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Wash only full loads of dishes

Last comment by user_498 on 7 Jan 2010:
I wash by hand and do not have a dishwasher.
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Description

When doing a load of dishes in the dishwasher, wait until you have enough dirty dishes to do a full load rather than filling the dishwasher partially. Most dishwashers use the same amount of water for a given cycle, regardless of how full the drawers are. Even setting the controls to a small load, if an option on the machine, uses a set amount of water that might be too much for partially full drawers. Doing a full rather than partial load saves the energy needed to replenish the hot water used in a wash cycle.

Tags

  • behavior
  • dishes
  • hot water
  • individual
  • repeatable
  • residence
  • year round
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Assumptions We Made

Assume that you're replacing a half load with a full load. A dishwasher uses about 2.17 kWh/cycle (not energy star) including both machine electrical energy and water heating energy consumption.

Impacts

Initial Impacts

Each time you carry out this action, the immediate impacts are:

  • Saves 0.11 dollars
  • Saves 1.08 kilowatt hours
  • Saves 1.48 lbs of CO2

Ongoing Impacts

Some actions also have additional impact over time. For this action, these are:

  • Unknown

Potential Annual Impact

We assume that this action will be carried out daily (about 160 times a year). In this case, in a year you could save:
  • 17.12 dollars
  • 173.60 kilowatt hours
  • 236.16 lbs of CO2
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