Buy Your New Dishwasher Now

A few years ago, when Obama was president, I read that new federal dishwasher standards were coming. So even though we didn’t really need a new dishwasher, ours was fairly old and so I bought a new one before the new standards would be implemented. My reason? The standards required future dishwashers to use less water, meaning that the dishes would take longer to clean and probably would be dirtier.

When Trump was president, he lightened the rules a little. But now President Biden’s Department of Energy has repealed the Trump liberalization and is imposing new standards that will require less water and less energy.

How much energy will the dishwasher rules save? Christian Britschgi of Reason writes:

The department [of energy] estimates that consumers will save $3 billion over the next 30 years, or $100 million per year, on their utility bills thanks to the rougher rules. That’s a pretty small per capita savings when spread across the 89 million dishwasher-owning households.

Yes, that is small. It amounts to $1.12 per year. And your dishes will likely take longer to wash and be dirtier.

So if you were thinking of replacing your dishwasher, now would be a good time.