Ask the Expert

Settle this household fight: What’s the best way to load a dishwasher?

We asked five of our Washington Post colleagues to load the dishwasher in our test kitchen while narrating their thought process, on video.

Happy black woman smiling while using dishwasher at home kitchen
Plates? Load these in the bottom rack, between the tines so they aren’t touching one another. Face them toward the center, where the sprayer is, for best results. Adobe Stock

By Mari-Jane Williams and Alisa Shodiyev

4 minutes to read

(The Washington Post) It’s the household task that’s launched a thousand (or more) domestic disputes: loading the dishwasher.

Silverware pointing up or down? Cram in those unwieldy pots and pans, or wash them by hand? How much can you crowd in there? What can go on the bottom shelf? The variations, and possibilities for debate, are endless, and frequently make their way into marriages and roommate relationships.

Timothy Faust, a 36-year-old health activist in Milwaukee, recently posted on X: “I thought my dad’s pickiness about how to load the dishwasher was ridiculous until I moved in with a beautiful woman whose approach the task, shall we say, reminds me of the Galveston beach I visited after Hurricane Ike.”

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Faust says his dad, known as “Big Jim,” brings “total rigor” to the task. Even now, Faust says, when he’s visiting Big Jim, his dad will go behind him to adjust an out-of-place mug.

“He has a vision … and there’s no way I can possibly fit into it,” Faust says.

Although his wife, Renee’s, methods feel inefficient to Faust — she wedges cups sideways on the bottom rack or parks the InstantPot liner pot smack in the middle, making it hard to fit other things around it – he says the dishes do typically come out clean. And it’s not a source of tension; he finds it endearing and says he enjoys the game of rearranging the dishes to make things fit better.

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Other couples, though, take things more seriously. Jessica Ek, the senior director of digital communications for the American Cleaning Institute, knows of at least one couple who included dishwasher-related rules in their wedding vows. She has also heard of a family establishing the rule that if you load the machine and everything doesn’t come out clean, you are responsible for rewashing those dishes.

We asked five of our Washington Post colleagues to load the dishwasher in our test kitchen while narrating their thought process, on video. Each had the same assortment of plates, bowls, glasses, mugs, silverware and pots and pans to choose from, with the caveat that they didn’t have to fit everything into the machine. We even threw in a few traps, in the form of cast iron, crystal, knives and a wooden spoon.

Our volunteers were a sharp bunch: No one fell for the cast iron or crystal, and most of them caught the knife and wooden spoon. Otherwise, their methods were all over the map, with varying styles of loading the silverware or trying to put together the puzzle with large bowls or cookware.

There probably isn’t one right way to load a dishwasher, no matter what your roommate, parent or partner tells you. There are some best practices, though.

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“You want it to be able to clean what you’re trying to clean, and you want it to not damage, scratch or ruin what you’ve put in there,” Ek says. “If you can achieve both of those things, done is better than ideal.”

Here are Ek’s guidelines on how and where to load items.

  • Plates: Load these in the bottom rack, between the tines so they aren’t touching one another. Face them toward the center, where the sprayer is, for best results.
  • Bowls: These can go in the top or the bottom rack, just make sure they’re angled down with enough space between to let the water reach the dirt.
  • Pots and pans: Yes, you can put these in the dishwasher if there’s room. Place them in the bottom rack, where the water is hotter and has the most pressure, to get anything baked on during cooking. As with bowls, they should be angled down and have some space around them.
  • Glasses and mugs: Always load glassware and mugs in the top rack. Place glasses facing down between the tines, not over them; putting them over the tines can put more stress on the glass, making it more vulnerable to damage. It can also cause water spotting.
  • – Plastic: These items should go on the top shelf because the water pressure and temperature are lower, meaning there’s less potential to damage or deform the plastic.
  • Silverware: There is no one “right” way to load utensils. Handles down will get them cleaner, exposing dirty parts to more water. But if children are helping you, pointing sharp objects down is safer. For spoons, go handles down, but make sure they aren’t nesting against one another.

As for more general dishwasher loading advice, Ek shared these tips:

  • Don’t overload the machine. “If you have things that are overlapping one another, or there isn’t a lot of space between them, it’s better to save some things for the next load,” Ek says. Dishwashers use far less water than people think – an Energy Star machine uses about 3 gallons per load, the rough equivalent of running the faucet for about a minute and a half – so it’s okay to run a load when the machine isn’t full. Ek uses what she calls an “eight-dish rule” in determining whether to wash the extra dishes by hand. “If you’re washing more than eight dishes, it’s more efficient to run the dishwasher than wash by hand.”
  • Not everything can go in the dishwasher. Ek says you should never put cast iron, good knives or wood in the machine. Other things that can be damaged by heat include crystal and delicate glassware, and antique china (modern pieces are fine on the china or delicate setting on the machine). And if you’re on the fence about aluminum, copper, nonstick cookware or travel mugs, check the manufacturer’s instructions for guidance.
  • Emptying matters, too. Empty the bottom rack first so water in items in the top rack doesn’t drip down on your clean dishes.
  • Don’t forget to wash the dishwasher. “If you’re loading everything properly and putting in the right amount of detergent and things are not getting clean, you probably need to clean your dishwasher,” Ek says. Check the filter frequently and clean it if necessary. Several times a year, wipe down the sprayer arm and the gaskets.

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