out. Caveat, I do run the water for a bit to get it hot first.
I have been slowly experimenting with my new dishwasher. It’s the kind with no vent so I’m guessing it doesn’t get very hot.
I was raised in the 70s–yeah, yeah–old AF. I know. We had to basically wash the dishes before the dishwasher did. I’ve been doing that my whole life. Well, I live alone so I thought, I’m gonna see just how much non-rinsing I can get away with.
After about a month I can say no water touches my dishes before I load them in.
I have left plates out over night, covered in food. Glasses with dried milk in the bottom. Oatmeal glued to the bowl, etc. I just scrape the food off into the garbage. Even rice crusted spoons–still not rinsed. All goes in the dishwasher.
Ladies and gentlemen, non binary folks, I am proud to say: Every. Single. Dish. Comes out sparkling clean. I feel like a miracle has occurred! And the planet is saved!
I don’t have a dishwasher so TIL they can go for 5 hours when in eco mode.
I’m assuming your system is to wash the dishes at the end of the night and they’ll be ready by the next day?
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