This dishwasher mistake is seriously easy to make and it’s something a lot of people do regularly – but it may well be costing you a fortune without you even realising
There are a few daily tasks that we do so often it is easy to go into autopilot mode when tackling them. From wiping down the hob to doing the laundry, you might find yourself completing these cleaning tasks and ticking them off your to-do list without even thinking about it – but this might actually lead to some costly habits that you will likely want to nip in the bud.
Keeping down our energy bills is a common concern up and down the country, with rising energy costs and the cost of living crisis raging on, most of us are working to a pretty tight budget at the moment. Whilst busy parents and slammed professionals across the UK know that their dishwashers are crucial appliances that can save us precious time on a daily basis, this seriously easy mistake when it comes to loading them might well be costing you a fortune – and a lot of us are guilty of this one.
Cleaning expert Katie Mottram – from Good Housekeeping – recently appeared on ITV’s This Morning, where she warned about the costs you might be incurring regularly with this common dishwasher mistake. She explained to hosts Cat Deeley and Ben Shepherd that the conventional wisdom that you should always rinse your plates before popping them in your dishwasher isn’t really accurate, and by running your tap and the appliance, you’re potentially increasing the cost of your water bill significantly.
Deeley asked the cleaning expert, “This is an age-long debate, do we rinse the plates off before we put them in the dishwasher, or do we just scrape them off and put them straight in?” “The latter,” the expert replied. “You never want to rinse. Rinsing is basically a waste of water, time, and money.” Mottram added, “Dishwashers are advanced enough now that they’ll basically remove all greasy residue or sauces in a single cycle anyway.”
Mottram also demonstrated how to properly load your dishwasher to maximise the appliance’s cleaning power, advising that pans and pots should never be popped on the top shelf, and instead laced face down on the bottom shelf nearer to the heating element. Settling another dishwasher debate, the cleaning expert explained that when it comes to cutlery, if you have a third top shelf designated for it, that is the best place for your knives, forks, and spoons, but if you rely on a cutlery basket, make sure that you pop the items in with the handles at the bottom, and the part you eat from facing up.
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