Dish It Out
Cleaner, greener dishwashers scrub up nicely.
Adishwasher not only makes light work of your after-dinner clean-up, it uses a fraction of the water required to wash your plates and pots in the kitchen sink. And the past decade has seen significant improvements in their water- and energy-efficiency. “The new Adora dishwashers from V-ZUG use as little as seven litres per wash and 111kWh of electricity,” says Rob Sinclair, joint managing director of kitchen, bathroom and laundry retailer E&S. To put that in perspective, an average sink wash requires 30 litres of water and, in the 1990s, dishwashers used between 30 and 50 litres per cycle, plus 400-500kWh of energy.
What makes the six-star V-ZUG dishwasher ultra-efficient is its use of steam as a crucial part of the wash cycle, significantly lowering the amount of water needed, coupled with its world-first heat-pump technology, which enables it to use 50 per cent less power than conventional models.
Sam Zalin, head of buying and marketing at Winning Appliances, agrees that steam is an interesting area to watch, and not only for water efficiency. “Steam leaves a better finish on your plastics and glass,” he says.
Other developments include AquaSensor technology (from Bosch and Siemens), which uses light beams to detect how dirty your dishes are and precisely how much water the dishwasher will need to dispense to
‘RECYCLABILITY IS AN INTERESTING ASPECT… MANY MAJOR EUROPEAN BRANDS CAN BOAST THAT 100 PER CENT OF THE MATERIALS IN THEIR DISHWASHERS ARE RECYCLABLE AT THE END OF THEIR USEFULNESS.’ ROB SINCLAIR , E&S
clean them. Miele’s patented AutoOpen feature sees the dishwasher open its door at the cycle’s end, saving the power usually required to dry a load.
There have also been broader improvements that the majority of brands have embraced. “Spray arms are now engineered for better control and output,” says Sinclair. “Flow-through heating elements have improved and eco cycles are offered as a matter of course now there’s broad acceptance that a 45- or 55-degree wash does as good a job as a 65- or 75-degree wash.”
Energy efficiency is already good, especially among the premium European brands, but Zalin says that soon we can expect to see even mass-market dishwashers with a WELS rating of five stars or more.
According to Sinclair, recyclability is another interesting environmental aspect. “Many major European brands can boast that 100 per cent of materials in their dishwashers are recyclable at the end of their usefulness,” he says. “On top of this, some companies are striving for carbon-neutral manufacturing and are on the way to achieving it.”