Dept. of Energy Going After Dishwashers With New ‘Efficiency Rules’
The standard for maximum per-cycle water consumption (gal/cycle) now is 5. Many newer dishwashers are 3.5. But the DoE wants to make it 3.3.
The Department of Energy quietly announced new dishwasher efficiency rules to save us money.
The standard for maximum per-cycle water consumption (gal/cycle) now is 5. Many newer dishwashers are 3.5. But the DoE wants to make it 3.3.
“This Administration is using all of the tools at our disposal to save Americans money while promoting innovations that will reduce carbon pollution and combat the climate crisis,” stated Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “With today’s announcements, DOE is making rapid progress to strengthen outdated energy efficiency standards—as directed by Congress and in coordination with our industry partners and stakeholders—and support healthier, safer communities for the American people.”
The Energy Department claims:
If adopted within DOE’s proposed timeframe, the new rule for dishwashers will come into effect in 2027. DOE expects the new rule to save consumers nearly $3 billion in utility bill savings over the ensuing 30 years of shipments and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 12.5 million metric tons—an amount roughly equivalent to the combined annual emissions of 1.6 million homes. DOE also expects the new rule to save 240 billion gallons of water, which is equivalent to the water in 360,000 Olympic-sized pools.
Okay, you know what I have noticed since I remodeled my house? New faucets are “efficient.” It’s taking me twice as long to rinse dishes and pans. I’m using the same amount of water I did before! The new toilets are “efficient.” I have to flush twice at times! Those aren’t courtesy flushes, either.
New York has already banned natural gas stoves. California wants to ban everything except electricity.
Manufacturers and customers lashed out at the DoE for new energy standards for wash machines. Like my faucets and toilets, it would require less water, which could lead to stinky and unclean clothes. That means you have to wash them over again. You’re using the same amount of water as before, maybe even more detergent!
Window air conditioners! The DoE wants to change energy standards on window air conditioners, used primarily by the poor, minorities, and the elderly.
Granholm also supports requiring the military to adopt all-electric vehicles by 2030. No wonder we screw up in Afghanistan and Sudan. The Department of Defense is spending much time on the climate rather than helping Americans.
Make it stop. Please. Just stop it.
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Comments
They get any more efficient and it will be faster to let my dog lick them clean. More sanitary, too.
I really hate Progressive tyrants.
Typical Lefty idiocy. Like low flow toilets that people flush twice they’ll run a second cycle to get the dishes clean. Front load washers use so little water people have to run the Heavy cycle and an extra rinse to get the clothes clean…or take the top off and adjust the fill valve.
Government is so stupid it’s ignoring them is less brain damage.
I think you confused top loaders and front loaders for clothes washing machines.
Way Back When, some roll-around portable dishwashers WERE top load. I don’t think any have been made in 40 years.
They were…many moons ago, easier to avoid leaks. My comment skipped past the dishwasher mandate idiocy by using toilets and washing machines to make the point gov’t ruins just about everything it regulates, forcing people to do work-arounds to make them operate properly for the task at hand.
Nope…we had a top load stacked Whirlpool unit, that thing got clothes really clean. When it finally gave up the ghost (repairs to it and dryer over the years kept it going) we bought the “new and improved” front load units. We discovered the clothes did not come out as clean because so little water is used. A quick search…YouTube is chock full of people complaining about their “modern” front load washer only using a cup of water and the clothes don’t come out as clean as their old top load unit. They offer work-arounds to get clothes clean and to combat the mold build up as the tub and door seal trap water and don’t dry out…you have to leave the door ajar and wipe out the seal.
When I installed our new dishwasher (the 22 year old one was great until it fried itself) I noticed the cycle times are 3.5 hours long…but it does a great job and saves energy and well water. But for the ninny’s to demand even less water is stupid, you need water to clean things. I also take out the asinine gov’t mandated low flow restrictor’s in every faucet and shower head…we’re on a well, max pressure is set at 55psi…we don’t waste water and most of us live in the modern era and don’t need to “fetch water”.
I just meant part of your comment seemed to mention top load, then it mentioned front load as if the same article. It was just a confusing sentence, IMO.
I saw that and your point…maybe needed more coffee. My bad.
This Administration is using all of the tools at our disposal to save Americans money
And that’s a high pile of bovine excrement. That all of their “efficient” washing machines of all sorts can’t get out. All of these “more efficient” machines cost us more. And, since we have to run the cycle twice, we’re using at least half again as much water and not saving a penny.
Bureaucrats to the tumbrels! Now!
Strange… I must be doing something wrong. My laundry comes out fine with one cycle every time. Same for my dishes with the exact same dishwasher as in the lead photo.
I guess I will have to change my ways.
Yeah, the house I bought already had the eco friendly DW and W/D. The DW works but really I just use it to sanitize not wash, I had wash everything first. The washer is ok, smaller capacity so no ‘bachelor size loads of two weeks worth of laundry jammed in, but works well apart from size. The fruit works much better since I cleaned the outside portion of the exhaust vent. Thanks for that tip Grizz, newly installed before purchasing but still clogged up.
My dryer recently “informed” me of a clogged vent. Turns out the shutters on it were mostly stuck shut. Had a new one fitted and it’s right as rain.
On HE washers: most of those top-loaders with the spinner plate are useless. I use front loaders, leave the washer door open a little bit (most LGs have a detention you can feel. Never had odors or mold.
That helps a lot but your environmental humidity also plays a huge role in the presence of mold.
My Dishwasher, Washing Machine, and Dryer we all complaining back in February. So I bought the conversion kit and turned them into a snow plow.
She thanked me for the snow shovel and then locked me out of the house 😮😂🤣
The fruit works much better
My fruit usually works, too, unless I leave it too long. But that’s not really what we’re discussing here. (How did you get THAT typo/auto-cucumber?)
Still salty about the dryer vent clog. Started of with F-king, changed to what I though was freaking somehow didn’t type dryer and auto correct made it fruit. Then I didn’t check my spelling…..
Autocorrect is the bane of civilized communication.
Commo: I often forget to Czech my spelling as well.
Using top of the line detergent helps. The dishwasher in the photo is the only brand worth having.
Not true. Miele are great.
Not if you live in anything but a metro area. Who even OFFERS Miele in, say, Johnson City?
If I could get them and the service to back them, I’d have Beko.
Well, that’s a different statement than I was responding to, isn’t it?
I have new Bosch, cleans ok but no heated element to dry dishes. 20yr old kenmore had it but it went to crap last fall so had to replace it.
We just got a Samsung to replace the old one whose pump gave up the ghost. We miss the drying element, but as long as we run the hot water in the sink to make sure it’s hot to start, it does a pretty good job. I do miss the length of a cycle with the previous one, this one seems to take about twice as long, though it is a lot quieter too.
I am praying the clothes washer keeps on going, we’ve had it since we got married (1993) and we’re on our third dryer, though admittedly only the first was new when we got it. I’m not looking forward to a front loader. For anyone with back issues, those are a pain, literally.
Library: I have back issues. I use front loaders on pedestals. Yes, they drive the price through the roof but wait for major holiday sales. The appliances will be so discounted the pedestals pay for themselves.
Pro tip I got years ago. If you open the dryer before end of cycle a lot, the heater element life is shorter.
Heat pump dryers are on the way.
I meant running the cycle twice for dishwashing. I seldom have to run the clothes washer again – though I do have to run a second rinse to get the soap out (which is an option on the machine, and something I never did with older washers). I sometimes have dishes not come quite clean in the dishwasher and have to hand wash them (taking even more water). But I know several people have complained of having to actually run the dishwasher more than once, or the clothes washer.
Depends on the load. The wife of 56 years insists on the water saving cycle on the dishwasher. Fine when just us, but when the grands are over on the weekend it just doesn’t cut it due to the full load (really overload on silverware).
Our top load washer does a good job, but again it depends on the load. We keep kids clothing here and Monday mornings after they visit dirty play clothes take extra effort to avoid overloading the washer.
I know a woman with a top load clothes washer, water saver model, who has a hose to add more water. Only waher the government would let her buy, but she figured the fix out OK without taking the machine apart.
If it’s a front loader: two tbsp of GOOD detergent and the clothes get clean, the washer is happy, and even me with my sensitive skin use one extra rinse “just because” and likely don’t need it.
Virtually any washer repairman will tell you not to use powdered detergent, especially not in the quantities listed on the box.
Of course. Government always ignores capital costs when touting operating costs, and they don’t use an apples to apples comparison of operating costs by, in this case, comparing operating costs at the same level of cleanliness.
Make it stop. Please. Just stop it.
You have to embrace my tumbrel notion to make that happen.
“save consumers nearly $3 billion in utility bill savings over the ensuing 30 years”
Can anyone do math? $3 billion over 30 years is $10 million per year. For 330 million people, that is about 3 cents per person per year. I can just feel myself getting richer because of the Biden administration
Well, if they could brag about saving 16¢ on a 4th of July picnic….
The equation also doesn’t take into account how much is lost when you have to wash your dishes extra to get them fully clean, clean the dishwasher filter out in the sink every month and run empty cycles with baking soda and vinegar to clean everything out.
These machines end up costing more water, not less.
And you’ll pay hundreds of dollars for the right to save that 3c.
Another woke federal gov’t agency, governed by unelected woke bureaucrats, with WAY too much authority.
If we ever get a reasonable administration again, it will take the full four years, working 24/7/365 just to re-write all these regulations this administration is pushing.
If you think they’re doing this to “save (you) money,” you have rocks in your head.
It’s nothing but power mad Democrat zealots, playing Jenga with America.
They will deconstruct your way of life, log by log, until it collapses.
Actually, it is $100M per year, or 30 cents per person, but still a good point. IMO it just makes these wastrels in government feel important on an unimportant issue.
I’ll contemplate the new standard while taking a 15 minute shower this evening, with well water and a septic system. Chances are, I’ve showered with the same water more than once – some at least – where it works its way through the earth, into the aquifer and is pumped up to the tank again. So where exactly are they “saving” water? Where is there any real “saving” of a naturally renewable resource?
Remember, they hate you and they want to make your life miserable.
My newest dishwasher runs 190 minutes on its heavy load setting. Democrats want my dishwasher to run all night, because this is green, renewable, and sustainable.
I wonder if they measure the extra fossil fuels needed to run the dishwasher twice as long as necessary?
Saw a video (posted in comments on Instapundit, I think) showing one of the first top-loading dishwashers, and how it got everything sparkly clean in just 9 1/2 minutes.
“This Administration is using all of the tools at our disposal to…” reduce the American people to a medieval standard of living. Or worse…
Some things are timeless:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
― C. S. Lewis
The good Secretary is working hard to save us money…….
Good thing we live in a Republic where there’s a Constitution giving the government only limited powers. Otherwise crazy stuff like this parody article describes might actually happen!
/sarc
It doesn’t save anybody money when they have to run their laundry three times to get it clean.
Our dishwasher is me. It’s getting old and wrinkled, but it cleans the dishes really well. Our washing machine is actually a machine. Top loading, with an agitator, and about 20+ years old. Everything going in gets clean. It’s going to suck when it finally breaks and we have to replace it with a useless hunk of modern junk.
When it goes, get a top loading SpeedQueen. No, this isn’t an obese black, female, drug pusher, but an old fashion washer made in Wisconsin.
Our “new” dishwasher takes forever to “clean” and then it doesn’t really clean things as well as our old 80s dishwasher did. While our washing machine works OK, we usually have to run the dryer twice. Or even thrice to get things dry. Yay progress!
They’re either lying or grossly ignorant. This isn’t an efficiency standard. An efficiency standard would relate resource costs per unit of work aka standard of cleanliness. This is a straight up water use mandate that cares not for the actual work performed. It has no relation to efficiency as such.
It’s getting to the point where you’re better off repairing your older clothes or dishwasher than replacing with a new “energy efficient” model simply because the older models work better.
One tip for getting your clothes cleaner – add a tablespoon of actual TSP to the wash cycle. A teaspoon of TSP in your dishwasher doesn’t hurt either.
What is TSP, a kind of appliance cleaner?
.
Tri-sodium phosphate.
It is a cleaning agent. A lot of the actual cleaning agents have been removed from detergents for “environmental” reasons. Between that and less water, things don’t get cleaned well.
TSP adds back in the removed cleaning agent. You buy it in hardware stores some places, maybe on Amazon. It is also banned in some states, however.
What’s more annoying is that while it has been removed from dishwasher detergent for home use, I understand it is still legal in commercial detergent for restaurants and other bulk cooking/food prep establishments. I guess it’s OK for them to avoid food poisoning from dirty dishes, but us plebs don’t matter because we don’t pay enough taxes or have a lobbying group on our side.
This is environmental radicalism subsidized by our tax dollars
With more regulation upon more regulation, how can anyone support the Dem party… The bureaucrats will red tape us all back into government servitude.
We have a four year old Bosch dish washer that runs a heavy duty cycle for over three hours. It’s quiet and, aside from the long cycle time, is much to our satisfaction. We use high quality Cascade Platinum detergent pods and only very rarely have dirty dishes after a wash. We have to plan ahead when washing dishes but, with only two in the home, that’s no big deal for us. The delay wash setting is convenient. I clean the filter screen every week or two as needed.
The Bride bought Kenmore laundry appliances 25 years ago when it was still a Sears brand (remember Sears?) and they were known as high quality equipment (remember high quality equipment?). The washer is on its third set of hoses, stainless steel sheathed, of course, and its third set of the little rubber dogs in the top of the agitator. The dryer is on its second belt and I pull it out to clean the duct in the back every two years along with the duct going outside. IOW, they have lasted a quarter century with minimum maintenance. Rust just inside the washer lid is becoming a concern but it still works reliably.
I shudder to think what we will have to put up with when these appliances need replacement.
.
This all started with those awful gas cans
“That means you have to wash them over again. You’re using the same amount of water as before, maybe even more detergent!”
Nope. Do the math. Even if I have an older machine that uses 5 gallons, if I run the new 3.3 gallon machine twice, I’m using 6.6 gallons.
Same with washing machines, toilets, etc…having to run/flush/operate them twice uses MORE water than using an older version once.
Significantly more water.
Plus more detergent into the drains as you mentioned.
As with most leftist schemes where they think they can regulate us into utopia, they end up making things worse…which, of course, requires even more regulation to fix, which makes things worse…lather, rinse, repeat.
You’re not allowed to repeat! That uses too much water! Yeeeaaarrrggghhhhh!
I’m repeating a third of my load in my current standard dishwasher. Three coffee cups didn’t get clean. The colander didn’t get clean. The cutting board didn’t get clean. Two bowls didn’t get clean.
And I remember my first 1.5 gallon flush toilet. That was a nightmare… Flush. Wait. Flush. Wait. Flush… Fuck…
Liberal Playbook: Never fix a real issue when you can come up with an existential crisis the Kool-Aid crowd will drink right up.
My old dishwasher took 30 minutes to run a load, including sterilizing the damn dishes. My new ‘energy efficient’ dishwasher under the current rules takes 2 hours and 45 minutes to run the same damn load.
If it doesn’t have to work, you can meet any other requirement.
Easily, actually.
If you call it a dishwasher, and it doesn’t wash dishes, how many dishwashers do you have?
Here’s my handy appliance check…
If a human you hired did the thing as well (or poorly) as the appliance, would you accept the result, and pay the person?
If not, it ain’t a whatever any more.
Every damn one of these changes is about taking stuff away from you on the sly…
A car gets me places better, faster, more than without; better even than Dobbin and a carriage. These new ones are worse.
A clothes washer gets my clothes washed, better than without. These new ones are worse.
A drier gets my clothes dried, better than without. Dry enough that no mildew and I can put them right on.
A dishwasher gets my dishes clean enough that I’m willing to eat off the with no further treatment.
And a darkbulb, mercury contamination pellet, eyestrain generator, excuse me lightbulb, lets me do stuff I could not without it. A replacement for prior tech lightbulbs lets me see and do as well as using the prior tech ones.
I, myself, think goodness in a stove is its helping me cook yummie, yummie food I like, the way I like.