How has the dishwasher changed? How much has this curious appliance evolved over time, which we certainly cannot define as indispensable, but which in some way is the ancestor of all systems, today technologically advanced, which allow you to experience domestic intimacy while saving time and energies?
Before discovering it, as always, let's give a definition of the object whose history we will retrace.
What is a dishwasher
Vocabulary in hand, the dishwasher is the "household appliance with automatic operation for washing dishes, which, placed in special baskets, are subjected to various jets of hot water mixed with detergent, rinsed several times and finally dried with jets of hot air."
The definition itself clarifies a fundamental aspect: of the dishwasher today you can do without it, only if you have never tried it. This is because, once its practicality has been discovered, every small pile of dishes throws even the most prone to housework into panic.
Before discovering how the dishwasher has changed over the years, it is worth recalling one of the biggest reasons for discussion in families around the world: the dishes must be rinsed before being deposited in the dishwasher, and if so how much? We know the answer but we are careful not to give it to you: we would never want to have half the families of the whole world on our heels.
Let's find out how the dishwasher has changed in its short life for now.
The birth of the dishwasher
The invention of the dishwasher is unanimously attributed to Josephine Cochrane, although an attempt had already been made in 1850 by Joe Houghton. However, the prototype, made of wood, was short-lived.
Conversely, Josephine Cochrane was an American inventor who loved to give dinners with a large number of guests. In addition to dreaming of becoming famous, she needed to wash the dishes quickly. And above all without chipping the porcelain, contrary to what his servants did.
Josephine Cochrane managed to perfectly combine her two ambitions. About what it was born in 1886 with the unimaginative name of Cochrane Dishwasher, Josephine apparently exclaimed: "If no one does it, I'll do it myself!"
The compartments of the first dishwasher were placed in a wheel inside a copper boiler. An engine turned the wheel, while hot soapy water splashed from the bottom of the boiler cleaned the dishes.
Immediately patented and requested by restaurants and hotels, the dishwasher was unveiled at Chicago's Colombian Fair in its inauguration year, 1893. And he won the first prize.
The first domestic dishwashers
The second pivotal date that helps us understand how the dishwasher has changed is 1924.
Before then, the appliance was only used by hotels and restaurants. But William Howard Livens, with a leap of ingenuity, will be able to adapt it to domestic use. And here is the modern dishwasher, with all the features still present in the current models. That is, a front door for loading, a rack for housing dirty dishes and a rotating sprayer.
The invention begins to be widespread while in the houses the plumbing systems with running water begin to spread.
Five years later it was the turn of the German company Miele to introduce the dishwasher in Europe.
In 1940 a fundamental component will be added to the dishwasher, which will make the entire cleaning cycle independent from human intervention: the drying system.
The boom of the dishwasher
However, it was necessary to wait until the XNUMXs for the dishwasher, together with the other large household appliances, symbols of the economic boom, to enter homes massively.
And in those years the Italy of the economic miracle had become the first European country for the number of household appliances produced.
From the XNUMXs: design and ecology
The appliance was already almost complete in all its parts in the XNUMXs. But if you ask yourself how the dishwasher has changed from a design point of view, you have to wait another decade.
Starting in the XNUMXs, household appliances began to be conceived also as furnishing objects. At the same time, increasingly compact and silent solutions are being studied.
Another crucial aspect concerns the environmental impact. In 1992 the United States introduced the Energy Star classification to reduce consumption, and five years later, with the signing of the Kyoto Protocol, the energy classification system for household appliances, in force since 1999, also entered Europe.
Since then, dishwasher manufacturers have been increasingly attentive to energy saving, limiting electricity consumption and the water needed for each washing cycle.
The most modern dishwashers have even very small dimensions, or they can be managed via the app, to customize the load, the cleaning and self-cleaning options.
Klarstein Amazonia Mini - Dishwasher, 6 Programs, ...
- The Klarstein Amazonia Mini dishwasher does the dishes. Inside there is space for up to two covers, ...
A few numbers
The numbers show that the dishwasher is not the most essential of household appliances. If in the United States and Germany, according to 2012 data, household appliances are present in approximately 75% of homes, as far as Italy is concerned, the Istat data updated to 2014 speak of just 39,3% of households. use of the dishwasher. And in the south of our country the percentage even drops to 25%.
