The dishwasher has been touted as a time-saving device for many years now. The convenience of placing your dirty dishes in the dishwasher and being able to walk away from them is said to save you from spending hours doing the work by hand.

However, there are many reasons why the dishwasher might not be worth the trouble.

In this article, I will list five reasons why you might want to reconsider your decision to use the dishwasher.

The frequency of cleaning. It is often stated that the best way to ensure that the dishes clean themselves is to put them in the dishwasher and let the machine do all of the work for you. Let us examine this statement a little more closely. The next time you stand at your kitchen sink and carefully wash each dish by hand, look at it under a magnifying glass as you dry it.

What do you notice? First, there is the show-and-shine effect that is achieved when you use the right amount of water and oil on a sponge. Next, is the pattern of crud and food which most certainly adheres to the dish. Lastly, there are those tiny granules of food which may remain stuck between your dish’s ridges and can be hard to wash away.

When you start trying to pick up these particles and clean them with your hands, all that work catches up with you after about five minutes. As any good cook or baker will tell you, the first step in being successful is to start with clean dishes. If you are using the dishwasher as your primary cleaning method, then you really aren’t getting them clean to begin with.

Cleaning costs are higher when they are done by hand. As a result of steps one and two above, you will find that the amount of soap you need to use in order to get your dish clean will be substantially more than what is required if you washed it by hand from the beginning.

However, if you were to take into account the fact that you are spending money on soap, electricity and water over the long run; the dishwasher might be the lesser of two evils. Most people take for granted how much water is required in order to clean by hand. These same individuals do not consider that they are throwing their money away.

Size matters. The next question that should be asked is this:

Are you sure that your dishwasher is large enough? Let us say that it is and we will move forward with this claim.

How many dishes do you have going in there?

For some people, this number is a mere handful. Others have upwards of fifteen or even twenty dishes. You might be surprised to find that there simply is not enough room in your dishwasher for all the plates, bowls and other serving dishes that you use on a regular basis.

The quality of the result. The dishwasher may have been designed to clean your dishes but perhaps not. It is a fact that the rinse cycle is designed to save you time and get your dishes clean the first time.

However, it only accomplishes this by using lots of water and a fast-spinning jet mechanism which literally washes the dirt off your dishes.

Therefore, it does not allow them to soak and get hot so that the food can be scraped away by hand before it gets washed away in the fast-moving water.

The dishwasher takes up valuable space in the kitchen and you may have other uses for that space. In order to use the dishwasher, you have to store it either in a dedicated cabinet or elsewhere in your kitchen. If you are like most people, then you are probably not using that cabinet or space for anything else.

Therefore, if this is the case then your dishwasher is taking away from the utility of your cabinet or other space and becoming redundant.

In addition, you should consider the perspective that if you need other types of equipment or tools in your kitchen then a dishwasher could be taking up even more valuable real estate. For most people, this translates into the possibility of not being able to use a space for something more important to them.

It is my hope that I have been able to provide you with food for thought as it pertains to the subject of whether or not you should be using your dishwasher.