Do some dishwashers need pre-rinsing and others don't?

16 years ago

I am a total novice when it comes to dishwashers. Our house came with a very old one which broke about eight years ago. All this time we have been "about to remodel" (can anyone relate?) and never bought a new dishwasher.

I have been reading about the various features and one thing that I am confused about is whether a pre-rinsing is still necessary for most of the new models or not. Also, does it depend on anything else besides the dishwasher itself (like the hard/soft water etc.)

My hope is we (including our school-age children) can just scrape the food from our plates and put them right into the dishwasher and run it each night. That would really help with keeping the sink empty. I don't mind pre-rinsing the pots and pans.

Does anyone have a similar routine, which brand do you have and do you find that you can do without pre-rinsing?

thanks

annab6

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Comments (6)

gizmonike
16 years ago
New dishwashers do not need pre-rinsing, but you do need to scrape. I think enzyme dishwasher detergents do the best job.

We now have Miele (Excella) and think it is the best dishwasher we've ever owned. We have also had KitchenAid (good), JennAir/Maytag (needed much repair), and Whirlpool (OK).
leel
16 years ago
I've never rinsed dishes before putting them in my DW, and I've had 3 or 4 different makes. If I wanted to do that, I wouldn't have a DW! The dishes come out spotless and, by the way, the heated dry is turned off; just the remaining heat in the DW air dries them. In addition, this month's Consumers has done a report on DWs, and they make a point of the fact that a) prerinsing is not necessary and b) is a tremendous waste of water.
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cpovey
16 years ago
Ditto what the others say: No pre-rinse, but you need to scrape/wipe off the chunks, and use enzyme detergents, and you should be good to go.
nancylouise5me
16 years ago
We have a Bosch and don't pre-rinse anything, just scrape out the chunks. As stated by another poster I have never pre-rinsed with any of our dw. I don't use the heated drying either. Big waste of energy. NancyLouise
mls99
16 years ago
Me too. I'm very happy with our Bosch. No pre-rinsing required. Two things you might want to consider: quietness of dishwasher (if you're running it at night) and speed of cycle (if you ever want to run it during the day).
ctbosox
16 years ago
no pre-rinse here either, just started using the air dry option, last two loads seem fine, off subject I guess, but it sure seems dish washers take a long time to run a cycle, I run a normal cycle, air dryed and it took at least an hour and half to get to finished light. when I used the heat dry seemed to take all night to finish.

Do some dishwashers need pre-rinsing and others don't?

Comments (6)

gizmonike

leel

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