Energy Use When Washing Dishes

IMO it's the hot water heater that is sucking up the energy. You can turn down the temperature on the heater that should help. Most water heaters are on and heating up (or maintaining the temperature) water ALL day.

Scrap the food off, rinse (unless you are going to wash right then), wet everything down with the sprayer and then wash turn the water on for rinsing. I think you may use less water with the tap running then filling the other sink for rinsing but I am not sure.

Added*** you could always buy paper plates and just throw them away but the cost would be about the same.

Rinse everything off as you put them in the sink. That way you don't have to soak. Then just a soapy rag, clean them and then rinse them all at once.

If you are worried your water heater is using too much electricity then turn it down a notch. Much easier than trying to figure out how much hot water you use doing dishes.

The biggest waste of hot water is waiting for the water to reach the tap so make sure you do all your dishes at the same time.

We were without a dishwasher for about 3 months after ours died and were a little shocked to see how much our electric and water bills went up after we started hand-washing the dishes.

I would fill the sink up about 1/2 way with soapy water, fill it up with dishes that had been scraped clean and pile the washed dishes in the other side of the sink. When that side was filled with washed dishes, I would turn the water on low and rinse all the dishes then turn and put them in the open, non-functioning dishwasher since I didn't have a dish drainer. Then I'd do it all over again. After 4 sinks full of dishes had been washed I would drain the water and refill it. I couldn't stand putting my hand in with the bits of food either :(

Another thing you need to think about with the electric bill is what do you have on?

The little night light under my range hood microwave takes as much power to run as our 46" plasma does when it's on. So, if you leave the light on for any length of time you are using a ton of electricity.

Not to mention, if you have regular incandescent light bulbs that are being left on, those use a ton of power as well.

After we switched all our bulbs (even the 9 in our 2-story entry light) to CFL our electric bill dropped quite a bit. Of course, it may also have something to do with the "energy hog" rule at our house. If anyone (mom, dad, kids and friends included!) leaves any lights, radios, self-powered speakers or the tv (or anything that uses electricity) on when they leave a room (unless they are coming right back) they have to oink, loudly, as many times as there are light bulbs lit or power being used.

My son thinks it's hilarious when my daughter has to oink 8 times because she left the bathroom light on...my daughter, not so much :)

My vote is paper plates. =)

The big waste is running the water the whole time you are washing dishes. I scrap the food off--and when my kids don't, I make them do it since I wash food before I cook it, not after they ate it. Then not a whole lot of food scraps in the sink. I wet the dishes to get a good soak going, then wash a couple of things, rinse them and wash some more. I tend to wash cups first, then plates and then silverware. Washing the cups first kind of helps in my opinion loosen any stuck food a bit more since I am rinsing over the food. Pots and pans are last, mainly because they are the biggest.

I don't know anyone who doesn't rinse their dishes before putting them is the soapy water to soak until they are washed. You mean you just put your dishes in the water with food still on them????? How disgusting....

I think you need to move the drainer to the counter top and keep the side that has a disposal, if you have one, open for food debris to be rinsed off before washing. Then while the dishes are sitting in the hot soapy water you scour out the other sink so it is sanitary for the clean dishes to go in for rinsing. You turn the water off while washing and then when the rinse sink is full you turn the water on and rinse all those dishes off. Putting the rinsed dishes onto the drainer.

Another way of doing it is like child care. You get everything ready but rinsing the dishes off first, put the dishes in the hot soapy water, scour out the extra sink, rinse it very well, use the stopper and fill it with medium temp or cool water. Add 1 Tablespoon of bleach to the rinse water to sanitize the dishes. Then as you wash you put the clean dishes in the rinse water. It helps if you don't use a ton of dishsoap in the wash water. The rinsed dishes are sanitized and if you let them air dry they are the cleanest they will ever be.

If you are drying your dishes you are not allowing them to stay clean. It is very unsanitary to dry dishes. It is not allowed in child care. The rag gets your skin oils, your dead skin cells, allergens from the air, etc...they are really not very clean.

I would also like to say, doing dishes any differently than how you are currently doing them is not going to make any difference in your water bill.

If your water bill is so exceedingly high I would call the company and ask them what the rates are for water. You may have to pay a base rate not matter how much you use. One of my friends can fill a pool every day, take multiple showers every day, she pays $30 per month for all her water, if she drinks one glass of water per day she still pays $30 per month. We pay a basic rate and then a usage amount for anything over XX units of water. So if we use excess we get charged for it.

SO when calling the company ask them if they can tell you the basic average usage on your current address for the past couple of years. Then you can see if your usage is less, more, the same, excessive, etc...than all the other people that have lived there in the past while.