Lower your dishwasher energy consumption
If you are aghast at your energy bills and use a dishwasher, here are a few tips to get the bills lower.
-Search out for the appliances manual and see if you can find the temperature the water should be set at…not to hot, not too cold. If your dishwasher had a heating element for water and for drying, go to your water heater and reduce the temperature to 120 degrees F or lower and let the machine itself heat the water.
-I know manufacturers claim you don’t need to scrape the dirty dishes before washing, but if you do, you’ll eliminate chunks of food clogging the drain and leaving the water cloudy. No need to use the soak or prewash cycles unless the food has become hard core.
-Reduce the number of washes by only running the dishwasher when it’s full. But if you overload, know that dishes may be only half washed and you’ll spend even more energy by having to run it through its cycles again.
-Air dry your clean dishes. If you don’t have the option to turn this off, just leave the door open a tad during the drying cycle and it will help the dishes dry faster.