Mild on your hands and easy on your pocket
Using a dishwasher can save you money
Using an electric device to wash your dishes might seem counter-intuitive when it comes to saving energy, but when you consider the amount of energy required to heat tap water let alone the amount of water needed to wash and rinse your dishes - using a dishwasher might be more sensible.
Understanding the Appliance Energy Efficiency Label
Look specifically for the energy consumption per cycle on your appliance. This number will be indicated as kWh/cycle. Remember, all new dishwashers sold in South Africa must be labelled with a South African Energy Efficiency Label to help consumers understand the relative energy efficiency of the different appliances.
Calculating how much the appliance will cost to run
To calculate the annual running costs of your dishwasher, simply multiply the kWh figure given on the label by the number of washing cycles you are likely to do in a single week. Now multiply that figure with 52.
Next you'll need to determine the cost per kWh as per you municipal/ESKOM bill.
In our example, we'll assume our dishwasher uses 1.02 kWh/cycle,
we'll be running it 9 times a week, and
electricity costs R2/kWh
Therefore, running our dishwasher 9 times a week will cost us R954.72 a year.
Using your appliance most efficiently
Wash a full loads of dishes
Instead of running partial loads, wait until the dishwasher is full, which will save energy and water by reducing the total number of cycles required in a week.
Scrape/Soak dishes before washing
Avoid having to run two cycles in the dishwasher by scraping all the food from the dishes before placing them in the dishwasher.
Clean the spinning arms
Maximise the efficiency of the dishwasher by inspecting and cleaning the spinning arms regularly.
Reduce the washing temperature
Clean dishes with less energy by reducing the heating temperature in the dishwasher from high to medium.
Air dry dishes
Switch off the dryer after the wash cycle so that the dishes can air dry, which will reduce the amount of energy used by the dishwasher.