"Tim Watts" wrote in message
...
On 15/05/10 17:29, Lou wrote:
"Tim wrote in message
...
On 15/05/10 16:07, Bill wrote:
Transition from "American Dream" living to "3rd world country" living.

Do dishes by hand.

That often consumes more water with today's efficient dishwashers.

That's true. According to the user manual for my dishwasher, the most
efficient cycle uses less than 6 gallons of water to do a full load.

However, for the cost of the dishwasher, it's possible to buy enough
water
to float a boat. In my municipality, the water department calculated
that
filling my pool (approximately 20,000 gallons) cost about $20. So the
price
of a lower end dishwasher costing around $300 would buy around 300,000
gallons of water at that price, which is enough water to wash an awful
lot
of dishes.

I get an infinite amount of water (well, restricted by the 1/2" main
pipe which limits to about 55 litres/min) for my money. Though others
round here are on meters, I've so far escaped.

But then there's the cost of heating the additional water
washing by hand would use over what the dishwasher uses.

Yeah - the heating costs are the significant part by far. And a
dishwasher uses electric heating, whereas hot water may be heated by
gas, solar, wood etc.

On the other hand, you may be heating a lot less water, and so may end up
paying less when all is said and done. Incidentally, my water, which
includes the water used by the dishwasher, is heated by gas.


Still, it's no contest as far as I'm concerned - a dishwasher is far
more
convenient than washing dishes by hand, and is a home appliance I
wouldn't
want to be without.

Me too. But if you tried washing by hand (I did when on holiday in
Latvia - washed my clothes in the river!), you may find that the washing
machine *is* the machine you cannot live without ;-

Last time I did a costs analysis in England, food was the biggest bill
(family of 4), electric only heating in winter (rebuilding a house, so
lack of insulation and no gas heating yet). But the 2nd biggest cost
after food was actually Council Tax (pays for the police to harrass me,
that sort of thing). And there's nothing I can do about that other than
sell and buy a smaller house, or a house in a different area...

For me, the biggest monthly bill is the mortgage. But that's only the
biggest one I write a check for. Federal taxes - income and social
security - are bigger yet. Local property taxes (I guess that's more or
less the equivalent of your Concil Tax) come in third.