Live data from Hacker News

I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]

youtube.com

311–320 of 504 posts

Re: I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]

#311
post #130

I love that there are people who will go into this much detail on stuff. It's really cool that they do. But the whole thing is that if you follow some sequence of steps, powder will clean as well as or better than pods for a third the cost. All right, this isn't a significant portion of my expenses so I'll pay the 3x cost since my dishes come out clean anyway. I wish the description of the video was like an abstract.

My kids would routinely put in too much powder, which would gunk up the dispensing mechanism, requiring my time and effort to clean it out and fix it. Eventually the dispenser broke entirely and had to be replaced. We since switched to pods and haven't had any problems with the dispenser. The pods are worth every extra cent.

Yep.

I (as is common for many middle-class South Africans) have a domestic worker who cleans the house, and in general you just have to accept that domestic workers will tend to use quite a bit more cleaning products than is necessary. At least with tablets, they will always use a set amount.

It's not their money that they're needlessly wasting and the thing not being clean is a more immediately noticeable problem with their work than you finding you're spending a lot more than usual on cleaning products.

It also wouldn't work to try give them a budget on cleaning products as then you're encouraging them to skimp on using enough so they get more money in their pocket.

Although our domestic worker is a lovely person who I help out as much as I can, at the end of the day she has limited skills and education, so can't demand very much of a salary, hence why she and many others in her position is a domestic worker.

When you're the one who does all the cleaning yourself and pay for the products you use, you'll try find the amount to use that definitely gets the job done, but isn't needlessly wasteful.

I also like the convenience of the tablets, you don't have to think about the amount or possibly making a mess or pouring too much powder in, etc.

Re: I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]

#312
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, in Poland two "premium"-ish brands stopped selling powder in favor of tablets, and the cheaper brand is often missing from shelves, I need to order it in delivery separately. Situation is funny, since salt and rinse liquid are still widely available along with supposedly 3-in-1 tablets :) . I guess they are not so 3-in-1 as the ads say. But I will continue buying powder for as long as it will be manufactured. I…

Tablets are fine. You can still break them and use half of it in the prewash dispenser. Pods are a different story.

Tables are much more expensive, and their quality varies afaik. And out of the 5 different dishwashers I've used, none had a pre-wash dispenser, only one single dispenser. But it doesn't really matter, powder cleans up everything perfectly, on any program and without additional powder in the main area of the machince. The only time when dishes were dirty after the wash was when the impeller had some gunk mechanically blocking the holes for the water. So, I see no reason to buy overpriced detergents.

Re: I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]

#313

Referring to yourself in a title twice strikes me as mildly narcissistic and otherwise it's obvious click bait. Doesn't put me in a mood to watch the video. But judging from just the title this person seems to have figured out a few obvious things that are probably well known and entirely unsurprising for people that know anything about the virtues of soda in household applications. That's not exactly a well kept sec…

Technology Connections is not a narcissist or arrogant. He's just a big geek about devices, and a bit of a comedian. Don't take it so seriously.

Re: I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]

#314

Having the cleanest dishes is not always the optimization one is looking for. I like pods because there is less of a chance my clumsy self, or younger kids can accidentally spill costly soap for my dog to try to lick up or overfill the dispenser. My dishes are almost never caked in fats and oils when I put them in. I do not use a pre-wash. If I do I break a pod in half and toss in the bottom. This guy makes me roll m…

> chance

There's always chances with everything in life.

Perhaps teach/practice with your kids to be less clumsy - that will pay a lot more dividends than just using pods.

Re: I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]

#315
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there list of machines that designed for two stage releases?

All of them

Out of 5 machines I've used at different apartments, none had a separate pre-wash dispenser. And I've saved manual for my current one, it says nothing about adding detergent additionally to the dishes. And all of them washed just fine with powder, without any additional mumbo-jumbo.

Re: I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]

#316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same issue, if you have a higher voltage then you can get more power without increasing current. For example in Australia a standard house circuit is 10 Amps, but because it's at 240V we can get 2400 Watts (realistically more like 2300) out of a _standard_ wall outlet that is in every room of your house.

It's not the same issue. The vast majority of kitchens in the US have 20 amp circuits (so 2,400 watts peak, 1,920 watts continuous) exclusively. It's a bog standard receptacle (NEMA 5-20R instead of 5-15R) that's backwards compatible with 15 amp plugs. In fact these days most 5-15R receptacles have identical guts to their 20 amp counterparts save for the additional provision for a horizontal blade. The electrical cod…

[deleted]

Re: I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]

#317

I went to my Costco right before they banned phosphates in the dishwashing detergent and got a pallet of Cascade with 5% phosphates. People looked at me like I was was crazy. I'm still going through my pallet 15 years later and my dishes are always clean :-) I just throw a bit of the detergent in the tub for prewash rather than put it in the cup, as it will leak out anyway. One thing you could probably do for the pho…

So we have you to blame for coral reefs dying

Coral reefs are dying because of the water temperature increase coupled with increased acidity. And that happens not because someone uses a dishwasher detergent, they are likely not even in the same hemisphere. But because none of the governments are implementing any working green tech at scale, so the emissions are only ever increasing and the rates of increase is accelerating. Paper straws and bad detergent won't help when new coal and gas plants are constructed daily.

Re: I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My kids would routinely put in too much powder, which would gunk up the dispensing mechanism, requiring my time and effort to clean it out and fix it. Eventually the dispenser broke entirely and had to be replaced. We since switched to pods and haven't had any problems with the dispenser. The pods are worth every extra cent.

I just want a dishwasher and washing machine that I can load with gallons of soap once a month or whatever, and let it do the detail work for me. I know they exist in the commercial realm, but I'm not 100% certain the wife is ready for a Hobart machine in the kitchen ...

I am already putting items into the dishwasher, so the marginal effort for me to add the dishwasher tab is very low.

Re: I was right about dishwasher pods and now I can prove it [video]

#320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Miele has home dishwashers that do this now. But like all things consumer, it's a proprietary system that's designed to keep you locked into a subscription relationship with the company.

PowerDisk? As long as you load salt and rinse aid, it works like a charm. As you said, if you want to save a bit of money, you can 3D print a replacement. But they last long enough that I don’t mind the cost.

What do salt and rinse aid have to do with it? Those have been things you load into a reservoir when prompted for years. And for those of us who live in HN’s homeland where the water is very soft, you may get better results by not loading rinse aid (there’s some moderately compelling evidence that rinse aid is rather toxic to digestive tracts, and it doesn’t even have much rinsing benefit if you’re rinsing with soft-enough and low-enough-TDS water), and the salt is also unnecessary with soft water. You do need to poke at the dishwasher settings to make it happy without rinse aid and salt, but this is well documented in the manual.
Post reply on HN