100+ Ways to Improve Your Electric Bill: Dish Washing

Welcome to the eighth portion of the series: 100+ Ways to Improve your Electric Bill.  Many of these are low cost and no cost tips, and easy to implement.

So far in the series, we have covered:

• Air Infiltration
• Heating and Cooling (Part 1 and Part 2).
• Refrigeration
• Cooking
• Water Heating
• Lighting
• Laundry

Who knew there might be significant, and easy, energy savings around washing dishes.  As you will see in the next few tips, the energy savings can add up:

• Soak or pre-wash only in the cases of burned-on or dried-on foods.
• Be sure that the dishwasher is full, but not overloaded.
• Don’t use the “rinse hold” feature on your dishwasher when you only have a few soiled dishes.
• Overall, dishwashers use less water than washing dishes by hand. For a full load of dishes in the dishwasher, washing the same dishes by hand would typically use at least 6 more gallons of hot water.
• Look for dishwashers with internal booster heaters, so that you can set your water heater thermostat at 120° F (rather than 140° F or higher for dishwashing purposes). Most new dishwashers have this feature.
• Look for the ENERGY STAR® label when purchasing a new dishwasher. New criteria went into effect on January 1, 2007, which made ENERGY STAR® units more than 35 percent more efficient than baseline units.
• Many dishwashers have an option for “air drying” or “heated drying.” The “air drying” setting will use less energy.
• New federal efficiency standards for standard-size and compact dishwashers took effect on January 1, 2010. For standard-size units, the efficiency standards are a maximum of 6.5 gallons of water used per cycle and a maximum usage of 355 kilowatt-hours per year.

Thanks to our friends at the Edison Electric Institute for providing the list of 100+ Ways to Improve your Electric Bill.