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Saving Water and More

February 2nd, 2015 at 10:04 pm

As we get our house ready to sell, we are doing a few repairs around the house. One item we need to take care of is a loud noise our dishwasher makes several times during its cycle. The dishwasher still works and gets the dishes clean.

Since, I like to save money, my first instinct is to try to troubleshoot the problem myself. I found the manual today which didn't exactly point me to the fix, but provided me with some very enlightening information! The 'light wash' setting that I always use to save water actually uses MORE water than the 'normal wash' my husband tends to choose. I even get irritated with him when I notice he has chosen that setting. Now I will not because it will be saving us 4.3 gallons of water per cycle. If you like specifics, our dishwasher uses 7.6 gallons of water on the 'light wash' setting and 3.3 gallons on the 'normal wash' setting. I am shocked at the difference!

After some looking online for a remedy to our dishwasher noise problem, we have decided to try the cheapest route first. We will install a 5/8" O ring to the water inlet valve that attaches to the spray arm on the top basket. There currently isn't one there and seems to have been the fix for several people online. I'm not sure if we ever had one, but it there is a groove in the plastic indicated one should be there. If this ends up being the fix it will cost us a mere $2.

In addition to figuring out the dishwasher problem, we installed four puck lights under our kitchen cabinets. We have a pretty dark kitchen with dark wood and counter tops positioned in the northeast part of our home. While the overhead lighting is sufficient most of the time, we felt a little extra lighting would be helpful and a small selling point in some cases. The light set (for six lights) was about $35. We made quite a mess this morning to complete it, but it was well worth it! At least I will get to enjoy the lights for a short while before we move.

Do you know how many gallons each of your dishwasher settings use? Are you using the setting that uses the least amount of water? Do you have an under cabinet lighting in your kitchen?

6 Responses to “Saving Water and More”

  1. NJDebbie Says:
    1422919725

    That's good to know; I will read the manual this weekend. Thanks for sharing!

  2. FrugalTexan75 Says:
    1422921629

    I don't have a manual for mine.

  3. creditcardfree Says:
    1422921850

    @FT, if you can find the model number (usually on the side when the door is open) you might be able to find the manual online. Just do a google/swagbucks search!

  4. snafu Says:
    1422923159

    What wattage are you using in overhead kitchen lighting? Since there may be evening showings while the house is listed, you may find it beneficial to have a higher LED lighting in both kitchen and bathrms. They say those are the rooms that sell a house and I'd tag lighting as an important feature in both.

  5. creditcardfree Says:
    1422923888

    snafu, it doesn't seem dark at night in our kitchen it is during the day when there are no lights on and we are getting no sunlight from the north. The bulbs are easily 60 watt on the ceiling and there are six of them. We have traditional and flood type bulbs. No LED. All other rooms are well lit.

  6. scottish girl Says:
    1422971576

    We haven't got a dishwasher.

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