You Can Put Much More In Your Dishwasher Than Plates And Soap

Video: Ah, the humble dishwasher. This appliance saves you time and water, and prevents back pain (dishwashing can get awfully uncomfortable, even with one of those mats for standing at the kitchen sink). But that isn’t all it can do.

Scrub (get it?) through the video above to see some of our favourite dishwasher tricks.

First, did you know that almost every dishwasher allows you to adjust the height of the top rack? We’ve all been assuming that our water bottles and novelty-sized cups from sporting events would never fit, but how wrong we were.

And there are so many ways to clean the dishwasher itself. Australians won’t be able to use our video’s Kool-Aid tip – that one’s just for the Americans – but you can throw in some citrus peels to deodorise a regular cycle. Also check if your machine has a manual food filter, which you’ll need to empty once a month or so.

For those of you who want to use a dishwasher to clean other items without effort, we found the best little-known dishwasher-safe item is the lint trap from your dryer.