The dishwasher was designed to make all of our lives easier, but the reality is that it sometimes does the exact opposite. Dishes come out dirty or wet. The filter gets gunked up. The seals leak. It can all become a bit of a pain.
So there’s no shortage of people who claim to have the perfect dishwasher life hack on hand. Whether it’s a unique way of loading or letting people in on the secret to fitting more on that claustrophobic top rack, we’ve seen it all.
But not all of the tips are legit.
Life hackers are adamant that your dishwasher’s pod compartment is useless
An extremely common “hack” that has been going around for years claims that the little compartment door on your dishwasher that holds detergent, tabs, and pods is completely unnecessary.
They claim you’ll see better results and cleaner dishes by throwing the pod into the basin of the dishwasher before starting the cycle.
This hack is so common that even Renae DuHaime, a former appliance repair tech who knows quite a bit about dishwashers, believed it to be true.
Recently on Threads, DuHaime explained how a few years back she made a video urging people to try the “just toss it in” technique, and it went mega viral. DuHaime says she learned the trick from another technician and took them at their word.
The reasoning behind the idea is simple: By bypassing the little trapdoor completely, the pod is more likely to dissolve all the way, release all of its cleaning agents, and result in a better end product.
It also doesn’t help that sometimes pods get stuck inside the compartment.
But then DuHaime got a very interesting call.
The OGs of dish detergent wanted a word
“One of the videos I made telling people to toss pods into the bottom of their dishwasher caught the attention of Cascade … [and they] invited me to visit P&G (their parent company)‘s headquarters to speak with and learn directly from their scientists,” DuHaime said.
Cascade may or may not have been the very first dish detergent—some reports show Finish and Electrasol hitting the market a few years earlier—but the brand has been around since 1955, when it was introduced as a powdered detergent.
So they’ve been around, and they’ve seen it all. And their message to DuHaime was: You’ve got it all wrong.
The true purpose of the dishwasher pod compartment revealed
DuHaime continued on Threads, sharing what she learned from Cascade scientists who had been studying the art of clean dishes for decades:
“They showed me that through their research, they discovered that because most dishwashers have an automatic ‘pre-wash’ cycle that runs for a short time only to knock off large bits of food, after this short cycle, the dishwasher DRAINS ALL THE WATER AND REFILLS.”
That means that if the pod is sitting on the bottom of the appliance, it will dissolve during the pre-wash and almost all of it will rinse away before the full wash cycle begins.
DuHaime said the scientists estimated that this method leaves only about 20% of the detergent behind for cleaning, while 80% goes down the drain.
Many modern dishwasher tabs, in fact, include multiple staged-release elements, including the heaviest cleaning agents for the wash phase and rinse-aid and drying agents that release toward the end.
Chucking the pod on the floor or basin too early in the process puts the entire workflow out of sorts.
Former appliance tech goes to great lengths to correct misinformation
Kudos to DuHaime for not only hearing out the true experts but for taking down the viral video and spending years trying to put the correct information out there.
Though she doesn’t actively work in appliance repair anymore, she’s still out here trying to help people get the most out of their dishwashers.
In one fascinating TikTok video, she explained the science behind why you’re not supposed to rinse your dishes before putting them in the dishwasher and how that can actually make the cleaning cycle less effective. It’s extremely counterintuitive, but it’s a terrific life hack once you understand why.
She also explained in another popular video why you should almost never use your oven’s self-cleaning function.
It goes to show that even highly knowledgeable people can be duped by so-called life hacks that don’t hold up to scrutiny. True experts like DuHaime, who are willing to re-examine their own ideas and find the objectively best way to do things, are a rare find.
