Some high end kitchen designers are doing this now.

Just do what I do; when you're done with the dish, rinse it and leave it on the counter. (Or in the sink, but that gets irritating if you need to e.g. strain macaroni.)

Or do what my grandparents do; when you're done with the meal, rinse the dishes and put them back in the dishwasher, and restart the load. Only empty the dishwasher if it gets too full.

Exactly. As soon as you start leaving dishes in the sink, you have less options when it comes to cooking, and you'll eventually be lowered to eat pot noodle three times a day. It's happened often.

It's too bad that disposable dishes do strange things in microwaves.

What happens when they are both full?

blamm: You have too many dishes. Give some to Goodwill. :)

Hi Spiritualized, nice to see you since the HB disappeared. I like this idea and just thought the dishwasher could be split into two independant washing levels rather than two separate units. (So here's a bun for old times sake!)

I know some people who do this, so that their plates that had meat on them won't be washed in the same water as their plates that had dairy on them. Now that's uber-kosher.

I like this, and was just thinking of something similar.

Fisher-Paykel a New Zeland based company does make a single or two drawer dish washer. The use of the dish washers would be up to the owner.

Good idea... but I'm not sure the person is being honest about thinking it up first.

This idea has gotten a lot of attention thru Scott Adams website

http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/duh/

Ton's of great house ideas here.

// I'm not sure the person is being honest about thinking it up first //I made no claim that I came up with first so dishonesty is out of the question. I did however come up with the idea independently of that site and anyone else that thought up the idea before me.

Just get an industrial/commercial dishwasher. The racks themselves are modular. You pack a rack up with dishes, put it in the unit, and twenty minutes later, they're clean. Pull the rack out, put the next loaded rack in, and go. The clean rack sits to the side to dry. On the even better side, there's no leaning over on commercial units. They usually incorporate some kind of washing sink and a lot of open area to do prep work or cleaup.

It sounds like what you need is paper plates and plastic flatware, use the dishwasher only for scrubbing pots and pans- or just eliminate the pots and pans and cook everything in the microwave on paper plates.

Guess what? That already exists. Some manufacturers make a two-drawer dishwasher, each operating independently. The unit takes the same amount of space as a conventional dishwasher, but separated in top and bottom. You can check out Fisher Paykel.

If you have enough counter space, why not keep a large plastic tub of water (plus some salt and vinegar as cleaning and disinfecting agents) on the counter and dump stained dishes in it? In an hour most of the dishes can be rinsed clean and be put in the rack without using the dishwasher. The tub keeps the sink free.

Cutlery can similarly be soaked in a large peanut butter jar filled with a similar solution and rinsed clean when needed. The solution can be changed weekly (say). This saves energy too.

sweet.

There's a sink made (by Elkay, I think) that has removable containers along the back and two bowls. This might serve the function Roger Knights suggests, but with a less-obtrusive built-in feature. This way, one sink is being used all the time.

There are 18" wide dishwashers available. This might be a good way to execute spiritualized's idea. Makes sense to me--I may do it in my next house!