Small Invention Hall of Fame: The Dishwasher

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The 20th century saw some amazing technological leaps that contributed greatly to societal evolution. From the computer to the motor car, the aeroplane to the life-support machine.

There can be no doubt about how much some of these inventions have changed our lives and advanced our development. However there are smaller, less lauded inventions that go under the radar of our attention, and therefore their importance is often overlooked.

Today I'd like to start a series of articles that looks at some of the products and technologies that have changed our lives for the better, but for some reason are not celebrated as much as they should be.

First up is the humble dishwasher. By no means as ubiquitous as the computer or mobile phone, however in my opinion, no less important. The dishwasher is one of the hidden stitches that holds together the fabric of society.

If you would indulge me for a couple of minutes, I'll explain my bold claims below.

A History of Servitude

Before we go any further, let us take a quick glimpse at the history of our little metal friend.

The first dishwasher as we would recognise it, was actually invented in the 19th century, in 1885 by Josephine Cochran and was operated using a hand crank.

Cochran's invention was borne out of frustration. She was a wealthy woman who could afford nice china plates and servants to wash them. However her exasperation at how her clumsy servants were always breaking her dishes, led Cochran to invent the modern dishwasher.

It took until the 1970s before they were cheap enough for the average household to afford. Arguably it took until about the 1990s before they could actually wash your dishes better than you could.

However there is very little argument now as to how effective they are. The dishwasher is here to stay!

Washing Away Arguments

So why do I believe the dishwasher should be inducted into the small inventions hall of fame? The first reason is that one of the unforeseen benefits of the dishwasher, is the social harmony it promotes.

I remember living with various friends in my late teens and early twenties, and one of the most common arguments was always about the dirty dishes in the sink. I know that I or my friends were not particularly unique in this respect. The washing up argument happens in homes all over the globe. Whether it's young adults sharing a house, or couples that move in together, the washing up is often a massive bone of contention.

All of those arguments evaporate in the face of a new dishwasher. Sure you can argue about it being filled or emptied, however these aren't real conflicts, nobody can be that resentful about putting away dishes that have been cleaned by methods other than their own hand.

Thus I would say that the dishwasher is the biggest and best tool that marriage guidance never knew it had.

You may leave your spouse for many reasons, however with a dishwasher, not doing the dishes will not be one of those reasons.

Giving Back Time

If you tot up the amount of hours you spend doing mundane, yet necessary tasks, you end up with a lot of hours. From brushing your teeth to hoovering the carpet, these tasks are boring yet important enough not to neglect.

Washing dishes is just such one of these mundane activities which you no longer have to do if you have a dishwasher.

Would Larry Page have had the time to invent Google if he didn't have a machine to do his dishes?

I very much doubt it.

Or what about the team that pioneered keyhole surgery; do you think they could have done that with a sink pilled high with plates bearing the previous night's lasagne?

Of course not!

Lest us not we forget how tidy the dishwasher keeps our kitchens. Before their arrival the kitchen only looked tidy once we had washed and cleared away the dishes. Now though, we simply have to stuff them in the machine after a dinner party and voila! The place looks like nothing has happened at all.

Thanks

So my first nomination to go into the Small Inventions Hall of Fame, is the dishwasher, for services to humanity. It has healed broken relationships, and allowed our greatest minds the time to invent and develop the bigger things.

Dishwasher, I thank you.

DO YOU HAVE A DISHWASHER, DO YOU CHERISH IT LIKE A MEMBER OF YOUR FAMILY? WHAT SMALL INVENTIONS WOULD YOU PUT INTO THE 'HALL OF FAME' AND WHY? OR MAYBE THERE IS A SMALL INVENTION THAT NEEDS TO BE INVENTED SO IT CAN BE INDUCTED INTO THE HALL OF FAME?

AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!

Cryptogee


Meet me at SteemFest 2018 in Kraków

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Well, @cryptogee you share a compelling argument about the dishwasher but I want to share why I do not like it. First, I do live off grid and one gets to see how much energy is being used. You have the issue of heating water to wash because cold water does not wash the dishes well and of course, one can turn off the drying/ heating cycle but how many really do? True, a kitchen looks clean and tidy when dishes are done or out of the way. When you are a single person one could stock pile dishes for 3-7 days before turning the dishwasher on. My partner does the dishes as one of his inside chores. I tidy the dishes up and he does the dishes once a day. So when multiple people share a kitchen all one has to do is rinse the dishes and stack them nicely away until a person washes the dishes at night. A schedule for doing dishes is an easy remedy as to whose turn it is. The only time I am truly grateful for a dishwasher is when there is company and tons of dishes. Otherwise, I believe the dishwasher is a waste of energy and space. With that said I still upvoted and resteemed. Thanks for also sharing the history about the dishwasher. Good job!

It's a lot of work filling and emptying a domestic dishwasher. I'm wondering why the industrial models aren't more popular in ordinary homes, where one can load a full tray of dishwash, and then move a full tray of clean cups into the shelves.

Oh well, those trays typically used in the canteens etc are big and bulky - but I'm sure it should be possible to make trays more suitable for domestic usage. I can't understand why IKEA hasn't come up with such a concept yet ... a small dishwasher taking small trays, and cupboards specially made for stacking such trays.

Not only that one would be able to unload the machine in few seconds, but the risk of breaking something while unloading would also be reduced.

I don't see it as work, I see it as communing with my favourite machine. It does all the hard work, the least I can do is take my time emptying and cleaning it :-)

Cg

I believe that it even saves water in the long run but I suppose that all depends on how one manually washes them. I would say you are right, it is a handy device!

I'd say the washing machine is a lot more important than the dishwasher!

I'm washing dishes by hand in the boat, and yes ... it is a lot of work indeed as the dishes have to be dried up with a towel before they are put in place. If doing the dishes at once and having a good and big enough place where they can dry in the air, it's not that much time saved by using a dishwasher actually. But yeah, I agree very much that the dishwasher has an important function not only in washing dishes but also in storing dirty dishes out of the view.

And I would like to add, conflicts appear even with a dishwasher ...

  • With only one dishwasher it's important to empty it relatively quickly after it has been cleaned up. In the office we got two machines now, so that there would be no "queuing" of dishes while the machine is washing or waiting to be emptied. Did that end the conflicts? No, of course every now and then someone is sending angry emails to all complaining on those bastards that doesn't start the machine when it's full, doesn't empty the machine when it's clean, and leaving the coffee cup in the sink instead of in the machine.
  • In my youth, the rules for where things should be in the kitchen was stored in the head of my mother, and if I didn't follow those rules she would complain. Twenty years forward, and the rules are stored in the head of my wife, and she will complain if I don't follow them.
  • Really dirty things won't get clean in the machine. One "solution" may be to fill up that pot with water and leave it in the sink ... and hope that it magically gets clean. And ... oups, even if we have a dishwasher, suddenly the sink is all full with dishes.
  • When my wife is "cleaning" the dining table, it's for some reasons easier to put the dishes on the kitchen bench right above the machine than to actually open the machine and put things into it. I'm actually getting angry, after all it's usually me using that kitchen bench for producing lunch boxes the next day - and with only one metre between the dining table and the dishwasher I think it is equally much work to load things from the dining table into the dishwasher as from the kitchen bench into the dishwasher. In the end, when the dishwasher finally gets loaded and started, we find that only half of all the mess fits into it.
  • My wife also have strong opinions on how the machine should be loaded. The small plates goes in the bottom together with the big plates, while the small bowls goes to the top, etc, I'm receiving a fair amount of complaints every time I forget.
  • Some things shouldn't be washed in the dishwasher. Since we have no routines on dishwashing by hand, they can often stand for weeks without anyone bothering to deal with it.
  • At the other hand, both my wife and visitors sometimes do wash things by hand that could have been put into the dishwasher. That's also annoying me. If things would have been dried with a towel and put back in place ... well, that wouldn't be so bad (at least it would save me the time when emptying the clean machine). The thing is, we don't really have any proper place to put clean wet dishes, so they end up by the sink. From my perspective, it's much better to have dirty dishes hidden in the dishwasher than to have clean but wet dishes messing up that surface. Typically, nobody puts those clean things in place, and after a while nobody knows if it's clean or dirty. Since those things are located right by the sink, they will most likely get dirty before someone cleans them away.
  • Be a bit careless when loading or unloading the machine, and ... whops, it's easy to break a glass or a plate, or break off just a tiny piece. Yet another reason for my wife to be angry at me.

So, plenty of room for conflicts, I'm afraid :-)

To listen to the audio version of this article click on the play image.

Brought to you by @tts. If you find it useful please consider upvoting this reply.

I love the dish washer... It's my favorite appliance. Funny thing , I'm moving to South America so I can continue my crypto journey, and down there no one seems to have one.

I of course, will do whatever I can to secure one of these wonderful machines.

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