We have given up the use of our dishwasher. Yes, we are washing all of our dishes by hand. I suggested this to my husband a couple of years ago and he was against the idea. Looking back, I’m not certain why, as I tend to wash most (if not all) of the dishes. However, as we have seen the damage done to our dishes (read about our dish dilemma), he started thinking more about it. The dishwasher was costing us more in time, money, energy, and clutter than good old hand washing. We were pre-rinsing the dishes before placing them in the dishwasher. Many things, such as knives, pots, and pans, etc. aren’t even supposed to go in the dishwasher. The high heat of the dishwasher was doing a number on our dishes, causing them to have stress fractures and breaking very easily. Whenever the dishwasher was running, dishes would start to pile up.
We haven’t gotten rid of our dishwasher. While we have a small kitchen, we plan on moving soon and replacing it with a cabinet is not practical before placing your house on the market. Instead, we are using it as a drying rack. We wash dishes as soon as they get dirty throughout the day and neatly place them in the dishwasher. This prevents dirty dishes from stacking up and eliminates a mountain of clean dishes from taking up our limited counter space. Before heading to bed, I open up the dishwasher and let everything dry during the night. In the morning, I put all of my nice clean dishes away while feeding the children breakfast.
My sink stays clean, empty, and ready to use. I don’t end up with a pile of dirty dishes. The dishes aren’t being ruined by the dishwasher, and we are actually using less time, energy, and money to wash dishes.
When we build our dream house some day, it will not include a dishwasher.
