If you're a family of four and have a dishwasher...

[Comedycook]

How many times a day is it put on? Let's say a weekend day when you're all at home.

Because mine has been on 5 times today...and it's like this most days. Is this normal or am I going wrong somewhere?!

Family of 4 twice a day

Family of 4. Dishwasher goes on once a day. We reuse mugs and glasses. What snacks are you having that need plates?

That wouldn’t even come close to filling a slimline dishwasher, nevermind a fullsize one.

If it's a height issue with your top rack, have you tried adjusting it? (Just mentioning as it's not always obvious that you can)

https://lifehacker.com/adjust-your-top-dishwasher-rack-height-like-a-god-of-ti-1822510698

wow, that's a lot.
5 of us here and the dishwasher goes on most days. we switch it off when full. hardly anything is hand washed in our house.
we cook most days. but would not put sligtly oily pans (pancake, egg) in, they get wiped out with a cloth and put back in the drawer.

maybe check if you can stack it better?

Not the point of your post OP, but make the pancake batter in a large measuring jug, then you can pour the batter straight into the pan so you don't need a ladle.

And let DS use the spoon you spread choc spread with to eat- more chocolate spread for him, less washing up for you. Everyone's a winner....

Trying to think...we have some birthday cake left over so both the DC had a slice of that so that was a plate and fork each.

We often tend to eat different things so that seems to add a lot to it. So ds always has pancakes for breakfast, DH will have eggs and bacon or a full fry up. DD has french toast. So already that's a lot just for breakfast.

Not the point of your post OP, but make the pancake batter in a large measuring jug, then you can pour the batter straight into the pan

This is a good idea...thanks

Once a day, maybe twice a day at the weekends.

But e.g. for pancakes for one I would probably make them up in a measuring jug for example, which doesn't take up much room in the dishwasher. A pancake pan I would shove in if there was room but would give it a quick rinse if not as it won't be very dirty. I probably wouldn't use a plate cover.

So the output would be a single measuring jug, a spatula and a plate.

The same for e.g. breakfast. If I want to do bacon and french toast for example, I'll cook the bacon first, then the French toast in the same pan and just pop the bacon back in at the end for a few moments to heat up.

I also find that inefficient stacking can massively massively reduce the capacity of a dishwasher.

Family of four here, once a day, we run it every evening. Occasionally twice, if it's a baking day or we've had people over.
3 times I could perhaps understand but five?!! I don't understand how youre producing that much dirty crockery, even with zero washing up!

My son has pancakes every day. I make up a big batch that sits in the fridge. It just needs a good whisk before using the following days.
If you make it in a big jug you don't need a ladle, you can just pour from that. The same knife can be used to spread the chocolate spread and eating.
No idea what a plate cover is!
So I'm using a jug, whisk, fish slice, plate, knife and fork, and the jug sits in the fridge so gets 2 or 3 days use.
I don't have a dishwasher.

Thats loads! Ours is only ever used once a day, occasionally we may have an extra pan or two that won’t fit in it so they get left in the sink to go in the dishwasher the following day.

Every other day usually.

Once a day here too. There's between 3 and 5 of us depending on which of my grown up children are around. I occasionally run it twice on days like Christmas Day or Easter Sunday or if we've got guests. I do do the odd bit of washing up by hand through the day too. Things like pans that have just had pasta or eggs boiled in them I would wash by hand, especially if the dishwasher is getting full as they take seconds and I prefer to use the dishwasher for properly dirty stuff. Likewise if I am baking cakes I tend to wash the bowl by hand as it takes up a disproportionate amount of space in the machine for one thing that's easy to hand wash - by the time I've eaten the left over mixture it's virtually clean anyway!

@FloatingRodger our middle rack is adjustable so we can (just about) fit in wine and pint glasses, but the top cutlery rack is not height adjustable, so you can’t lower it to fit in a fish slice or large serving spoon.

Family of 7 here, dishwasher on once a day, mixing bowls only go in there if the bottom rack is empty.
I also find that although the bowls will get washed they won't dry as well as glass dishes and stainless steel so tend to wash mixing bowls.
I only ever run two washes the day before Eid when we've done lots of baking and prep for Eid dinner.

Family of 4 / 5 adults depending on whether student DS2 is here.All meals are cooked from scratch and eaten at home or taken to work in Tupperware. It is very rare for the dishwasher to go on twice in a day and I wouldn't describe myself as militant on filling every last square centimetre at all.Having said that today it did which I put down to a lot of tidying u earthing mugs and glasses and some profligate use of mugs and glasses during said tidying!

You need to embrace toast for breakfast. And eating cake with your hands. Preferably while standing over the sink.

Family of 5. Once most days, occasionally twice.
What size is your dishwasher?

Once a day here. The eco cycle is 3.5 hours long. So
wouldn’t be enough hours in the day to run 5 times!

Can you pls put us out of our misery and explain the plate cover OP??

Are you cooking several versions of each meal? That's where it all comes from. Who has time for all that. Decide what's for breakfast and everyone eats it (or not).

I mean... we've established that your system is basically insane?

It's just a plastic cover which sits on the plate...like a raised lid. Ds is a teenager who tends to come down at a leisurely pace for his food so I got into the habit of putting a cover over everyone's food until they get to the table to keep their food hot. It's good in summer too as keeps the flies off.

Yes everyone eats something different. To be fair I'm a sahm and kids are both at secondary school so I do have time.