Washing up by hand takes time – the average dishwasher takes 12 international place settings (a mix of crockery, cutlery and serving dishes) and takes about nine minutes to load and unload. Washing this much in the sink by hand would take about an hour.

• There’s a popular misconception that dishwashers use a lot of water, Not true !  A dishwasher can do a full load using as little as nine litres of water – doing the same amount by hand in the sink would use around 49 litres – no contest !