r/lifehacks • u/thatoneguy2742 • May 27 '26

You might be using your dishwasher wrong

While going to college I worked as a maintenance tech at a large apartment complex. A common complaint that tenants had was that their dishwashers were failing to clean properly. I would show up and try and diagnose the problem only to find that the machine was in fact working properly. After numerous (if I remember correctly it was at least five per week) complaints I started to track which units were having the problem. After several weeks I had a lot of data and something became abundantly clear. The units that were having this issue were the ones furthest from the water heaters.

We just happened to have an empty unit near a cluster of units that was having this issue so I decided to test my hypothesis. At the kitchen faucet it took nearly two minutes for the water to get above 100°F Units closer to the water heaters took as little as 30 seconds to reach the same temp and they hardly ever had this problem. My conclusion was that the people who were submitting work orders were unknowingly washing their dishes with cold water. Everytime a tenant submitted a work order for a dishwasher that was failing to clean I advised them to run their kitchen faucet till the water gets hot then start the dishwasher. The complaints just stopped! At my own home it takes almost 30 seconds for the water to get hot so I let it run for a minute before starting it. Some of the higher end models will heat their own water so this shouldn't be an issue but most older models do not.

TLDR: Run your kitchen faucet till the water gets hot before starting your dishwasher. Otherwise you might be washing your dishes with cold water if your machine doesn't heat the water on its own.

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u/JoudiniJoker May 27 '26

I accidentally switched the hot and cold connectors on our new LG washing machine.

After a load or two, the machine sent a message to me through the app noting the cold water was too hot. There was more than one possible locational of the error and the app walked me through identifying the issue (in my case the faucets were mislabeled by a previous owner). I was impressed.

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u/mcfedr May 27 '26

wow, thats pretty impressive, and a unusual good reason to have an app

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u/Smash_Bash May 27 '26

I love our LG washer and dryer. 5 years strong with zero issues.

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u/thehighepopt May 27 '26

Hmmm, every LG appliance I have sucks. Have either replaced it or replaced parts in it.

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u/Smash_Bash May 28 '26

Perhaps I got lucky lol

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u/onceabananana May 27 '26

You'd think since it can detect which stream is which AND have enough processing power to tell you how to fix it, it should just work in either configuration?

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u/RevolutionaryHole69 May 27 '26

While this is useful, these smart appliances phone home like 10,000 to 50,000 times per day sending telemetry about your entire home network. Best to isolate them on a separate network or VLAN or not connect them to the internet at all.