2 person household: run dishwasher every day?

[treedimensional]

It seems like a waste to run the dishwasher when it is almost empty.
If there are only 2 people in your household, do you still run the dishwasher every day? Even when it is mostly empty?

[wawa]

Nope. I don't run the d/w until it's full. which means that every once in a while we have to pull a dirty plate back out of it and handwash it so we have something to eat dinner on.

We tend to run out of clean plates before the top rack is full of glasses.

[SusanBAnthony]

We have kids now, but when it was just us, we ran it whenever it got full. We bought more dinner plates and cereal bowls so that we had enough to fill the dishwasher all the way.

Now with 4 people we run it daily. Or more if I am cooking/baking a lot.

ETa: now that I am packing school lunches and snacks for both kids, I do run it between 4pm and bedtime every day no matter how full it is, because I need all their lunch packing stuff clean for the morning.  But 95% of the time it is full so,entire during that time range.  

[candreco]

We only run ours every second or third day for four of us, though pots and pans, some kitchen utensils, and some baby stuff we handwash. Honestly, it wouldn't occur to me to run the dishwasher if it wasn't full, I'd just handwash everything if it's that little.

[InBetweenDays]

We have 4 people and run it approximately every 36 hours. If it isn't full we don't run it.

[treedimensional]

We don't own enough dishes to fill a dishwasher. I'd buy a double drawer dishwasher, but they cost more than a regular dishwasher.
I just can't wrap my brain around how much water I will be wasting if I get a full size dishwasher and run it every day (or two) because there's only the two of us and we really only have a few dishes.

[boiler717]

We fill the dish washer every day with 1 people. DH makes eggs for breakfast every morning, I WFH so I have breakfast and lunch dishes / pot or pan, DH takes lunch in glass locks, and we make dinner at home most nights. I'm assuming with kids we'd have to run twice a day (and we even have 3 racks!) .

[Deleted]

It's been years since I've had this problem..ha.
However when H and I first got married, I was working full instead of part-time and not home more to do cooking projects, we didn't have a kid, an e. student and a bunch of employees who eat lunch in my house on the regular It only ran twice a week or so.

My old dishwasher had a rinse only cycle I used to take full advantage of. My new one has a 1 hour wash instead that's supposed to be for not full loads and goes easy on the water.

[bearkatjen]

We didn't run it every day when we were a two person household. We waited till it was full, and often we just did dishes by hand. We ate a lot back in those days though. 

[Susie]

No. It drives me nuts when Calvin runs it half empty. We run it every couple days.

[mrs.jacinthe]

Two people here. Plus a cat and dog with associated dishes.

I run the dishwasher daily, but it's completely full when I do so. We don't use disposable anything, even the coffee filter, so it's definitely important for me to run it daily if possible. So the dishes from breakfast/lunch/dinner for me, breakfast/dinner for R, glasslocks from R's lunch and any leftovers from the fridge, cooking pans, and dog/cat dishes all wind up in there. If by some miracle the dishwasher isn't full at the end of the day (we ate out or whatever), I just handwash the coffee filter and let the rest sit.

[TBM]

We are getting dish drawers. We had them in our old house, and only ran one drawer once a day when we included dog bowls and various prep stuff. Otherwise it was only a couple of times a week most of the time.

ETA:  We don't wash pots and pans in the dishwasher, and we have some other things that we use often, (like wooden utensils) that don't go in there either.  We also tend to rinse out the coffee filter, juicer parts, etc. right after use and not run them through the dishwasher.  We have multiples of the containers that DH uses for lunch so that we have backups if the dishwasher isn't full enough to be run. 

Maybe we are just extra conservative with using one glass per person all day and not using a lot of dishes when we can get away with using fewer.  We do cook a lot...I guess that we just don't make things that require a lot of dishes.

[ktzmoh]

we are also a household of four and run it about every other day. Seems wasteful to run it every day if it doesn't need to be run, but I suspect that running a dishwasher that's only partially full would still consume less water than washing those dishes by hand.

[lightbulbsun]

I only run the dishwasher when it's full. It ends up being every 5 days or so for me and H.

[hbomdiggity]

We run it once or twice a week max.

We don't put any pots and pans in the dw and have at least 12 sets of plates and silverware so that's not an issue.

I will run it less than full if it is starting to stink.

[pitterwoo]

I don't have a dw but I'm looking forward to it. We could definitely fill it with the amount of dishes we generate a day (or two max). When I was looking at kitchen layouts I did find a narrow DW option that you might prefer if you aren't going to have big loads. It's 18" wide, I think.

[orangeblossom]

If I've cooked, I can easily run it once a day, sometimes twice.

[Deleted]

We run ours every 2-3 days.

[KaraOrNot]

When we had a dishwasher, we ran it once every 4-7 days.

[treedimensional]

Sept 30, 2013 13:59:29 GMT -5 lightbulbsun said:

I only run the dishwasher when it's full. It ends up being every 5 days or so for me and H.

Doesn't it stink up the whole kitchen?

[sierramist03]

I only run ours when it's full which is every couple of days

[peach]

I think it makes a difference if you cook a lot or not. When it was just two of us I ran the dishwasher daily. By the time you had breakfast dishes and then Glasses and coffee cups, and supper dishes the dishwasher was full. A couple of pots, serving bowls, spatula, cutting board, etc and I had filled half the dishwasher just making dinner.

[TBM]

Sept 30, 2013 17:32:28 GMT -5 treedimensional said:

Sept 30, 2013 13:59:29 GMT -5 lightbulbsun said:

I only run the dishwasher when it's full. It ends up being every 5 days or so for me and H.

Doesn't it stink up the whole kitchen?

We've never had that be a problem.

[heygrey]

Sept 30, 2013 17:32:28 GMT -5 treedimensional said:

Sept 30, 2013 13:59:29 GMT -5 lightbulbsun said:

I only run the dishwasher when it's full. It ends up being every 5 days or so for me and H.

Doesn't it stink up the whole kitchen?

Not if you rinse the worst of the food particles off. We run ours every ~4 days and it never smells. 

[InBetweenDays]

Of course it also depends on what all you put in the dishwasher. We really only use it for dishes, silverware, spatulas, etc. and cups/glasses. We cook a lot but we hand wash all pots, serving bowls, cutting boards, etc.

[minniebee]

I run mine about twice a week. But, it's just me, and I always wash my pots & pans by hand.

[emjacobs]

Sept 30, 2013 13:23:01 GMT -5 wawa said:

Nope. I don't run the d/w until it's full. which means that every once in a while we have to pull a dirty plate back out of it and handwash it so we have something to eat dinner on.

We tend to run out of clean plates before the top rack is full of glasses.

This is where we are as well except I run out of forks first.

[sillygoosegirl]

We run it when it is full, or we are about to have company for a meal, or go out of town, or just cleaned nasty old food out of the refrigerator. This works out to around 2-3 times per week normally.

We never put sharp knives, wood utensils, or cutting boards in. We normally don't put pots, pans, or large bowls, etc in, though we will sometimes make an exception if we need to run it anyway and it isn't otherwise full yet (company, travel, feeling abnormally lazy). We have plates, bowls, and utensils for 12, so we normally are down to almost our last of each when the dishwasher is full...

[mrsemilys]

We run it every 3 days or so....whenever it gets full. It's DH, DD, and I.

[happyhomemaker]

Just the two of us here also. We only run it when it's full, with very rare exception . I probably run it every 2-4 days.