<story><title>A socialite who hated washing dishes invented the automated dishwasher</title><url>https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-institute/ieee-history/this-socialite-hated-washing-dishes-so-much-that-she-invented-the-automated-dishwasher</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>prawn</author><text>It amazes me that after widespread adoption of dishwashers, we still build very customised bathrooms into houses that require manual labour to clean each surface - tiles&amp;#x2F;grout, basins, benchtops, toilets, floors, etc.&lt;p&gt;A bathroom that could be sealed and cleaned as though it was a dishwasher would be great. For everything but the toilet, lightly pressured spray of hot water would probably be sufficient. Throw the towels in the wash, close the waterproofed door, press the cleaning button and head off to work. Then the door&amp;#x2F;vents open to air it out after the cleaning process. There are public toilets that do it so surely we could make an attractive home version of that?&lt;p&gt;And if not the entire bathroom, at least have self-cleaning toilets rather than almost every single model being a slightly different shape so there&amp;#x27;s no standardised solution better than a toilet brush.&lt;p&gt;The lifetime cost of paid cleaners or just cleaning the bathroom yourself has to be worth something that could be invested into a bathroom upgrade when building.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>vel0city</author><text>It seems a bit counter-intuitive, but dishwashers are not necessarily self-cleaning. Dishwasher owners really should spend some time every now and then to scrub and clean out their dishwashers, along with running some kind of cleaner through their dishwasher. Mold, scale, and food debris will eventually build up throughout the dishwasher, even if you try to let it air out completely. Proper cleaning and maintenance of your dishwasher will help it last a lot longer than assuming it is self cleaning. I should know, I recently came into ownership of a 12 year old dishwasher which &amp;quot;didn&amp;#x27;t work&amp;quot;. Scrubbing and cleaning the machine led to the machine working for quite a while after.</text></comment>
<story><title>A socialite who hated washing dishes invented the automated dishwasher</title><url>https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-institute/ieee-history/this-socialite-hated-washing-dishes-so-much-that-she-invented-the-automated-dishwasher</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>prawn</author><text>It amazes me that after widespread adoption of dishwashers, we still build very customised bathrooms into houses that require manual labour to clean each surface - tiles&amp;#x2F;grout, basins, benchtops, toilets, floors, etc.&lt;p&gt;A bathroom that could be sealed and cleaned as though it was a dishwasher would be great. For everything but the toilet, lightly pressured spray of hot water would probably be sufficient. Throw the towels in the wash, close the waterproofed door, press the cleaning button and head off to work. Then the door&amp;#x2F;vents open to air it out after the cleaning process. There are public toilets that do it so surely we could make an attractive home version of that?&lt;p&gt;And if not the entire bathroom, at least have self-cleaning toilets rather than almost every single model being a slightly different shape so there&amp;#x27;s no standardised solution better than a toilet brush.&lt;p&gt;The lifetime cost of paid cleaners or just cleaning the bathroom yourself has to be worth something that could be invested into a bathroom upgrade when building.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rsynnott</author><text>As you say, this is already a thing for public toilets: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Sanisette&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Sanisette&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;For a whole bathroom, it would be quite expensive; you&amp;#x27;d need a fully watertight room (most bathrooms, even wetrooms, are not) and you&amp;#x27;d risk contamination. Would also be difficult to retrofit unless you had a wetroom already. Also the failure modes are quite bad; what happens when the drains clog? You&amp;#x27;d need the whole thing sunken to prevent water egress to the rest of the house.&lt;p&gt;Definitely not saying it&amp;#x27;s impossible, or even impractical, but it wouldn&amp;#x27;t be cheap.</text></comment>