I’m always baffled about people looking at things like this compartment and don’t think it has any kind of significance whatsoever.
Like do they think it’s just put there fore giggles? How uninterested in the world around you can you be?
It drives me nuts when i encounter people like this.
Not quite fair, since once you know it’s a compartment it’s obvious that it’s for something, but with all the sensors and access panels appliances have that are not user serviceable it’s not that surprising that there could be a plastic panel in the door of your dishwasher that appeared to do nothing.
Really the only thing that might raise an eyebrow is that it is in a door that gets wet so limiting extra things like that would be good, but perfectly reasonable to assume it was for some type of sensor if you didn’t notice the little latch for the door.
There’s a little protrusion in the base to check the height of the water, have you ever closely examined that to see if it says ‘put bleach in here’ or something?
but the door usually snaps and stays open after wasching, so it’s clear that you cand put something in there
My 15 year old dishwasher has a hanging basket for tablets… It also has your standard drawer for tablets / powders / liquids.
The impression it’s given me is, you do you; I’ll spin the hot water and give it my best.
Wait until he discovers that you can clean the filters at the bottom and get things even cleaner.
We had a new washing machine that for the first two washes smelled really bad and made a screeching noise as well. Just before sending it back I noticed that we forgot to remove the styrofoam around the drum…
My parents insist that it works the same either way despite me explaining that there is a pretty wash rinse. But because they put the powder or tablet in while the little compartment is still wet, the detergent occasionally doesn’t release properly.
So pretty
My wife refuses to load the dishwasher because to her she “doesn’t do it right” or “don’t want to fight with it”
So I get OP.
I’ve had to teach people how to mop a floor, and how you should sweep first, it’s just deer in headlights when explaining it. People just don’t go outta their lane to learn new things or fix things that don’t work right.
I wash by hand. Please convince me to use a dishwasher?
Meanwhile, I know people that should just not use a dishwasher bcz they can’t load it properly. Honestly, dishwashers are bloody useless. Washing by hand is faster and cheaper.
The trick to having the dishwasher work is to run the tap on the sink until the water is hot. Using powder or liquid dish detergent instead of those sub-optimal expensive tablets also helps, as does leaving sauces on some of the dishes or cookware (only scraping off solid chunks of food)
Even cheap dishwashers clean very well (assuming no clogged filters or mechanical faults) if you follow the above steps.
Dishwashers may not be as fast as going by hand, but the idea is that you free up time requiring active attention by using the appliance. Dishwashers also use much less water for a cycle than 99% of hand washing setups.
lol
obligatory technology connections comment
Seconded, however:
WARNING:
if you go to Technology Connections YT channel, we are not responsible
ifwhen you find yourself watching a 6 hour play list on light bulbsOr even worse, six hours of video making LED christmas lights look like the incandescent light from 30 years ago.
At least that particular quest is finally at an end
It finally ended‽
Yes, hopefully. For his own sanity. Someone finally made commercially available LED bulbs the way he was trying to DIY it.
But they were a tad pricey…
Should a cheaper alternative come along, won’t we all be curious whether it might suffice? 😇
That was already addressed in his latest video: his local home center (Menards, I think?) came out with a cheaper version (it tried to have old-timey colors, but still used colored LEDs underneath instead of white), and no, it didn’t suffice.
The series about the RCA video disc player thing is WILD. That they made that fucking thing work at all is a testament to what can be accomplished if you throw a huge sum of money and enough smart people at a problem .
I also have strong opinions about Christmas lights.
Unfortunately, they do not perfectly align with Technology Connections. We agree is almost all respects: flickering is bad, purple is not a valid Christmas color, white lights should be warm and not bluish. I just can’t agree about this one thing though, I LOVE the super saturated colors of LEDs for the red, blue, and green lights. I care much less about the saturation of the yellow and/or orange lights.
I agree with you, but my excuse is being in the southern hemisphere where Christmas lights must compete with summer evenings. The bold colours do better at early twilight
Indoors though I like the less saturated colours, and lack of options has had my tree lit with warm white only for the last decade - I get colour only where the white light plays off transparent and reflective baubles (decorations, I think they’re called in America) and tinsel
It’s all decorations, baubles specifically are ‘ornaments,’ though in the deep south you’ll sometimes hear baubles, but generally only when referencing something as frivolous and stupidly expensive, not in reference to Christmas ornaments.
When I say bauble I’m always referring to one of two things:
-
A mock scepter carried by a court jester.
-
A trifling piece of finery; a gewgaw; that which is gay and showy without real value; a cheap, showy plaything.
😉
In Australia all the ball style things you hang from the tree are definitely baubles, other hanging things are mostly still baubles, candy canes are candy canes and tree toppers are tree toppers varying between stars, angels, and anything else for the non-religious
-
being in the southern hemisphere where Christmas lights must compete with summer evenings.
That must suck. I don’t even turn on my Christmas lights until the sun’s gone.
WHY is it so hypnotic??
The subjects are interesting, the script is tight and packed with insight, and he uses the magic of buying two of them
I now say that damn phrase whenever I buy two of anything. No one gets it :(
There’s a third video now (A condensed version I think)
Nice! Thanks for that
Well now I’ve gotta see if he’s on Nebula.
Sadly no. I wish he was.
We all came here to say this ^
The most annoying thing for me is that i can’t find any powder detergent where I live which worked best in his videos, and the compartment is so poorly designed that i frequently find half the detergent pod still in the compartment after the dishes are done.
Well since nobody else is giving away the spoiler on the 6 hours of technology connections videos( didn’t know there was a third now), it’s to fill the little compartment with the dishwasher manufacturers(not the detergent bottles) recommended amount of detergent and to also add a little bit in the bottom of the dishwasher too to help that pre rinse cycle before the main cycle begins.
I love watching his videos but not everybody does. To those people, you’re welcome
Thank you. I got about 1/3 through, checked to see if it was almost over, and proceeded to close the tab.
Note that this is only true when not using eco mode, which opens the door right away so you can just chuck the tablet in like a caveman. Mine happens to work well enough in eco mode and the little door tends to get stuck on things, so that’s what I usually do.
If your (modern) dishwasher isn’t cleaning properly in eco mode, either you have very hard water, or you should clean the filter more often.
If you don’t remember when the last time you cleaned the filter is, go clean it now.
As Tech Connections points out, knowing what your water is like is crucial.
I use powdered detergent - 1 Tablespoon in the wash door, one in the prewash. This is about 1/3 of what I’m told to use.
I pretty much trust Technology Connections and their advice is to use the machine’s smart setting (or whatever it’s called on your brand) as the main job of eco is to score well on water and energy usage. Mine has “6th sense” as its second program which is the only program that does a pre-wash
Eco on my machine doesn’t dry the dishes well. We have pretty soft water
Ah, mine straight up doesn’t have a smart setting, but eco mode works for me so I’m using that, no need to waste water and electricity if it works…
obligatory Technology Connections video on dishwashers
Was gonna say, someone’s not subscribed to Dishwasher and Christmas Lights Rants.
You forgot about the heat pumps! The man LOVES his heat pumps!
They’re dope as hell. I got one on my dryer. Shit works fine and uses so much less energy.
Chest freezers
Really anything that involves a bi-metallic strip.
Anything that the budget says can be bought in pairs.
Through the magic of buying two of them…
For good reason. I don’t live in the family home anymore, but last winter when I did move back in for a while, I had approximately half as much work to do keeping the damn place warm, thanks to the heat pump. But I mean sure, I could also just buy one of those fancy newer automatic furnaces to replace the old furnace, and there’d be no work at all! Except that costs at least 5x as much as I paid for a single air to air heat pump that also makes summers bearable.
All this for a relatively modest cost in terms of electricity because yo what the hell, heat pumps are more than 100% efficient when heating. It seems like we hacked physics, honestly.
My parents have a heat pump and they hate it. It can either provide hot water or heating, but not both at the same time. If someone has just had a shower then the heating switches off for hours while it refills the hot water tank. Bullshit in winter.
How big is their accumulation tank? Or did they skimp on getting one?
Additional advice: Clean the dishwasher filter regularly.
the what?
You may want gloves for this one…
Not all of them have one, if yours does and you’re just learning about it, I’m very sorry. But you have a truly terrible job ahead of you.
Ooooooh! Do the washing machine filter next!
Assuming you don’t have a manual to read: First, start with a freshly -emptied clean dishwasher, no spills in the bottom. Wear rubber gloves if you’re easily grossed out. Pull out the bottom drawer. Look in the bottom, you see anything that looks like you could turn it 🛞, with maybe a couple arrows ▶️ ◀️ to line up? Lefty-loosey it, pull it out and take it to the sink, along with any screenlike thingamabobs that come out with it. Run warm water and use hands, sink brush, or scrunge to gently remove all the gunk. You don’t have to abuse it, you want it to last the life of the machine. Also feel in the hole, removing any gunk left behind. If the filter pieces come apart easily, do that, but put them back as they were before reinserting into the machine. Fit it back into the hole and righty-tighty to match up the arrows. Don’t over-tighten! Go rinse out your sink, dry your hands, and set a monthly notification on your phone. It’s much less gross if you do it monthly.
oh that doesn’t sound as bad as i was expecting. thank you for the explanation. i believe i have found the wheel and i will give it a go this coming weekend after i secure some gloves and prepare myself mentally for what’s to come. the reminder thing sounds like a good idea, i have a poor habit of letting some of these home maintenance things slip my mind and the new year might be a good excuse to try to do those things more routinely. we’ll see how it goes.
Even if you find a lot of gunk, remember it’s had hot soapy water washing through it every time you ran the dishwasher, killing a lot of the germs at least.
Oh no
Don’t forget about the seal ring around the washing machine door!
And the HVAC and cabin air, huge laundry list of them it seems
angry Alec noises
Technology connections would like to know your location
One of the most useful videos on YouTube that EVERYONE in the world should watch.
- The money saved. I bought a pack of tablets for 10$ a month, now its 15$ a year for the powder. That’s 6.300$ saved in a lifetime
- The amount of waste reduced since there is no individual packaging of the tablets
- The dishes are cleaner than ever
- NO downsides. It’s less work to pour some powder than it is to grab a tablet. Well at least almost no downside: It’s hard to find powder, there are like 15 different tablets in the supermarket and maybe 1 package of powder.
Still, this video improved my dishwasher-life soooo much.
A cheap liquid also works just fine.
That though his episode about can openers also has had improvements to my life
I watched the video and was not really convinced
- 5€ pack of tablets lasts about 3 months for me
- The tablets I buy don’t have a wrapper. They are covered in a clear, plastic like material that dissolve in water
- Can’t comment on this
- Tablets are zero effort compared to powder
Powder is objectively cheaper though.
- Powder is still cheaper. Just less cheap for you since you probably don’t use your dishwasher that much, but it’s cheaper
- The dissolved material is still waste material, the waste is just in the sewage and not in your bin
- I just add this point because of the formatting
- This is subjective, but I think it’s slightly less work. You either have to make sure your hands are dry to not dissolve the wrapper or you have to throw away the wrapper. Either way it’s not a lot of difference
Such a good episode! Or…entry into his YouTube series? Idk what to call it. Just “video” seems wrong.
Powder detergent is much better.
Unfortunately it’s getting hard to find at this point
It makes it really easy to add the tablespoon of detergent to the tub for the prewash as well as the needed dose for the dishes (which is really not much unless you have it loaded with greasy plates)
Technology Connections on YouTube has several relevant videos
I’m getting more and more concerned about microplastics coating the dishes afterwards: powdered detergent helps me feel better about that.
The dissolvable packets of a dishwasher detergent are very different than the forever microplastics that people are worried about. Those are designed to be durable and last while the detergent pods are made to dissolve.
That said the powder detergent is great and SO much cheaper per wash. Also you can put some in the prewash for better washing.
It’s not the microplastic people are concerned about but it’s a plastic that sticks around in the environment and bioaccumulates.
There are properties we’re good at designing plastics around like hardness, stiffness, and environmental resistance. But there are properties we’re very bad at designing plastics for decomposition, especially alongside niche other traits like water solubility
I agree that powdered is better and cheaper.
The microplastics issue is more contentious, and while many say it’s bad that it enters the water supply, I suspect the smallest of the particles do not wash away so well
What is the material coating the pods?
That makes zero sense. Powder is obviously much better, but not because of microplastics.
Target has a store brand detergent that works well. But I find it’s easier to use too much with powder. Compared to gel, It’s harder to control the pour, and if you have too much it leaves a residue.
I’ve never even heard of powdered detergent for the dishwasher. Where does it go in the machine?
the little compartment. and ideally a little just in the machine for the prewash.
as others noted: check the technology connections video(s)
Pretty much every dishwasher has a little door that opens mid cycle.
Plus a little indent for pre-wash detergent
Walmart
If that fails
Amazon, tons of brands for about the same price (yeah yeah I know, Amazon)
I get one with dried goats milk to help with smells edit- this is my laundry soap I am a silly lad sometimes, but the rest applies
I’m confused about what possible reason you could have to say “yeah yeah I know” about Amazon that doesn’t apply at least as much to Walmart.
On a related note, I would like to switch to powdered dish detergent after watching the Technology Connections video, but have stuck with liquid because Costco doesn’t carry powder.
The Bezos make the Walton’s look like good people. That’s not saying much for the Walton’s. It’s saying a lot less for the Bezos. Like grading on a curve and the class was already dogshit but then somebody else came a long and somehow scored negative points on a test.
I’m confused about what possible reason you could have to say “yeah yeah I know” about Amazon that doesn’t apply at least as much to Walmart.
Internet behaviour. Ime people hate Amazon more by default, but they’re both terrible
Yeah Walmart usually has just the one box of Cascade
The one by me (rural) and by my parents (city) both carry Great Value powder, though my local one only carries the smaller box with a pour spout and not the scoop box you can get in the city
This guy clearly doesn’t subscribe to technology connections
…or has much common sense—what did he think that thing on the door was all about.
Wait till this guy discovers he should probably use rinse aid and salt too
Edit: oh…and he’s definitely never cleaned the filter
This guy clearly doesn’t subscribe to technology connections
Guys, guys…guys…
LET’S TALK ABOUT HEAT PUMPS!!! :D
Did you know that most central heaters are over sized and inefficient?
Did you know most residential “car chargers” are just glorified extension cords?
Did you know all but one specific brand of LED Christmas lights fucking suck?
Two brands now! He did it!
