Does washing your dishes in a washing machine use less water than washing your dishes by hand???

Question

Does washing your dishes in a washing machine use less water than washing your dishes by hand???

Answer 1

I am so glad you asked this question , I have had so many people say that using a dish washer fully loaded uses less water than washing them by hand in the sink , ok so like 4 or 5 months ago me and my husband got a dishwasher , and I was so happy to have it and it does work wonderfully  now  3 dasy before we got the dishwasher we got our water bill and as it had been for 3 yrs it was $48 dollars , since we only get a water bill every other month i was constantly wandering if what all i had heard was true , so then the water bill comes it  was $57 dollars  which was 9 more than the one right before we got the dishwasher , so then i started washing by hand and using the dish washer , but in the mean time we did find that we had a small water leak under our house and we got that fixed , ok so we figured that was why it was so high , so then all i was using was the dish washer to wash and here comes the last water bill and it was $72 dollars , in the 3 years i have lived here i have never ever had a water bill that high  not even when i had a huge water leak that messed up my floors , So now i have seen for my self that the dishwasher does use more water than hand washing , but all dish washer are different in how much water they do use and electricity also my light bill went up 39 dollars also , So when we have a cook out or friends over i use the dish washer , or when my husband cooks  because he makes a huge mess......But as i said and I ma sorry to go on and on but my dish washer uses more water than when i hand wash and i do use alot of water when i hand wash  from rinsing ...  

Answer 2

Craze:  The dishwasher uses about 14 gal of water on normal wash.  I would guess it takes about 10 gal to wash by hand.  The only advantage with the dish washer, is they sanitize when washing.  

Answer 3

i would have to say that goes by what your method of washing dishes in the sink is. For me i used to just get a soapy rag and let the water run.....scrub each plate and rinse under the running water...well i easily found out big no no!!! Wastes lots of water!!! So now i just fill up one side of the sink with hot soapy water and the other side with cold clean water scub each dish and transfer it to the cool water. I think that it probably saves water....i will have to check out the statistics. I guess in a way this is the same as the bath vs. shower deal.....does taking a shower use more water than taking a bath, that really depends on how long the shower is depending on the amount of water you would use....sorry i got off subject a bit. But i don't really have a choice we  live in a very very very old home like 100 years plus...not sure of exact age, and a dishwasher was never installed as well as a shower.  

Answer 4

PLEASE Do not wash your dishes in a WASHING MACHINE-washing machines are for clothes and DISHWASHERS are for dishes

Now we have this straightened out-  Absolutely- Also your dishes come out hygienically clean- people have a wrong perception that handwashing saves water its been proved it does not save water

Answer 5

Yes - provided you make sure that the dishwasher is fully loaded each time before you switch on.  Also on Tip No. 10 on the site below, there is good information about using dishwasher tablets.

I use this tip and it does work.  Saves money as well.

Answer 6

I think it does. If you wash by hand and rinse under hot running water which you should you will use more. If you wash by hand and rinse in the other side of the sink that has been filled with water some of those dished aren't going to get rinsed at all as the soap comes off.