Yes, we are living in the 21st century, and we may not feel like we can relate to the Proverbs 31 woman – even though just 100 years ago, most people of modest incomes would have had a least one servant. But, praise God – we do have handmaids of a sort – and they are our electrical appliances. Every homeschool mom should thank God, and then her husband, (in that order) for supplying these wonders.
The first handmaid we will address is the dishwasher. Are you wondering how I can devote an entire post to the dishwasher? I do it because it is that important, and usually not utilized properly. I am not going to make any suggestions on how to clean your machine – because there are tons of sites out there devoted to that. What I am going to discuss is timing for efficiency, and the use for sanitary purposes.
Even though I have a dishwasher – I always have a bucket like this for adding dishes to as I’m working. Since our home has an old farm sink – I do not have the convenience of double sinks. The soaking bucket does the job, and can be stashed under the sink when not in use. This pre-soaking makes scrubbing largely unnecessary, which saves the home school family precious time.
Why then do I run those soaked dishes through the dishwasher? Aren’t they clean already? Visually they are clean – but I’m afraid they would not pass muster under a microscope.
Most people don’t know that hand washed dishes should be placed in hot bleach water, and then air dried to kill bacteria. The dishwasher eliminates the need for this – but only if done with that intent. If not done correctly – the average dishwasher is full 0f really icky invisible things.
- Make sure the water is hot enough. Run hot water in the sink first to make sure that only hot water enters the machine. It should be a scalding 140 ° for germ killing. Most water heaters are set to 120 °.
- Use a detergent with bleach. Vinegar is not as efficacious, though it has its purpose in mineral removal.
- Heated drying goes nothing towards disinfection. Air drying is fine, and will save a little money.
- If you have a garbage disposal, run it before running the dishwasher to clear the drain. The dishwasher drains into the garbage disposal – and if clogged – will actually cause dirty water to backwash into your dishwasher.
Develop a schedule for running your machine. For example – I run mine three times daily: 10:00 am, 2:30 pm, and 10:00 pm. The reason for the schedule is to prevent the pile-up. The spacing leaves plenty of time for air drying. The times were arrived at by working around the shower and laundry loads that compete for hot water. And – I put everything into the dishwasher that could possibly go – and some things that might surprise you.
- All machine safe plates, cups, pots etc.
- The filter basket, lid, and stem from the electric percolator
- Pet dishes
- Plastic and ceramic houseplant pots
- Reflector bowls and knobs from my electric stove
- Oven racks
- Plastic compartments from the refrigerators (I know they say hand wash – but I put them in)
- Toothbrushes
- My silicone pastry mat
- Microwave plate and plastic turntable
- Toaster oven rack, crumb tray, and broiler pan
- Ceramic tea pots
- Ice cube trays and buckets
About home- made dishwasher detergent – this is one area where I do believe the commercial product is superior. Borax and vinegar do kill some pathogens – but truly can not compare to plain old bleach. Additionally, for whatever reason, powdered products do not dissolve properly for me. I use generic SAM’s club dishwasher gel with bleach. Some of the big brands like Cascade carry lines with bleach, but I do fine, and very frugally with the SAM’s stuff. On top of that – your dishwasher will never have a funny smell after time, like many home makers complain of – because the odor causing bacteria are killed by the hot water and bleach.
If you try to develop your own schedule and find you don’t have enough to run a load – look for things to stick in there. This is when that sticky refrigerator compartment gets a whirl through the machine. We have two refrigerators – and I never have trouble finding something that needs cleaning. The idea is to prevent the pile-up of dishes that can be so disheartening as it seems to never stop. For instance – if you wait too long between loads – you will come to the time, even every day, where you can’t get everything in there and are stuck with dishes still in the sink. If this happens repeatedly – it means you need to adjust, and add another load time to your dishwasher schedule, so that you are never faced with that.
The Vine Vigil 
