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?

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[–] 22 points 2 weeks ago (13 children)

Dishwashers in the U.S don't have water heaters

Crazy. Mine only takes in cold water. Never even knew ones that take in hot water existed.

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  • [–] 15 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    You'll be surprised to hear that U.S washing machines have the same setup, and this is why they talk about "wash cold" or "wash hot" instead of having specific temperatures on their washing programs like 30 C, 40 C, 60 C etc.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

    It's because the US electrical system sucks and they refused to upgrade it, although reasonably speaking it would be kind of impossible at this point. In order to be able to actually run a heating element you would have to have a special circuit fitted with a decent voltage.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    Also why US homes tend to have the immersion heater setup for hot water with a big tank that gets heated over time, compared to the common euro system of on-demand instantaneous hot water.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago

    The water heaters are usually gas here though, so electric system doesn't really matter. Tankless heaters have become a lot more common over past decade or two, both gas and electric. For electric ones you just use a 240V circuit. Most electric appliances that need a lot of power run on 240V here, 30A and even 50A or 60A circuits are common and provide enough power for household needs.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    I gotta love how the US is really advanced for the most part but then occasionally you come across one area in which it operates like 1980s Estonia.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago

    the whole gas thing is always funny to me because most of sweden just went directly from wood heating and candles to electricity, so it manages to sort of feel more outdated than basically anything short of a viking longhouse.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    The newest construction near me puts tankless in townhomes and full-size in single-family homes. (as long as gas is available)

    They're super efficient when you don't use tons of hot water because your waste on tank heaters is heat loss through the pipes and heater itself.

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