Today, I washed my hands at the kitchen sink while making lunch, and was unexpectedly chastised by my partner because she had just started the dishwasher. Apparently, she has recently come across something that has convinced her that running the hot water in your sink means the water that enters your dishwasher will be hotter (checks out), and thus the dishes will be cleaner. I tried searching startpage to see if this is real, but I couldn’t make it through even one llm-slop-ticle about it before my eyes rolled back into my head, so here I am asking y’all: chat, is this real? Doesn’t my dishwasher have a heating element? Is there any meaningful difference between heating the water with a hot water heater vs a dishwasher, other than I can’t use my sink while the dishwasher is filling and I have to pour a bunch of cool water down the drain?
Many modern dishwashers only have a cold water inlet so it literally does not get water from the hot water tank.
120V really doesn’t matter that much as they are commonly on their own 20A breaker. At 1500W of power it can heat 1.5L of water from 60F to 168F in 1 minute.
Where are you getting your information? Can you find an example of a dishwasher where the installation manual says to use cold water?
And the claim that 120v doesn’t matter is baseless.
Lol no it can’t, are you nuts? That’s physically impossible and mathematically incorrect by a factor of more than 4.
My information is based on installing 3 dishwashers in the US that all said to either connect to cold water or give an option for cold water or hot water
Voltage doesn’t matter for heating what matters is overall power. 1500W at 120V and 1500W at 450V both heat at the same rate. The advantage of higher voltage home systems is they usually allow higher power since current is generally the limiting factor but they make higher current breakers for 120V
I was off on my conversions and did calories instead of joules. Either way it takes 4 minutes to get from 60 to 160 which is still trivial on a multi hour cycle
Here is one that allows either connection but emphasizes increased efficiency with hooking up to cold water. I admitted I was wrong on my conversions will you admit you are wrong that they have to hook up to hot water?
https://us.mieleusa.com/MieleMedia/docs/operatinginstructions/Old-Archive/Residential/Dishwashers/English_manuals/Installation_Instructions/Full_Size_install.pdf
"For fastest possible wash times, with slightly higher energy consumption, connect the dishwasher to a hot water source. Hot water supply specifications: Recommended temperature: 120 °F (49 °C), max 140.
So weird. You want to be right? Okay, you’re right, you don’t have to hookup to a hot water, it’s recommended and commonly done… I don’t think I claimed you have to… The reason it’s recommended to hook to hot water is because it’s slower at 120v. They all allow you to do whatever the hell you want, but American tap water (which doesn’t sit in a rooftop tank that gets warm as it sits around, but that doesn’t apply much in the northern hemisphere) is typically not ideal.
You want your dishwasher to take longer? hook it up to cold water and save some electricity, you do you.
Why would I use 1500W at 240V? My dishwasher has a 2100W heating element, which heats 40% faster, that’s not negligible. You can get higher wattage models.
You installed 3 dishwashers? That doesn’t make you an expert on international dishwashers, it just makes you a homeowner. Jesus, you don’t have to just argue for the sake of arguing, just say “I learned something dumb today” and move on with your life.
You said “Many modern dishwashers only have a cold water inlet so it literally does not get water from the hot water tank” and then provided an example that says what I said, if you want a faster wash use hot water.
The reason most of the world uses the cold tap for dishwasher hookup is because they use a higher wattage heating element, which they can operate safely because they use 220V power. I didn’t come up with the 1500W limit, you did, don’t move the goal posts.