How To Keep Costs Down When Washing The Dishes

How To Keep Costs Down When Washing The Dishes

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During the current cost of living and energy crisis, it’s more important than ever that you keep costs down when you’re washing your dishes. As the new year is around the corner, you can make it your resolution in 2023 to change the way you wash your dishes in order to keep costs down. So what can you do to keep your costs down when washing the dishes?

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Skip The Pre-Wash

Sometimes you want to remove layers of residue before bunging your crockery into the dishwasher to make the wash smoother. However pre-washing your crockery, cutlery and glassware isn’t necessary, as a modern dishwasher is able to easily tackle and remove even the toughest dirt.

So all pre-washing means is that you’re using up a lot of water by scrubbing your dishes in the sink before placing it in the dishwasher. For a more efficient (and cheaper) cycle, you can skip the pre-wash altogether.

Ensure You Have An Energy-Saving Appliance

If you use your dishwasher a lot, then ensuring you have an energy-efficient dishwasher is important if you want to save money per use. An older appliances are likely to use more water and be less energy-efficient, they are also more likely to break down, requiring expensive repairs, whilst a newer model will be more efficient and be manufactured to higher energy-efficient standards.

Whilst the thought of buying a brand new dishwasher might not seem cost-effective from the outset, the money you’ll save in the long run, especially when it comes to energy usage and the rising cost of electricity, will make it worthwhile. You can also use payment plans to help break down the upfront costs of the appliance.

There are a range of dishwashers you can choose from, but what you should be looking at as the best metric is the energy rating of the appliance. With energy ratings, A+++ is the most efficient whilst G is the least. The bands appliances find themselves in is relative. But when you’re looking at dishwashers the most energy-efficient models would be rated B. Whilst models in the C bracket would also be considered energy-efficient.

And as well as having energy-efficient credentials, there are usually a range of dishwasher settings that are featured on an energy-saving dishwasher that you can utilise to save on water and electricity.

Make Use of Energy Saving Dishwasher Settings

Whilst it can be easy to load up your dishwasher and press ‘go’ without adjusting any settings for your dishwasher, there are a number of settings a typical dishwasher can have to ensure your cycle is energy efficient and doesn’t waste water.

One of the best examples of this is the half-load setting. This takes into account that your dishwasher isn’t completely full. And means it’ll only use the water required to clean a smaller amount of cookware.

Quick wash modes are also available as are dedicated eco modes whilst maximising the energy efficiency of your dishwasher. Cleaning modes also exist for what you have in your dishwasher, including glassware-specific settings. There are multiple other benefits including auto drying, which helps to dry your cookware as soon as it’s clean.

By using different settings depending on what you have in your dishwasher, you can ensure that each load is efficient and isn’t using any unnecessary energy and water. By reducing this down, you can save valuable electricity which in turn will save you money.

Make Use of the Space

The best thing about dishwashers is that they are very economical when it comes to the space inside the machine. When you’re handwashing you’re limited by the space you can fit dishes onto your drying rack. However there are multiple place settings you can find in a dishwasher.

By only using your dishwasher when it’s full or close to being full, it means you can reduce the amount of times you use your dishwasher every day, every week and every month. Which could save you a decent amount of money when everything adds up. It also means that you’ll be maximising the water usage per item.

If you’re shopping for a new dishwasher the product description will usually tell you how many place settings there are. So that you know how much you can fit into your dishwasher. Even with smaller slimline models there are still plenty of place settings. Which means you can wash a sizeable number of plates, cutlery and glassware in smaller dishwashers.