We do this too...it save on sanity and I don;t have to look at dishes all day until the baby is alseep to unload it (bc she climbs in)

I hand wash my good knives and wooden boards, everthing else (pots inclyuded are fair game) If a few things don't fit after dinner, I usually hand wash those then, and put them away.

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Dottie

Mom to Michael 6, Matthew 4, Katherine 2, Ellen 1, and new baby EDD 10/29/08

We just bought a new dishwasher and I love it...it has a lot of energy efficient savings but I prefer it over handwashing any day. I think the dishes get cleaner. I don't fill up a dishpan with soapy water and wash my dishes that way, I wash each item individually with hot water, a sponge and soap. If I did all my dishes, I would probably use more water than the dishwasher! LOL!

I use the electrasol tabs...I don't use any rinse aid. I don't use the drying option, I just crack it open and everything dries pretty quickly.

I don't put pots/pans in my dishwasher and I would never put my fine china, crystal or silver in it either! Yikes! No way!

Why not pots and pans? Just curious.

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Actually, even the most energy efficient dishwashers use between 6-12 gallons of water. Your standard two sided sink holds 11 gallons of water in each side. So, depending on how full you fill your sink, or if you empty it and fill it again, or if you use the other side to rinse the dishes, you could very well be using at least 11 gallons of water. 11 gallons is pretty efficient, considering the latest and greatest clothes washing machines use a little less than 11, and you use those more than once in a day of washing clothes.

I'd rather do them by hand. Some of my pots/pans have gotten discolored by the detergent for the dishwasher when they were run thru by a babysitter/housesitter that didn't know that I didn't put them in there. It's just my preference.

Gosh I'm stubborn!

I just performed my own version of 'Myth Busters'. First of all, I measured how many gallons my sink holds. It only holds 4 gallons on each side (maybe my two-sided sink is below average ). When I wash dishes, I only fill up one side of my sink with approximately 2.5 gallons (we'll round it up to 3 for argument's sake). On the second side of my sink, I use maybe 1 - 1.5 gallons of water to rinse my dishes. To wash an entire day's worth of dishes, I'm only using between 4.5 - 5 gallons of water vs. my dishwasher that would use 11.5 gallons. I'm saving approximately 6.5 gallons of water per day handwashing my dishes.

Of course, keep in mind that there are only 3 of us in our family and I only cook one meal per day. For larger families, a dishwasher would probably be more efficient. For my family, handwashing is the best way to go.

haha, I like your style! I would do the same!! And I love mythbusters, so I'm proud you did the experiment for yourself. Maybe your sink is small, or maybe the "standard" isn't so standard afterall, who knows? BUT, in your case, YES you are more efficient than your dishwasher. I would be too, since it's just DH and I, but since it takes a few days to fill our dishwasher, and we only run it when it's full, who knows which would be b etter for us. I'm all about convenience though, and HATE washing dishes, so I'll stick to the DW for now. BUT, way to go starlite, you are my kind of gal!

Even though I do it, I HATE it too! I wish they'd invent a dishwasher as efficient as me!