Today, I washed my hands at the kitchen sink while making lunch, and was unexpectedly chastised by my partner because she had just started the dishwasher. Apparently, she has recently come across something that has convinced her that running the hot water in your sink means the water that enters your dishwasher will be hotter (checks out), and thus the dishes will be cleaner. I tried searching startpage to see if this is real, but I couldn’t make it through even one llm-slop-ticle about it before my eyes rolled back into my head, so here I am asking y’all: chat, is this real? Doesn’t my dishwasher have a heating element? Is there any meaningful difference between heating the water with a hot water heater vs a dishwasher, other than I can’t use my sink while the dishwasher is filling and I have to pour a bunch of cool water down the drain?
It’s correct if in a country where the dishwasher lacks its own water heater.
Dishwashers in the U.S don’t have water heaters and therefore it’s beneficial to purge lukewarm water from the hot water line before starting the dishwasher, such that the water in the dishwasher is on average hotter and as such more effective at washing the dishes.
Dishwashers in Europe have water heaters and as such it’s entirely irrelevant to do it there
So do dishwashers in North America they are just less powerful because of the 120 volt.
I live in the US and every dishwasher I ever owned had a heating element, and was capable of heating its own water as needed, depending on what cycle was selected.
Same with my washing machines, my current one even has a steam cycle.
I feel like if dishwashers without heating elements were ever a common thing here, it must have been many decades ago.
Its not so much about that, as it is about the fact that they almost always do an initial “clean-off-the-dirtiest-bits” cycle for around 10 minutes which pulls in (mostly) cold water if your line is not purged like the OP describes. And they don’t use the heating element for this initial cycle.
After the first 10 minutes they flush out the super dirty water with the dirtiest food bits and sauce and whatnot, fill in brand new water, and then run for the duration of the washing cycle (1hr plus) along with the heating element.
So flushing the cold water out of your kitchen water lines AND adding pre-wash detergent (such as some extra powder right in the door, outside of the main closable detergent compartment) helps a ton with this initial 10ish minute cycle.
Yup, and that’s why some dishwashers include PreWash text somewhere on the side of the door. Sometimes it’s even on that little flap where you put the pod
Crazy. Mine only takes in cold water. Never even knew ones that take in hot water existed.
You’ll be surprised to hear that U.S washing machines have the same setup, and this is why they talk about “wash cold” or “wash hot” instead of having specific temperatures on their washing programs like 30 C, 40 C, 60 C etc.
How do you do a 90°C wash? Surely the tap water doesn’t get that hot.
The washing machine heats the water, many go up to 95°C
I wouldn’t know unfortunately, I’m in Europe.
As a European that carefully checks the temperature levels indicated on the clothing before washing, I feel like I did it wrong - or at least overly complicated - my whole life now 😅
It’s because the US electrical system sucks and they refused to upgrade it, although reasonably speaking it would be kind of impossible at this point. In order to be able to actually run a heating element you would have to have a special circuit fitted with a decent voltage.
Also why US homes tend to have the immersion heater setup for hot water with a big tank that gets heated over time, compared to the common euro system of on-demand instantaneous hot water.
I gotta love how the US is really advanced for the most part but then occasionally you come across one area in which it operates like 1980s Estonia.
The newest construction near me puts tankless in townhomes and full-size in single-family homes. (as long as gas is available)
They’re super efficient when you don’t use tons of hot water because your waste on tank heaters is heat loss through the pipes and heater itself.
The water heaters are usually gas here though, so electric system doesn’t really matter. Tankless heaters have become a lot more common over past decade or two, both gas and electric. For electric ones you just use a 240V circuit. Most electric appliances that need a lot of power run on 240V here, 30A and even 50A or 60A circuits are common and provide enough power for household needs.
Ah that makes sense. Cheers.
I was so sure the answer was going to be no. TIL