Howdy folks, hope youāre all doing OK out there. We gotta talk about dishwashers again. I started writing a really long-winded script
which got to a half-our long [crickets] yet barely covered half of what I wanted to so hereās draft two
and weāre just gonna launch straightaway with; Iāve led you astray, and Iām very sorry about that. If you havenāt seen the original video,
links are in all the places and I think you might want to check it out. But hereās a quick overview: Over the winter I made a video about how dishwashers worked and explained how they just fill up with a bit of water,
pump that for a while, drain it, and repeat that few times. The detergent dispenser is there so that the dishwasher can hold the detergent back until its wash program calls for it. It deliberately prevents the detergent from being introduced into the wash water until it has already filled with water once, pumped that around to get the real big nasty chunks off your plates and whatever, and drained. It then re-fills itself with clean water. If it didnāt have some way to hold that detergent back until that second fill it would all be gone after 10 or 15 minutes, but you see detergent
is helpful for cleaning dishes, particularly because itās an emulsifier and can get rid
of grease and oils, so most dishwashers are designed to also have a nominal amount of pre-wash detergent available in that first rinse to help get those oils et cetera out quickly, and this is why many dishwashers have not one but two places you are supposed to put detergent. Because of that these pre-dosed detergent packs which bypass the pre-wash step annoy me and itās my pet theory that theyāve
led to dishwasher dissatisfaction which seems to have been backed up by various comments
and feedback I received after publishing that video but weāll get to that in a bit. Hoo! Alright, with that out of the way, letās continue. This video is kinda all-over-the-place so
there are chapter markers if you want to just skip around. And also Iām not gonna lie, this is essentially one giant response to comments. Although there are a lot of genuinely great things weāve collectively discovered that I think you all should know about, there are also a lot ofā¦ things that I need to address. Now, Iām gonna to try my best to not get too snarky because I recognize that this is annoying to many of you and frankly Iām starting to see the light, there. Another thing I want to apologize for. However on a more positive note, I want to express how lovely it has been to receive all of the comments, tweets, and messages from folks who experimented with more basic detergent products and found their dishwashers
were actually performing better than before now that they could be used as designed. And in fact a lot of people left comments saying that they never bothered using their dishwasher at all because they were convinced it couldnāt wash dishes well, but dosing detergent as their machine expected proved that it absolutely could. That really has been delightful and Iām
glad to know that my video has helped some of you out there. Also before we move on, several of you shared
examples of dishwashers - including some Bosch and Samsung machines - that actually said in their instruction manuals that when using normal cycles, you should add some extra detergent along the bottom of the door for the first rinse like so for best performance. Just because your dishwasher doesnāt have a marked space for pre-wash detergent in the dispenser doesnāt necessarily mean itās not designed with that in mind. I mean, thatās terrible user interface design but hey, I didnāt do it. [voiceover]
Oh, hey, remember how I said this video is all over the place? Well before we get any further I need to more strongly clarify that little qualifier that might have just slipped right past you in the last paragraph. If you aren't using the ānormalā cycle of your dishwasher, a pre-wash fill might not be a thing that even happens. Express or Eco wash options often skip it, rendering the detergent dispenser fairly useless as a concept. Now Iām all for conservation, but these
cycles will negatively impact cleaning performance. Iād argue an extra water fill is better than dishes that arenāt washed to your satisfaction and need washing again, but the point is - if youāve tried to add some pre-wash detergent but got worse results, and you were using one of those cycles, you may have severely overdosed the detergent. Detergent dosing is the main point of this video, spoiler alert, but bottom line - if youāre satisfied with your dishwasher just ignore me! Keep on living your life how you want to. But if you want more out of it, try that normal cycle - or even the heavy-duty or pots and pans one - and see how it goes. You should feel free to experiment here. Worst thing that could happen is a need to re-start the machine, and thereās no rule against simply running it twice. So, how did I lead you astray? Well, like a fool, I read this boxās instructions to you. [thud] I know! How careless of me! Here, watch shorter-haired me do it: āFor best results, fill both the pre-wash
and the main wash cups completely" [thud] HOW'M I SUPPOSED TO DO THAT WITH ONE OF THESE,
CASCADE? See, I was making fun of the fact that the instructions for this Cascade product are not possible with another, supposedly much-improved
product of theirs. But in making that joke I forgot to tell you that these instructions themselves areā¦ incomplete, and one might even say misleading. I neglected to give you the context these boxes are missing, which has led to problems for some of you. So hereās that context. You donāt actually need to fill the cups
completely. The end. ā« unexpectedly smooth jazz ā« "No no no no, itās too early for that part!" he says to a camera hopelessly trying to suspend your disbelief that this isnāt a bit. Hereās the thing.
Unless your water is very hard, filling the main detergent cup completely is unnecessary and may in fact cause rinsing issues. There is such a thing as too much detergent, and unfortunately following these instructions as written will often get you there. Now, we can choose to be cynical and say that "of course Procter & Gamble wants you to use as much dishwasher detergent as will fit in your dishwasherās dishwasher detergent dispenser because they want you to keep buying
their dishwasher detergent, and more faster please!" And yeah, it's kinda hard to escape that conclusion. But if your water is up high enough on the hardness scale that it leaves you with scale thatās hard to deal with, you'll need more detergent than you might otherwise. Europeans, Iām gonna need you to hold your commenting finger-horses. Virtually none of us have dishwasher salt over here. Yes, dishwasher salt. Itās a thing! Weāll get to that. Detergents find hard water to beā¦ difficult. The higher the mineral content, the more detergent
you need for the same cleaning action. The specific reasons why arenāt important
right now but, spoiler, some of the ingredients in detergent products are compounds which help to soften water and make the cleaning action more effective. How much you actually need depends on
your water hardness, and wouldnāt ya know it dishwashers are designed with little fill
lines in the dispenser to help you figure out how much detergent you should use. [voiceover]
Haaaaa, not always! But donāt worry, I thought of that in the next sentence: With water of soft-to-medium hardness, that
first line is all you probably need, which is generally about halfway.
[Voiceover: See?] If you do fill it up all the way when your
water is softer than some sort of really soft thing, you can end up with a powdery residue or film on your dishes simply because there was too much detergent in the wash water to be effectively rinsed away at the end of the cycle. So, If you fill the cups completely as I said you should, and you have soft-to-normal water, residue is likely to happen. And I know this happened to a fair number of you because several people, now, have asked me why they were getting a residue after trying powder detergents. In every case I explained the water hardness complication and suggested simply using less detergent, and in every case that I received
a reply that fixed the problem. Again. Really sorry I read these instructions without
contextualizing them. That was, frankly, careless. Youād be surprised how little detergent
you actually need with typically-soiled dishes. Even with my very hard water Iām finding that only filling to the first line is sufficient (though of course, I also sprinkle some on the lid like it asks me to). So I very much regret passing on this boxās instructions as gospel and I have to wonder if they might be responsible for some of
the negative perceptions towards powders and gels. Without telling you you don't need to fill it up if you don't have hard water they're kind of asking for problems to occur. I mean, they also put this on the back of the box. Upgrade! Do it. More colors. Prettyyyy. Hmm. OK, thatās the big boo-boo I wanted to fix. Seriously, even basic detergent products have improved over the years and you donāt actually need a whole lot. In fact, the inability to vary how much
detergent goes into your wash water is one of the main reasons I donāt like these infernal things. A pre-packaged, fixed dose has to lean quite
far to the side of too much detergent, yet not so far that people with soft
water will have rinsing issues. Theyāre designed to work for the majority
of people and in the majority of dishwashers, but thatās more detergent than necessary in many cases, and yet not enough in others. But wait! Thereās more! Because of the simple fact that foods and oils effectively use up the dispersant and surfactant capabilities of a given quantity of detergent, you can - and one might argue should! - vary the amount of detergent you use based on how soiled your dishes actually are - and indeed how many youāre actually cleaning. These are, again, dosed right up to the line of too much detergent. In many (most?) cases thatās just way more detergent than you actually need, though to be fair it does have to make up for the sheer lack of detergent in the first water fill. Actually, fun fact, I bought a cheap loaf pan and it specifically says that detergent tablets are more concentrated and will damage the finish so donāt use them. Whaddya know, itās not just me. Now, although I personally see the ability to vary the amount of detergent used per load as a tremendous benefit of powders and gels that I would never want to give up, I can see how others might view that as adding an element of complexity and uncertainty to their washing routine. I think itās worth some experimentation
to figure out what might work best for you, and honestly only gels and powders even allow for that experimentation in the first place. But not everybody has the time or patience for that and I respect that position. Alright, so now letās see if we can find out whether or not detergent packs are actually better than detergent in not-packs. Through the Magic of Buying
Way Too Much F****ng Dishwasher Detergent we can do a number of tests and make some comparisons. Letās start with a test: Some have claimed that detergent tabs dissolve in parts, mimicking the actions of pre-wash and main wash detergents. For the record I donāt think any manufacturers suggest this, but a lot of people apparently believe this is the case. Now I have three different kinds to test today: Cheap store-brand (my preference if youāre gonna use packs). Cascade Platinum ActionPacs. And Finish Powerball Max-in-1. (They were out of Mega Millions) Of these, the only one that I have any hope for this theory panning out
is the Finish tab, but weāll find out shortly. Of note, all of these products
instruct you to put them in the dispenser and close the door. Not just put them directly into the tub. That means, if used as directed, the first fill remains water-only. I think that alone kinda voids this theory
but letās keep going anyway. To see how these would dissolve I put them in a pan and gently added water as hot as it comes from the tap. And much as I was expecting, the Cascade and Great Value packs quickly disintegrated. I hadnāt even finished pouring the water into the pan before the membranes were breached, and once that happens their contents spill out and start to become one with the water. Note that this is with almost no agitation whatsoever - only that which came from pouring the water into the pan. In a real dishwasher, the flow of water every which way would speed up this process dramatically. But the thing I want to show here is that the membrane
isnāt holding anything back for later. Itās just serving to hold the contents together until it gets wet, and of course to hold three pretty colors of something to convince you itās better. In less than two minutes all of the pockets of colored liquid had broken apart. And again - this is with mostly standing water. The Finish tab, though, doesnāt dissolve nearly as quickly. This particular tab has a dissolving membrane as well but itās just to allow for handling the tab without touching it. Cheaper Finish products are individually-wrapped
(at least in this market) and thatās why I made that quip in the last video, by the way. I have no idea how anyone could *possibly* find that more convenient than just pouring from a box but whatever. Once its membrane is no more it behaves like
a giant soapy Alka-Seltzer. This is taking a long time to dissolve without agitation, but I canāt say that the blue and white parts appear to be dissolving at different rates. It kinda looked at first like the white part might be dissolving faster but I brought a knife in to go a pokinā and yeah, I couldnāt really feel a difference between them. Whatever initial difference there seemed to be sure didnāt stick around. And to give this argument a true Finish, I decided to put a tab in the bottom of my loaded dishwasher to see if any of it would be left
after it drained its first fill. Here it would get the proper water-washing-over-it experience and would dissolve as it normally would in a dishwasher. I can report that absolutely none of it was left, and my dishwasher only spends 10 minutes in the pre-wash. I suppose small bits could have remained below the grates in the sump, but any that got in there before it drained would have been chewed
up by the macerator and pumped out. I believe we can conclude that the blue and white coloring is there because more colors equals better sales. The red ball is the cherry on top. OK, hopefully weāve put that theory to bed. Now I want to address a nomenclature disaster
which has confused this whole issue. I keep calling that bit of detergent youāre
supposed to give your dishwasher at the start "pre-wash detergent." You know because thatās
what the dishwasher calls it, itās detergent for the part of the wash before the main wash. The pre-wash. Pre-wash detergent. But a lot of detergent products are out there which say something like āno pre-wash required!ā or just āno pre-wash!ā on the packaging. What gives? Well, those arenāt talking about pre-wash detergent, theyāre just trying to get you to stop washing or soaking or rinsing your dishes before you load them into the dishwasher. They want you to try using your dishwasher as a dishwasher. And frankly so do I. And that little slogan isnāt exclusive to packs, you can find it on several powder and gel products. None of these here specifically say āno pre-washā - instead touting their abilities to clean 24 hour stuck-on food. But also none of the packs here say it either - instead going for āno pre-rinse requiredā and āno pre-rinse even on baked-on pasta.ā Cascade is curiously silent on the issue here. But most important to remember is that these are all just marketing ploys hoping to convince you to buy the product. Donāt expect un-stretched truths. But what about this? A fair number of you have made claims that independent lab testing proves detergent packs have superior performance to basic products. But if that independent testing came from the halls of one Consumer Reports, Twitter user Michael uncovered this bombshell - they donāt use the pre-wash cup in their testing! And it came right from the horseās mouth! Now I suppose you could argue that makes the playing field more level for the detergent packs, but my whole, like, thing is that detergent packs by design take that part of the wash cycle away and therefore make it wildly less effective. They have to compensate for that, so theyād better do a better job than misused powder and gel. But do they do a better job than powder detergents used as directed? Well, my life experience says absolutely not but Iād love for Consumer Reports to re-run their tests while using the gels and powders
as directed by the dishwasher. Not these instructions. Fill to line one, and add a little extra. You might be wondering what my life experience is. Well, Iāll tell ya! By my rough estimation Iāve lived with or otherwise extensively used nine different household dishwashers in four different geographic areas. These have ranged from recent, high-end,
three-rack stainless steel designs to *utter garbage* landlord specials with a 30-year-old Kenmore somewhere in the middle there. All of these dishwashers, regardless if they were hooked up to Chicago Lake Michigan municipal water, or middle-of-Florida well water, or the incredibly hard well water I have out here have managed to do their job just fine. Even the utterly terribly landlord special
washed dishes and it didnāt even have a spinner for the top rack. The only thing that Iāve consistently been doing across all of these machines is putting powder detergent in both labeled places. And I feel like I canāt have just been extremely lucky, here. I honestly feel like these products break the fundamentals of automatic dishwashing. Oh but thatās right, I forgot! My dishwasherās manual actually says the same thing about packs being better! In fact itās really pushing those tablets
and packs, just take a look at that! As a matter of fact the dishwasher came with
a sample of these very Cascade Platinum ActionPacs. Surely KitchenAid made that suggestion in my best interest! I mean, I know they still put a little thing
that says āprewashā on the dispenser, and I know the dishwasher still operates exactly like the one it replaced, but thatās probably just to keep curmudgeonly grandpas like me happy. They wouldnāt just include a sample of one product and tell me itās proven to work better than some other one unless it was objectively true, right? I mean, look, we can even confirm here on
the packaging from Cascade that this is the #1 Brand Recommended in North America, and hey look on the back thereās... there's KitchenAid! Thatās, thatās my brand! Why is there an asterisk? [mumbling]
more dishwasher brands in North America recommend Cascade vs. any other automatic dishwashing detergent brand: [in absolute shock]
recommendations as part of co-marketing agreements! Thatā¦ that... that... that sounds likeā¦ Procter & Gambleā¦ might have had something to do with KitchenAid
recommending this particular product to me! Well I suppose we will never know the exact details
of this little co-marketing agreement, but we know there was one - it says so on every single one of their products. Frankly Iām amazed they have to disclose that. And, by the way, Finish does the exact same thing, though they claim to be the WORLDās #1 recommended brandā¦ as part of co-marketing agreements. Cheeky. Hereās the deal. Detergents are just chemicals. How theyāre packaged makes very little difference
to their performance (although gels do have an actual drawback which weāll get to shortly). Do all detergent products perform identically? Of course not. But the chemicals in these products are not magic and youāll find incredibly similar ingredients lists between them. How similar? Well... Now letās talk about these chemicals and
actually explain what they do. Cascade was kind enough to actuallyā¦ list them and explain what they do on the back of this bag. So... Thanks, P&G!
Youāve redeemed yourself slightly. I also had many a browser tab open to fact-check
what they say here and, aside from little semantic differences, this all seems to be correct. So, starting with Amylase enzyme;
helps break down starches. Colorants;
there because pretty colors = better sales. Copolymer of acrylic and sulphonic acids;
those are dispersing and surfactant agents. So soap parts. Dipropylene glycol is either another surfactant
or a solvent or perhaps both. Fragrances are flagrantly unnecessary. Glycerin isā¦ ok Iām getting tired of this. Itās soap chemicals. This is all soap stuff. What Iām most interested in is what is in
the ActionPacs thatās not in the powder? By my count, itās these five items: What do they do? Well, Dipropylene glycol and glycerin, also
known as Glycerol, both appear to be used as either solvents or surfactants or possibly both. āHelps with liquid processingā is a little ambiguous, though Cascadeās website described dipropylene glycol as
āfighting grease residue in dishwasherā and curiously doesnāt list glycerin at all. I was looking at some chemical industry trade
news and it seems these are likely used in a formulation meant to replace 2-Butoxyethanol,
sometimes called EGBE. But this is getting into chemistry weeds and
Iām no expert so please, feel free to chime in, chemistry experts. In any case Iām gonna guess that these make
up the pretty colored-liquids part since those two chemicals are, ya know, liquids. The other three missing chemicals are Isotridecanol
Ethoxylated, which is another surfactant and probably works as an emulsifier based on Cascadeās description. Trisodium dicarboxymethyl alaninate
which appears to be a water-softening agent, taking up the mantle of the now phased-out
phosphates and so yeah probably does helps boost tough food cleaning, and lastly polyvinyl alcohol polymer. Thatās just the dissolvable membrane. As far as I know it doesnāt help clean. So, do these five (or four) chemicals make
a huge difference to cleaning power? Cascade sure wants you to think so, and at least there is something extra in here that your money is paying for, but I remain unconvinced these are game-changers. Every other chemical is also found here in
this box, which you can also use in different doses better suited to your dishwasher and situation! In fact the box contains a bonus chemical! Sodium silicate! Whatās it for? Well, Cascade says it is a Mineral-Based Cleaning Agent which Removes Dried/Burnt On Foods While Providing Special Care For China Dishes And Metal Pots/Pans. Geez thatās annoyingly specific yet also not at all. Some other sources just say itās used as
a water softener in detergents so Iām gonna say thatās what itās for. That appears to bring the number of cleaning
chemicals in the ActionPacs with a distinctly different function from those in the powder
down to only three; all just variations on soaps and solvents. Still really struggling to see a reason to
pay more for these things. And now letās compare costs. This is legitimately why these pods annoy me so much. Iām a Midwesterner, I canāt help it, and I loathe paying more for things while getting less out of them. And frankly Iām hoping that might rub off on you a little bit. I understand that pods, realistically, are not that expensive but letās compare costs anyway. These are the on-the-shelf prices at my local Walmart, youāll need to do your own comparisons for where you shop. The best price you can get here for these specific
Cascade Action Pacs is $0.27 each. A more basic product works out to $0.22. Finish products appear range from about 20 to 24 cents each. Now this hefty box of powder [thud] costs a whopping $3.87. We only need to get 20 washes out of this
to beat the best price of the packs. And how many washes do I get out of this? Well, loading the detergent like so - which has
proven to be absolutely effective for me - uses 33 grams assuming my scale is reasonably accurate. That gets me 64 washes. Funnily enough thatās just about as many
washes as you get out of a bulk tub of these things and woah thatās a pretty huge price delta! Even if I want to go with the name-brand detergent here, at this store that works out to less than $0.10 per load, making it half the cost of the most basic brand name pack at the best bulk price. Now, does a savings of $0.10 a day make a
meaningful impact to the average personās budget? I wouldnāt say so. Is it worth $0.10 a day for the convenience of the pack? Even I would say that, so long as they work for you, sure. But I do think itās worth considering that
if you use your dishwasher daily, you could be spending $2/month on detergent instead
of perhaps $10 for a super-duper pack. That $8 could pay for one of them streaming services or something. As it turns out, in this store the cheapest
option on a per-ounce basis is actually the Great Value Gel. But, I feel like youāre gonna need to use
more of this to get the same performance as the powder. A lot of what youāre paying for here is just water. A powder will always be more concentrated
because you add the water yourself. Thereās also the fact that, if youāre
concerned about packaging waste, this is a large plastic jug. Powders come in a paperboard box with a little
metal spout, probably the most sustainable option out there. And packs are just as bad if not worse than
gels since larger quantities come in big olā tub things. Packaging aside, though, letās talk about gels. It turns out gels are probably the worst-performing option available. Why? Well, these two Cascade products reveal their weakness. Notice that thereās a qualifying asterisk
after "2X the cleaning power" on the bottle of Cascade Complete. That leads us to āon starch and protein soils.ā Thatās those lovely enzymes modern detergents have. But now notice that the Cascade Original
(what the 2X compares to) warns us that dangerous fumes are produced when mixed with other products. Thatās because thereās bleach in this. Real bleach - Sodium Hypochlorite. Thereās also sodium hydroxide in here, not gonna lye. Why isnāt that warning on the bottle of Cascade Complete? Because bleach and enzymes donāt like to
hang around each other in a liquid suspension. If not separated the bleach will destroy the
enzymes, so with gels you have to choose one or the other. Cascade Complete foregoes the bleach for enzymes, and Cascade Original doesnāt have enzymes but does have bleach. This is something I didnāt know when I made
the video, and itās quite interesting. I had a conversation on Twitter recently and
someone mentioned that their gel detergent wasnāt removing coffee stains. I didnāt seem to have trouble with that
when using this specific Great Value gel (which has enzymes), but I have noticed a gradual buildup of deposits
on some of my cookware. I attributed that to my ridiculously hard
water but I started using powder again and at least after a few washes those deposits
haven't returned. Thatās likely no coincidence. Because powdered detergents are produced as
dryā¦ powders they can contain both enzymes and bleach. Now in this Cascade Complete itās not true
bleach, instead itās sodium carbonate peroxide also known as
sodium percarbonate also known as the stuff in OxiClean. But the point is powders, along with tabs and packs, can keep the two components molecularly separated until water gets added by your dishwasher, making the mixture of enzymes and non-chlorine bleach shelf-stable. Notably the only product here that contains actual bleach is the cascade original gel. All of the tabs and packs also feature sodium
percarbonate as their stain-fighting champion. Also notable is that apparently Cascade has
cracked this problem in gels, or it least it looks that way at a glance. They sell a Complete Oxi Gel. However the ingredients list on the P&G website doesnāt show sodium carbonate peroxide as an ingredient so maybe not? I donāt know. But literally all of the other products here
contain that ingredient. Only the gels donāt. Now I want to note that Iām not saying gels are bad. Iāve had completely satisfactory results
with both of these gels, and I think theyāre definitely easier to use than powders. Pouring powder into the dispenser requires
a fair degree of dexterity because it just spills out. But thick gel doesnāt leave the bottle ātil
ya squeeze it so you have much more control. Itās just that, compositionally, they have
that āgotta pick one: enzymes or bleachā weakness which powders and tabs donāt. But then again, they also have one more rather
huge advantage up their sleeve: I started using gels because of a design
flaw with a previous dishwasher of mine. I had to be mindful of how I loaded it because
if I put dinner plates or other large items in front of the dispenser, those would block
the door from opening fully. The top sprayer probably had a jet like you
see here designed to blast the dispenser and help dislodge detergent, but if the door only opened a smidge into some plates the door itself would block that water jet. And that happened to me more than a few times with that dishwasher. I ended up with loads where my trusty powder
had become a giant cake stuck in the dispenser and didnāt help wash anything. With gels it would at least always ooze out,
and since I would occasionally forget about this loading requirement I decided to stop
using powders with that dishwasher and kind of got into the groove of buying gels for a few years. Although one other possibility was that the
gasket on the door wasnāt sealing well, causing water intrusion during the pre-wash
which turned the powder into a clump before the dispenser even opened. After all if it had stayed dry, it should
be able to fall out through even a pretty tiny crack. So pro-tip for those out there - if you can
get to that gasket, give it a good cleaning and descaling. If you donāt have an actual gasket, do the
same for whatever mating surfaces there are. I donāt know what the exact problem was
but my new dishwasher has a sliding door which eliminates this problem, and so back to powders I go. After I go through all of this nonsense of course. The things I do for you... OK, next item of interest. I saw a few comments claiming that powder
detergents have abrasives in them that cause the water to act something like a sandblaster. Ehhhā¦ I donāt think so. I mean, it all dissolves in water. You can just test that. Some little granules might stay behind but
if you rub them between your fingers they just disintegrate. And I donāt see anything in the ingredients list thatās not water-soluable. Some other comments were claiming something
to the effect of āpowder detergents destroy dishwashers!ā and,
well, I donāt know what you base that on. Especially since these packs are just powder in a pouch. Maybe itās a little bit more concentrated
but itās basically the same stuff. Honestly of these products the only one that
Iād be concerned with harming my dishwasher is the one with bleach and lye in it, but even then I trust itās fine. Youāre mixing a couple spoonfuls of detergent
with several liters of water. And now, Rinse Aids! What are they and what are they for? Rinse aid is really quite simple - itās just
a concentrated mild surfactant with the sole purpose of reducing the surface tension of
water so that it doesnāt bead up on items and instead sheets off them in a film. This reduces water spots on your stuff, especially
when you have hard water, and also just makes drying easier because less water stays on your stuff. Now some detergent products claim to have
a rinse-aid, though youāll notice all these are still trying to get you to buy some. And actually, theyāre right. Your dishwasher was designed by smart people
and the rinse aid part is quite clever. Generally as part of your detergent dispenser,
thereās a place to put rinse aid. At the very end of the cycle, after itās
drained the soapy wash water away and filled up with clean water to rinse, the dispenser
will squirt out a few milliliters of this stuff. That has to happen at the very end after the
detergent has been drained away, which is why detergents which claim to also have rinse aids are silly. Rinse aid is cheap and lasts a long time - you also donāt have to fill it up with every wash; there will be some sort of window or indicator to show you when you need to add more. So Iād recommend using some, but also absolutely just get the store brand. This is a hilariously simple product. And now, maintenance! You heard my thoughts about dishwashers with
filters in the last video. Those thoughts were; eww. But if you have them, you need to clean them
at least periodically. Sorry. Regardless of if you have filters or not, your dishwasher itself could do with occasional cleaning. Gunk builds up over time, itās just a fact of life, so periodic cleaning cycles can do some good. That gunk mostly builds up in the sump where
you canāt see it, and this could be making your dishwasher perform less effectively. If youāve never run a cleaner product through
it, by gosh go do that now. There are many dishwasher cleaner products out there. Iām personally a fan of this one. Donāt know if other brands are available,
but I like it because itās clever. Thereās a wax plug which melts at high temperatures. All you need to do is put this upside down
in the silverware basket and run the dishwasher empty with the high-temp wash selected if
you have that option. The bottle will hold onto the cleaner until
the wash water is hot enough to melt the wax, ensuring it doesnāt get released until the long wash cycle. And because itās so large, you get a lot
of cleaning action, at least in my experience. All this is is really concentrated citric acid, and so you could just buy some citric acid powder and do this manually if you wanted. But it works really well, especially at descaling everything. Now about the salty Europeans. Itās apparently very common for your dishwashers
to have what are essentially built-in water softeners. And frankly, thatās really neat and Iām jealous of that. Those dishwashers have a compartment for coarse
salt which they use to make a brine solution and recharge the ion-exchange resin in their itty-bitty water softeners. That makes detergents work much more effectively, and reportedly many of you neglect to refill this. This has resulted in European versions of
me who are just as fanatical about keeping the salt full as I am about using pre-wash detergent. Look, we both really just want you to have
well-functioning dishwashers and the first step to that goal is following the dang instructions. Many of us in the States have water softeners
for our entire homes but many of us also donāt, in fact Google
tells me itās only a quarter of us that actually do. So most of us, including me, just cope with whatever water
we have, and in the case of dishwashers that means a lot of us need to use more detergent than we might otherwise. There might be a few dishwasher models available
in the US market with built-in softeners, my moneyās on them being Bosch models, but theyāre absolutely the exception and not the norm. I have never, ever encountered one and I donāt
think dishwasher salt is a thing Iāve ever seen sold in a store. OK, now that Iāve covered everything that
Iād call informational, itās time for the video to get a little moreā¦ salty. Iām gonna try to not go overboard here and Iāve been working and reworking this script for weeks to hopefully keep myself in check. Hereās the first thing I want to address - dishwashers absolutely, positively, honest-to-god save time, energy, and water compared to hand washing yet a shocking number of people out there are obstinately against these conclusions. Quick acknowledgement - I know that dishwashers
are a luxury and that plenty of you donāt have one in the first place, and if youāve made it this far into the video you deserve a cookie, but this criticism isnāt directed at you. This is directed at the people who have a
dishwasher but smugly refuse to use it for some reason, and there are apparently a ton of you lot out there. Regarding water use - I showed you how little
water they use by draining it into a tub. This is literally it. But I found a comment thread where dozens
of people were skeptical about the 4.2 gallons / 16 liters figure I came to. Look, I - this person - weighed this thing and then subtracted the weight of the empty tub. Then I divided that figure by the number of pounds in a gallon of water. Then I did conversions so the rest of you would understand me. I didnāt just pull that number out of thin air, it was a real-world example from a real-world dishwasher, and one that did a just-fine job washing dishes for me. That is until its brain box started going
bad giving me the perfect excuse to cut a hole in it. Look up how much water any reasonably modern
dishwasher uses in a standard cycle and itās going to be very close to that figure. And the thing is that is a constant! You can load the thing up with 8 place settings,
some cookware, cutting boards, and whatever else will still fit and the same 16 liters
of water will take care of cleaning all of it. Larger loads donāt take any more time or
water, which cannot be said for manually washing. Now the time part. A frankly astonishing number of people are
bothered by how long it takes the machine to wash dishes. Many people have proudly claimed they can
hand wash faster than their dishwashers. Well of course you can, in fact I bet I could too, but (and Iām sorry I canāt avoid overt snark here) guess what Iām not doing while my dishwasher washes dishes? You guessed it! Washing dishes! Yes it takes the machine a longer period of
time but I am not making that time investment. While itās washing dishes I could be writing
a script for YouTube or reading a book or playing a game or watching a movie or literally any activity at all. Itās not like the only thing you can do with that time is pace a rut in the floor waiting until you see your precious dishes again. Now, I donāt know who leaves those comments
or what your motivations for doing so are. Iām not in your heads. But I just want to make abundantly clear that
machine-time is not human-time and youāre not doing yourself any favors by equating the two, John Henry. In fact I know you donāt for other things. Are you still going to the river to hand-wash your laundry or have you given that task over to a machine? I bet youāre letting the machine do it. And just as is the case for my laundry routine, the longest part of my washing up routine is putting clean dishes away. I spend literally zero cleaning effort beyond
pouring detergent and pushing a button. Why so many of you seem to take pride in hand-washing dishes when time-saving (and water-saving!) machines are at your disposal is entirely beyond me. And Iām a Midwesterner! Iām no stranger to principled suffering. But this aināt it, chief. Is that still cool to say? And the last thing - even if you live alone or donāt generate large volumes of dirty dishes in a given day, Iād strongly argue the dishwasher is still your friend. I donāt run mine every day, I just put dirty
dishes in it as they accumulate. Then when itās full I run it. Iāve never had an issue with dried-on food
(probably because of that magical pre-wash detergent I've been raving about) and if youāre living by yourself with only one or two place settings - wow I think you owe it to yourself to correct that. Plus you can clean most of your cookware in it, too! If you have a working dishwasher, stop wasting your time and energy. There are plenty of more fun ways to do that. And now, allow me to address a common criticism
of the original video. Some people complained that I only showed the incomplete results of the first 15 minutes of washing and didnāt compare end-results. After all, if the detergent pack managed to
perform as well as my cheap gel in the end, does the pre-wash even matter? Isnāt the end result all we care about? I suppose that could be argued, but the central basis of my entire argument was and is that the pre-wash water fill handles your dishes at their most soiled, and so using water alone at this point isā¦ silly. I was surprised, frankly, at how well water
stood on its own in this task, and I even said that in the video. But my intent was to compare the cleanliness
of the machine and dishes at the starting point of the main wash. I wanted to show what the pre-wash detergent itself did, especially because there are just so many other variables to contend with. So I stopped it there, and that was intentional. If youāre still skeptical about my point
that detergent packs go against the way most dishwashers are designed to function, well first of all donāt just take my word for it - look through some of the comments on the original video! A lot of people have seen a drastic improvement. But even better - just see for yourself! The next time you use your dishwasher, observe how it operates. Listen for when it starts draining the water
- you can almost always hear that happen as a gurgling coming from your sink. Then, as itās draining, go ahead and open
it to see if the detergent dispenser is still closed. Iām betting that on a ānormalā wash
cycle it is and that it wonāt actually open until it re-fills and starts washing again. Now, some cycles like āexpressā or āecoā
might not work this way, but the bottom line is it doesnāt hurt to try some basic detergents. I really think if you give āem a fair shot, theyāll do a great job. Oh, and that leads me to answer a question many of you had. Can you use a powder or gel as a pre-wash detergent
but still use your favorite pack in the main wash? In general, yes... though I would suggest you make sure neither product has any warnings about mixing with any other products but in most cases this isnāt a problem. After all lots and lots of packs are literally just bound up,
highly-concentrated powders, sometimes with flair. However, I now would like to ask a question
about your question: why are you asking that question? It seems a large number of you thought Iām
in the pocket of Big Detergent and I wanted you to buy *more* detergent by way of
two different kinds, but no not at all! That was absolutely not where I was intending to lead you. I want you to try some of the cheapest product your
store has on offer, ideally boxed powder if you can get it, and use that for both pre-wash and the main wash. If you want to use up some pods you already
have and intend to switch away from, well great! Though I will say that I think you should
try using powder or gel products by themselves a few times to ensure that they will work for you. Iām pretty confident they will so long as
you follow the path of the pre-wash, but there are never guarantees. And if you still need to use pods for whatever reason, such as their accessibility benefits or the simple fact that theyāre all you can find, I suggest you try the cheapest pods your store has on offer. Go with the Kroger brand. The Great Value. The Smartly. The Essential Everyday. The Kirkland Signature. The Whatever the heck your store calls it. Throw one of them directly into the tub and put the other in the dispenser and see what sort of results you get. And if youāre having fine results using just one pod- Great! Iām not gonna stop you. If youāre happy with where youāre at,
thereās no need to change things up. Unless you want the same satisfaction I do
that comes from great results with the cheapest store-brand option. I just love that. It feels like sticking it to the man. Iād be way less annoyed with packs as a
concept if they came in two-part tubs with two different packs - a big one for the dispenser
and a little one to be thrown into the tub. Or they could even be little tear-off baby
packs attached to the main one. Itās really not the concept of a pack that annoys me (though I myself would still choose to avoid them because, again, value-obsessed midwesterner). Itās that a single introduction of detergent
doesn't make sense, and honestly Iām willing to bet that there has been a drastic increase in overall detergent chemical usage thanks to their need to overcompensate for the soapless pre-wash. Again, use detergent properly and you really donāt need a whole lot. Oh, and one last thing, if your preference
of packs comes from the fact that theyāre, quote unquote āless messyā¦ā I would like to remind you that this is soap. If you spill some powder and it ends up outside
the dispenser cup, so what? Itāll just end up in the first rinse and become part of your pre-wash detergent. A bit of soap that gets spilled on the insides of a machine which washes itself is a very silly thing to be worried about. At least, to my ears. I get it, itās harder to use, but messy? Cāmon. Itās soap. OK. I think thatās everything. Bottom line, if youāre happy with your dishwasher
- clap your hands. And keep doing what youāre doing with it. But detergents aren't magic, almost all the same
chemicals in here are in there, and being able to change how much you use is, to me, a good thing. And I do think itās interesting that basically
the entire dishwasher detergent market has evolved to a place where you canāt see how
far you can stretch your detergent anymore. Actually itās kind of the entire detergent market, really. Did you know you can get powdered laundry soap? Yeah, maybe Iāll have to go on a tirade about that some dayā¦ ā« sufficiently smooth jazz ā« Over the winter I made a video about how dishwashers
work and explained how they just pump up withā¦ MMMMH It then refills itself with clean water. If it didn't have some way to hold the detergent
back until that second fill it would it all be gone in the first ten or fifteen minutes but
you see deter... Yep! I need to move the teleprompter faster. [reading the script quickly but you can barely
hear him because heās not by the mic] Riveting ...help get those oils, etc, out quickly. Ann this is why many dishwashers have not
one but two places you are supposed to put detergent. Because of that these pre-dosed detergent
packs which bypass the pre-wash step annoy me and itās my pet theory that theyāve
led to dishwater shissatisfdumbledefufy FAH! That was too much detergent for the wash water
to effectively be rinsed away at the end of the cycle. Thatās not what the words wereā¦ Cascade Action Platinum Packs (?) Whether initialā¦. nnnmmAGGH Is that these are all just marketing ploys
hoping to convince you to buy the product. Donāt expect untretchedā¦ Thaā¦ thaā¦ thatā¦ thatā¦ this eh... that... tha... tha... [this nonsense continues for some time.] Probably could have washed a bowl or something by now The best price you can getā¦ oh thatās turned around. Thatās right. WASHING DISHES! There's a word I didn't use in the script to describe detergent pods. In fact I edited the script down in two places because I didn't want to enrage our corporate detergent overlords. I just... you know when you need to get a printed photo into a computer you use a scanner? You get something called a scan? Just thought that's an interesting bit of trivia.
I gave up on my dishwasher like, three years ago because every dish was covered in that weird white powdery residue. After months of experimenting nothing I did seemed to work; different detergents, detergent paks, 'better' brands of detergent, 'better' brands of rinse aid, water softeners, nothing. It meant I basically had to hand-wash my dishes afterwards anyway so I just stopped using it entirely.
As-per ~8:00, I'm now putting on a load with a half-full detergent cup. If it turns out my problem was caused by carefully following the instructions, I'm gonna be so pissed.
EDIT: Well motherfuck
In the age of rampant misinformation, this man really followed up on advice he gave that caused minor inconvenience to some peopleā¦ with a video twice its length to clear things up.
Not the hero we deserve, but the hero we need.
Who else still rinses their dishes in the sink before loading the dishwasher? I do because it is a thousand times easier to clean the sink strainer than it is to clean the equivalent strainer in the dishwasher. And for what ever reason, the dishwasher one always seems to be grimier.
Also, Alec, you didn't mention my special snowflake unique to me situation. I am on a septic system. I've been advised by my septic installer and septic maintainer that I should not use powders in my dishwasher or clothes washer. They've said the powders contain anti-clumping agents which can accumulate and clog some parts of the septic. I don't know how much of this advice is based on 50 year old knowledge, maybe powders/septic systems have improved since then and this is no longer relevant. Based on the demo you did at dissolving the powder it seems like that powder didn't have anything which wasn't water soluble, but it is possible other powders could still perform worse here.
Thank you so much for the follow up. I was literally loading my dishwasher while listening to this video.
I loved the rant about store brands vs the big name brands. So much of everything is marketing, even down to the colors added to the detergent as you mentioned. I personally almost exclusively use store brands in just about every product I buy and I don't find that it's in any way inferior to the major companies.
I'd love to see you tackle laundry detergent. So much of that is based on fuzzy science, downright lies when it comes to dosages. Back when my daughter was born we used to have great success with Sears's store brand "Ultra Plus" powdered laundry detergent. It sure worked well on cloth diapers, let me tell ya. Nowadays all you can find in powder tends to be Tide and some Mexican brands like Foca and Roma.
Also, it's not just midwesterners who are super frugal. Us New England Yankees have that reputation as well, although that really only applies to those of us in the more rural areas and advertising has been chipping away at the frugality aspect of our culture for generations now.
I had a roommate that would always completely fill both dispensers with powder, and with medium hardness water it would leave a lot of soap residue. I ended up buying the cheapest dishwasher pods at Costco, which were the Finish ones, and it solved the problem of him using too much detergent.
He has since moved out, but I still have a bunch of pods left, and I missed having pre-rinse soap, but I found the cherry on top is a convenient piece to pop off and use for pre-rinse.
I also occasionally clean the dishwasher out with citric acid, but if you are making any attempt to be frugal and not generate a bunch of plastic waste, it's usually under $10/lb for pure citric acid, and it only takes a a fraction of an ounce.
Another note on frugality: Costco sometimes only carries name brands for a given type of product, and even though it's the cheapest you can get that name brand, it's often more expensive than going to a grocery store and getting the store brand.
I for one would love to see whether the same can be said about laundry detergent, I didnāt even realize powder for that was a thing.
"Path of the Prewash" sounds like a great name for a cult. Let's do it
This is barely even tangentially related but I don't know the proper place to ask
Would you consider doing a video on motor oil change intervals? I started working at a garage a few months ago and I'm shocked how many people still follow the "3000 miles/3 months, whatever comes first" rule for oil changes that has been outdated for 20-30+ years.
Modern synthetic oils, which is usually the default oil used in modern cars, typically have drain intervals between 8,000-10,000 miles/1 year. AMSoil even recommends 25,000 miles/700 engine hours/1 year between oil changes in some cases. Modern cars are also equipped with oil life monitors that use real time data from the oil and the engine to determine if your oil needs to be replaced, but these seem to be generally ignored/not trusted.
This is an issue not only because it's a massive waste of money for the consumer, but creates a lot of unnecessary pollution due to having to create and dispose of oil when it wasn't necessary to be changed in the first place.
I think you could make it into a very interesting video, although I'm not sure if it's really 'on brand'.
How is this even tangentially related? uhhh the title made me think "you're using too much oil", uhhhhhh motor oil has detergent in it
My dishwasher is very old. I canāt remember the brand off the top of my head but Iāll post it when I get home. When I run it on the normal setting, it will run for over 2 hours, draining into the sink 5 or so times. When run it on the 1-hr setting it will only drain twice. Once after about 15 minutes and once at the end. These videos make me wonder what the heck is going on in my dishwasher as why it drains so many times.
Edit: Itās a Whirlpool. I havenāt cleaned it since I started renting the place so Iāll do some observing when I clean it this weekend.