When I first moved to the U.S. back in the mid-80s, I was impressed by how well things worked. I mean, you have to understand that all around the world — such as in Third World countries like Zimbabwe, India and Italy — things often just do not work as one would expect them to. Whether it’s because they are badly made, or badly assembled, or just operated by fucking idiots (try doing a relatively simple thing like booking a flight out of Rome’s Leonardo Da Vinci airport — which isn’t even in Rome but miles and miles out on the coast, a story for another time) and you’ll soon see that not much works as originally intended.
I am also familiar with concepts such as planned obsolescence, where corporations deliberately design products that will eventually fail or fall to pieces so that you will be forced into buying a new one as a replacement.
But there’s another factor in stuff not working, and this is the one which really, really sets my teeth on edge, and it’s embodied by an appliance which is common in households all over the U.S.: the dish washing machine, or dishwasher.
When I first came over, I fell in live with the dishwasher, because I had never owned one. Most families in South Africa didn’t, either because they had Black servants to hand wash the dishes, or they were too poor to afford such expensive (and they were expensive) machines.
But these GE/Frigidaire/Whirlpool dishwashers? Oh man, there were great. You piled your dishes in, coated with caked-on gravy or food particles or whatever, added a little detergent, and switched the thing on. All sorts of magic would happen behind the closed door, and when the thing stopped running, you waited about ten minutes and then opened the door, and there were your dishes: clean, dry and warm (maybe even still hot) to the touch.
And that was it.
Sadly, that is no longer the case.
Now, you have to pretty much hand wash the dishes first, or at least rinse them into near-cleanliness before loading them into the dishwasher, then do the same stuff as above and then, when the buzzer sounds or a light goes on, you open the door to find that your dishes are not completely clean, still wet or at best damp, and in fact, many times you will have to rinse them off and do the whole fucking thing all over again — with no guarantee that the outcome will be any different.
And why is this?
Because the dirty fingers of government have been stuck into the operation. Thanks to an excess of Green zealotry, dishwashers can’t use as much water as they used to so the spray can’t be as fierce (and effective), and the heating element has been turned from its furnace-like operation into something that wouldn’t keep you warm on a cool autumn day if you gripped it in your fist.
Our dishwashers, in short, have been turned from appliances that once worked perfectly at their intended function into flabby little things that are the equivalent of convict labor: surly, unproductive and unreliable.
There’s no point in complaining about this because Green Worship has become so ingrained in our culture that anyone daring to rail against the Great God EnergySmart (blessings be upon its name) might well face severe sanction and even penalties.
Such as happened to my friend Patterson when he rewired his 2015-model dishwasher to 1980 specs and made it work properly. Me, I’m too stupid to do something like that, and too old to want to kick against the pricks in that manner.
So my private little rebellion against this nonsense is that I just wash my dishes again and again until they are as clean as I want them to be. (I do the same with my low-flow-low-use low-efficiency toilet, which requires two and sometimes three flushes to take care of the old #2 bowel movement discharge, and has been know to rise to five, after a particularly stupendous roast beef dinner.)
Or I power-rinse my dishes with steaming-hot water before loading them, using twice as much electricity (via the water heater) as I would have used to run the dishwasher if it was working properly.
End result: I use twice or three times as much water and much more electricity to wash my dishes as I would have in 1986.
And all this just so I can have clean dishes to put away in the cupboard. Or else I do my part for the environment by using paper plates which don’t need washing and just end up in the landfill.
I know this sounds like a really pointless and futile gesture, doesn’t it? But it’s far less ummm radical than, say, were I to assassinate the CEO of Whirlpool or the politicians responsible for turning once-efficient U.S. products into pathetic Third World failures.
Isn’t it?
All those nice working dishwashers of the past that used to be made in the Midwest by skilled Union workers are now made in some 3rd world factory by semi trained low paid workers, using thinner and cheaper materials. With the expected result.
Last time we bought some appliances we spent the extra money and went with all Miele brand ( German Made ) units. The dishwasher does NOT need to be prewashed, just scraped. The modern detergents that come those premeasured “Pods” work better when there is material for the detergent to grab onto.
The only possible downside is that the wash cycle takes 3 hours to do it’s thing so I always turn it on last thing at night before bed. And also it does NOT use as separate internal electric water heater just the regular Hot water and better insulation to maintain the heat.
Perfectly washed dishes every time and no problems for the 10 + years of operation so far.
Common sense would dictate that if you are going to use less water (as mandated by the greenies), then it has to remain HOT during the the loong wash cycle to get things done. As noted, modern dishwashers don’t have heating elements (again a energy greenie thing). So, even though the dishwasher is hooked up to the hot water line, if that water has been in the line for any period of time, its not going to be hot, and the reduced flow dishwasher won’t pull enough water for the hot stuff to get to the dishwater. If you open the dishwasher in the middle of the wash cycle and feel the water, that is what the poor thing is using to wash the dishes.
A plumber we had do the technical stuff when we redid our kitchen had a very good suggestion for a fix. Before starting the dishwasher, perhaps while you are loading it, turn on the hot water in the sink attached to the washer. When it is hot and steamy (i.e. all the lukewarm water in the line is “wasted” down the drain), then start the dishwasher. Bada-bing, clean dishes no pre-washing needed. That is, except to get rid of the bigger bits of food that will eventually clog up your pipes.
A parallel suggestion from him was to never ever put any kind of grease or oil down the drain. Use as many paper towels as necessary (gasp! mother earth is screaming!) to wipe that shit down. It’s cheaper than having him come out the snake your lines. Ask me how I know, lol.
A good man.. no I’m not giving you his name, and you wouldn’t be able to book him anyway cause he always is busy. He also gets paid appropriately and I don’t begrudge him that.. a good old plumber is worth every penny.
manvacamp2000:
Our kitchen sink and dishwasher are on the opposite end of the house from all of the plumbing connections. The potable water inlet, sanitary drain, and water heater are all ‘way over there, while our kitchen water supply and drain lines run the width of the house from literally one end to the other.
So if we haven’t used the sink for a while, the “hot” water coming out of the tap stays at room temperature for several minutes until enough has run to both clear the line of the cold water, and to heat up the pipes to where they’re not cooling the hot water any more. The few times we’ve ever run the dishwasher that came with the house we’ve always run the hot water until it’s really HOT before turning it on. It does help a little.
One other aspect of having such a long drain line is that the grey sludge that always builds up in a drain line doesn’t get flushed well because of so little slope in a 40-foot line that’s only got about 6″ of drop for its entire length. We do the paper towel thing as well, but you can’t get a plate completely free of grease or fat without hot water and soap. What I do every morning after washing the dishes (by hand) is to put in the drain plug and half-fill the sink with hot water, then pull the plug. And on the first Monday of every month (that’s how I remember to do it) I boil up a pot of water and have that ready to add to that morning’s hot water going down the drain. That really helps to keep that long drain line clear.
Even when we’ve had people over for dinner, we just scrape, wipe (paper towel) and stack the dishes for the morning. That dishwasher doesn’t live up to its name, so I do them by hand. The best use we’ve found for that waste of cabinet space is to open the door, pull out the racks, and use them for air-drying the dishes, glasses and silverware, reserving the rack on the countertop for pots and pans. As a drying rack, that “dishwasher” works great.
> Before starting the dishwasher, perhaps while you are loading it, turn on the hot water in the sink attached to the washer.
I learned of that trick from the “Technology Connections” YouTube channel. Since I’ve started doing that, my 10-year-old Whirlpool has done a much better job of cleaning the dishes.
Another couple of recommendations from the same source: use liquid detergent instead of those pods (the cheap store brands work just as well as the name brands, BTW), and make sure you fill both the “pre-wash” and “wash” cups in the detergent dispenser (something you can’t do with pods).
don’t leave out the fact that many soaps and detergents have been reformulated to remove phosphorous from them because it’s supposedly bad for the environment or something.
Correct! This happened back in the 90’s. There was a temporary rise in phosphate levels in the Snake river basin in Washington state. Local government banned the use of phosphates in Eastern Washington supposedly temporarily. State congress critter hears about it and decides that what is good for Washington is good for the country and starts a campaign in Washington DC to ban phosphates in dishwasher and laundry detergents. The Greenies latch onto this movement, get some bills passed, and suddenly all your dishes and clothes were not getting as clean as they used to. Rat Bastards!
There is a workaround. Go to your favorite hardware store paint section. Look for a small box labelled “TSP”. This is Tri Sodium Phosphate. A surface prep cleaner for painting. Add one teaspoon to a load of dishes or one to two tablespoons to a load of laundry.
Take chemicals out of chemicals but put more chemicals and genetically modified shit in our foods. That’s what the government allows.
100% correct, and this is indeed the solution to poorly-washed dishes. 1/2 teaspoon of TSP, some in the detergent bin, some just loose. Cleans perfectly every single time.
Kim,
Our Kenmore dishwasher is about 20 years old and cleans like a dream. We can pack that sum-bum FULL and everything comes out just fine. The clothes washer is a different matter entirely.
Bought the washer from Abt (you remember Abt in Glenview?) about 6 or 7 years ago … it has an “auto sensing” mode which dispenses water as if the fookin thing was using an eyedropper. We tried that mode a couple times .. clothes didn’t seem quite so clean, whites were not really white, and the cycle ran for what seemed like HOURS. Luckily the machine as a “deep water” mode, so we use that, be damned the Greenie Weenies.
The clothes dryer on the other hand is about 30 years old, is nice and simple, and is still going strong. Even on delicate mode, that simple machine gets clothes DRY in no time. A large batch of my business shirts? Twenty minutes and they are CRISP and ready to go. Pants – a bit longer but not too much. Denim? No damp blues in our house. If we ever have to replace the washer and/or dryer I’ll only buy one brand – Speed Queen. They’re spendy, but they perform.
– Brad
IJD:
I agree with you about the Speed Queen washers and dryers. My wife almost cried when we moved and left behind a 2-year-old Speed Queen washer. In our new house the dryer died after the first or second year, and we replaced that with a Speed Queen. Had to drive a little over 100 miles to get to a local dealer (we’re in NW Wyoming); yet another reason to have a pickup truck.
One other thing I’ll say, even with the Speed Queen line. ALWAYS buy the model with the low-tech electro-mechanical (clock-type) timer, whether it’s a washer or dryer. The electronic versions, particularly those with the horrific “touch-pads” fail at a rate over 100 times sooner than the old-fashioned ones, and when they die you almost always have to replace the panel and motherboard for hundreds of dollars. It’s sometimes so expensive that they’re not worth fixing. Replacing an electro-mechanical one is usually pretty simple and cheap; I’ve done it on our current washing machine (even though it’s not a Speed Queen).
I remember when the heavy duty cycle was about 1:20 long, but probably used a lot more water. Now it runs for 3-4 hours and recirculates the same dirty water around the dishwasher. The “express wash” is still over 1:30 and a simple rinse cycle is 30 mins.
Mine cleans decently enough, but if I cannot load it and run it right away I do have to rinse them thoroughly.
Why use a dishwasher anyway, nowadays? Our ca-1985 Kenmore quit about three years ago (drain pump doesn’t) and I’ve handwashed since then. Since I’m the galley guy anyway (milady June is wheelchair-bound) it’s not like I’m being pulled away from saving a world that’s doomed anyway. And dishwashing, like much else in life, is simply a set of procedures that cry out for analysis and improvement.
.
Don’t forget that all the new stuff is now controlled by digital electronics – and once that stupid chinese circuit board shorts out, the entire appliance is done for. We had that happen to our electric stove and was told a new stove is cheaper than the replacement circuit board alone, not even counting labor to install it. If it wasn’t for my wife and her desire that everything in the kitchen and laundry room look new and match, I’d shop around for 30 year old appliances and repair them myself. I currently have two appliances that need replacement parts – they still kinda work so no hurry – but they are throwing error codes that’ll cost me $400 or more each. For appliances that originally cost ~$800 each.
Actually I’ve found that they’re pretty easy to fix because the electronics are plug and play. I’ve fixed our fridge, stove, and dishwasher in the past by simply ordering a new board for $120 and swapping it in my self. Couldn’t get a repairman out for less than that.
Appliance Part Pros lets you order all the parts you think you’ll need and send back what you don’t end up needing for a full refund.
I’ve done home repairs too, hell I’ve rebuilt car engines so appliances are easy. But for real, I checked and the circuit board was damn near the cost of a new oven. Don’t forget that covid pretty much fucked the chip market. Remember all those Ford trucks parked in giant lots, all put together but no circuit chip to run them. Right now the gas stove has one of the two ignitors burnt out and $300 is the cheapest I could find for a replacement – well, except for a fucking box of kitchen matches. Those are cheaper.
We have two mid-level Bosch dishwashers in our island. It was my wife’s “dying hill” spec for the kitchen build. They’re about 5 years old and clean like crazy. Having two lets you run it whenever you want and always have one available (wife cooks & stuff). Of course, you still have to load and unload…
But to your point, there is no better way to screw stuff up than to get the government involved.
🙁
So true
Got a new hot water heater around 2020. It started leaking not even a year later. Warranty is the tank only. Had to pay to have someone remove the first one that went bad and install the new one. Labor on me. Nice. Called the company and complained. They transferred me to their legal dept. Stay away from Bradford white. They suck. So far the new one hasn’t leaked. Fingers crossed.
Have a new oil tank. Roth. The best. Double wall.
My furnace is over 35 years old. Weil McLain. So far it is still kicking. Get it serviced every year. The person that comes to service it and someone else who put mini splits in for us both said – hopefully they will last a while longer as you can never predict when things will stop working but both said for certain the lifespan of a new modern furnace would be 12 to 15 years max with 10 to 12 being the average.
I hope my oldie keeps going for a long long time
Don’t even get me started on modern cars.
I’m in my 40s and I think most new stuff made is fucking junk
Warranties are overrated too. Usually many companies make getting something fixed or replaced under warranty so expensive or so much of a pain in the ass that it discourages people and they just buy new.
Oh and another shitty thing about Bradford White water heaters. When the oil company was out servicing my furnace is said hey can you put a new anode rod in my water heater? Sure they said. Should be not that expensive. Guess what? Some of Bradford white water heaters don’t have an anode rod. So instead of being able to maintain your heater and get more life out of it (anode rod is the sacrificial part ther will gather the minerals and rust so the tank walls done collect it – think of it like and oil filter on your vehicle in a way) – some new water heaters don’t have this.
Terrific. So you can’t maintain your shit.
Toyota vehicles while I like them and own one – this whole idea of a “sealed transmission”. Aka no dipstick. There is still a full plug and drain plug. But there is a specific process for measuring the fluid at a certain temp and you never get all the fluid out unless you use one of those flush machines (fuck that never use one of those)
Dealer says only change fluid if you tow. Otherwise fluid is lifetime. Anyone with a brain knows no oil lasts forever. What does the dealer charge to have some lackey do a flush? 450 bucks.
The private mechanic I go to – he does a drain and fill every year for me. Keeps the tranny fluid nice and clean. Cost? About 30 bucks in fluid and he does it while the oil change is going so barely any labor. And he used better fluid than the dealer. Valvoline Maxlife ATF. It’s good stuff. If your transmission is compatible (maxlife works in most anything that is not a CVT) try it. It’s cheaper than Oem fluid and it is synthetic.
Fuck dealers. Recently had a warranty job done. They didn’t want to fix it and denied there was a problem at first
I want my shit to last. Maintenance tips the scales in your favor for longevity.
Our six year old Adora dishwasher has all the vim and vigor of a pale and sickly youth. The heating coil ceased functioning, so I replaced it. Water was still not hot. I found a tiny reset switch on the bottom of the unit in the back, not mentioned on any of the paperwork provided with the dishwasher. That fixed it.
Now, it is dead in the water again. After trying all the reset tricks one can discover on YouTube, without success, I got out my multimeter and checked the circuit board. It seems OK, so I am attributing the problem to the User Interface. This green strip of circuitry lies beneath the buttons and costs about $10/inch. So I have fired off 100+ dollars for a new one. It is a bit of a gamble. If replacing this doesn’t work, I’m junking it.
Appliances made 30 years ago seem to be immortal. Modern dishwashers, washing machines and refrigerators are all too clever for their own good, made of cheap materials and unnecessarily complex electronics.
“Modern dishwashers, washing machines and refrigerators are all too clever for their own good, made of cheap materials and unnecessarily complex electronics.”
There’s an app or website for every thing. Fuck that. I work in IT but damn can’t anyone put their fucking phone down for 30 min and do wash or set something up with reliable manual levers and knobs any more?
This electronic shit is fucked up
I can guarantee you’ll never have dishwasher issues again by following this process, and assuming the machine is functioning as intended. Give it a shot next time and you’ll be very pleasantly surprised.
1) This one is obvious: Don’t overlap anything in the racks. If the water can’t fully sploosh on the thing it won’t clean the thing.
2) After adding the detergent pod to the lockable container, but before closing it, add about a 1/2 teaspoon of Tri-Sodium Phosphate. Put half of that in the detergent container, the rest just loose in the tub. TSP will fix most of the not-cleaning-properly problems, guaranteed. The rest will be fixed by the next step.
3) Add regular garden-variety powdered dishwasher detergent into the tub, of if your dishwasher has one, put it in the pre-wash cup. The super-cheap stuff from Wallyworld is just fine for this. Even without the TSP, having detergent in the pre-wash is why so many of the older dishwashers “did a better job.” Modern ones don’t have the pre-wash cup or nothing is said about its use. IT WORKS. Please trust me on this!
4) Run the hot water faucet (from which the dishwasher’s feedline is tapped) until the running water is as hot as it can get. THEN start the cycle.
5) I agree, the heated dry has been pussified by government, but honestly, once the drying cycle is complete just pop the door open about halfway, and walk away for about 20 minutes. To save energy, when we’re home we don’t even run the heated dry. We just open the door when it beeps and leave it. Everything will be cool-but-dry in a half hour.
6) If you don’t mind the extra electricity costs, you can set it to sterilize in the final rinse. It will boost the rinse temperature up to 180°.
As for the low-flush toilets, get yourself a Kohler Cimarron. It only uses 1.1 gal. per flush and it will take anything you can put into it without clogging. It has some other nice features, too, like seats that can be removed without tools for cleaning.
First I bet you I could clog any toilet. Second you might not clog the toilet but the Shit and TP sandwich might then clog the main pipe.
I recently installed a Toto UltraMax 2 toilet on a Monday. It’s said to be uncloggable, that you can flush a bucket of golf balls down it with no issues.
On that Wednesday my wife had managed to clog it. Admittedly, it clogs a lot less than the one it replaced, but it’s certianly not uncloggable.
And yeah, it often (though not every time) requires multiple flushes to get everything down too. To be fair, the last one did also.
Holy hell, this topic hits my G-spot of hatred.
Fridge went out this year, couldn’t get parts anymore so I was forced to buy a new one, at 3x the cost of the original. Said to thw salesman “I got 30 years out of the original, how about this?” And he literally laughed in my face. All appliances have about a 10 year lifespan now. Don’t like it fuck off.
Original furnace in my 70s era house. 40 years old at time of replacement. Replacement lasting about 15 years but showing signs of dying soon. Replacement cost 5x of the replacement.
It’s not just appliances. It seems like since the chinkvirus happened the level of half-assed-ness has gone from a 4 to a 9.
And yes a lot of it is due to Nixon’s greatest crime the EPA, may they burn in hell.
Going to make a long story short – my Whirlpool dishwasher started having problems last summer after several years of operation. Since I live in a remote area, my choices are to fix it myself or buy a new one and install it myself. So I watched a bunch of YouTube videos on that make/model and tore into it. The problem ended up being those dishwasher soap pods. As I took things apart I was finding this sludge everywhere in the water system. Turns out that the stuff that makes it into a pod (the stuff that keeps the soap contained within) wasn’t fully dissolving and had slowly worked into every bit of the water flow system and clogged things up. Spent a few hours slowly cleaning that crap out (the water re-use impeller/pump on the bottom was especially fun) of everything, then ran a few empty loads with recommended “cleaner” packets. Everything worked fine after that. We no longer use the pods, we use the soft gel stuff. Also switched from the 3-hour cleaning mode to the 90-min “max” mode (no drying cycle, but that’s fine) and boy that made a difference as well. I spent a few hours swearing and cleaning things but after that the machine worked fine. But avoid those pods, they suck. There are several YouTube videos on the topic.
I just ordered today and it is ready for pickup at my local Home Depot – Milwaukee M12 Fuel 2 drill set – 1/2 inch drill / driver and a 1/4 inch impact with 2 batteries (2.0 and 4.0 amps) and a charger and a bag. On sale for 180 total with tax (government extortion fee) 191.
I currently have Kobalt tools (Lowe’s brand). I detailed the seats in my car using the Kobalt 1/2 inch drill and it overheated and died. It’s under warranty for 6 more months and I am going to get it replaced but what a pain in the ass it was to get an RMA number. No hassle warranty my ass.
I’ll see how the Milwaukee stuff is. I read good thinks about M12 fuel so we’ll see if it holds up.
Ever since the Chi Com virus tons if shit not built the way it used to be.
For future reference – Ryobi, Milwaukee, and Rigid battery tools are all made in the same factory. This from the distributor I talked to in Home Depot a while back. The rep said that Ryobi is for the consumer, Milwaukee is an upgraded consumer/lower commercial, and the Rigid is their commercial line. The best part about Rigid is that they are warranted for life – and that includes the batteries. Tool breaks, battery stops charging; send it back they send you a new replacement. (For what the darn things cost they should have a lifetime warranty, heh.)
And my Ryobi (lithium)charger stopped working after 7 years.
No Ridgid is not higher quality than Milwaukee. I know Home Depot and some of the clowns that work there would love to have you believe that.
My question was more Milwaukee quality today vs pre scamdemic – just like Toyota today vs pre scamdemic. Toyota is still good but not where near the quality 6 to 10 years ago.
I just wonder Milwaukee quality today vs yesteryear
Also “same factory”. China has factories that build Apple computers and Lenovo computers and also other cheap brands of computers under one roof. There is no way in hell acer and other cheaper brands are even close in quality to Apple and Lenovo no matter what warrant is on the box.
The lifetime warranty? Not worth the paper it is printed on. The tool could be crap but the process to get the warranty could be very difficult or costly.
Kobalt – you have to have your receipt from 5 years ago (5 year warranty) and then call and get an rma number and then bring the tool to the store. Live an hour from the store? Too bad. And the store manager has the final say in whether to honor the warranty.
When I built my Arizona house back in 2008, appliances in the US were already cheaping out on materials and quality, and regulations on water use were kicking in. Since I was only 12 miles from the Mexican border, I was able to go into Nogales, Mexico and get the big honking toilets (the ones that could flush a manhole cover), a Speed Queen stacked washer/dryer, and a NOS Whirlpool Power Clean dishwasher. I was outside any company’s service area, so I paid out the ass for a Sub-Zero fridge. I don’t own the house anymore, but the appliances are all still going strong.
Yeah, my 33 y/o RCA Whirlpool refer is telling me it’s getting tired. It probably just needs to be recharged but of course you can’t get R22 any more (cause Dupont’s patent was running out so all the new stuff had to use their new gas – RG147(?) or some weird number – which by the way is much worse for the atmosphere and out-gases poisonous fumes at high temperatures.)