Seewalds 39: Piping in on the IKEA conversation

[feministxtian]

3 minutes ago, PennySycamore said:

I can't decide whether to put a disposal in our kitchen reno.  If were just me, I'd not have one because I scrape my plates thoroughly, but my husband grew up with one and had never understood in 40 years of marriage that WE DON'T HAVE A DISPOSAL.  He fairly regularly put dishes and pots in the sink that have food on them.  Then I have to clean that food out.  It's gross!  I do want a waste grinder in my dishwasher (Some Kitchen-Aid DWs have them) so I don't have to clean the filter.

@feministxtian's post reminds me to ask:

Does anyone make an adjustable ice maker for those of us who don't need that much ice?  

Get the disposal! Ice maker...we would just turn ours off if we didn't need ice. When the bin gets full, it'll stop making ice. If you don't use it and the bin is full, it'll stay off. Otherwise just turn it off. My last nice fridge had a button on the front that would turn off the icemaker. In the summer we empty it daily and then some, in the winter, not so much. 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

@PennySycamore, I wonder if a portable/countertop ice maker would suit you? I've only seen them advertised, not in use, but I think you could make a batch of ice, put it in your freezer in a sealed container, then store the ice maker. You would only make ice cubes as you needed them. It's an idea anyway.

[Someone Out There]

1 hour ago, PennySycamore said:

Does anyone make an adjustable ice maker for those of us who don't need that much ice?  

Is there a problem with standard ice cube trays rather than an inbuilt ice maker?  Admittedly it requires some thinking about to prepare them an hour or 2 in advance.

[Meggo]

When we moved two and a half years ago- we had to buy a new fridge and that was my husband ONE request. An ice maker. He loooves it. I rarely use it.

i haven’t had a disposal since I moved to Canada 17 years ago. They just aren’t common here. 

We have a dishwasher here- but NOT at the cottage so I end up washing dishes there.

[Maggie Mae]

I never want another garbage disposal in my kitchen again. So gross when they don't work. I'm fine with scraping extras into compost or the trash. 

We use our dishwasher, but not everything fits and sometimes its just easier to handwash. I don't understand using paper plates when you have a dishwasher that works. Looking at you, Duggars, you lazy-ass people. (Or is it lazy ass-people?) 

[PennySycamore]

@Someone Out There,  I wouldn't mind ice trays for myself, but my husband uses more ice than I do and he probably would not.  I'm hoping that our daughters, sons-in-law and granddaughters will come over once a week once we get this kitchen work done.  

@WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?,  I've never seen a countertop ice maker, but it does sound intriguing.

@feministxtian,  I know about lifting up the arm (which lifts up when the bin is full) to stop the ice maker, but I do remember once when my mom did that and the ice maker froze up or something.  All I can remember about that incident (it happened 40 or 50 years ago) was that we had to call a repairman.  Ours gets so full of ice that it falls out of the bin fairly regularly.  

[Maggie Mae]

We just use ice trays. We fill them and empty them into some fake Tupperware as needed, that way there is always ice and ice being made. I don't need or really want a fridge with an ice maker or water dispenser, they seem dirty/hard to clean. We had an ice maker when I was growing up and it just never seemed worth it. Too much ice, and if you lifted the bar to stop the ice being made it would break. 

[SilverBeach]

I can't be bothered with ice trays, luv my icemaker. Somebody would always put the trays back in with one cube, and walking a filled tray from the sink to the freezer without spilling, good luck. I use my ice dispenser daily, it never gets dirty. Don't use the water dispenser for some reason, but it's not dirty either. To each her own.

[nvmbr02]

59 minutes ago, Someone Out There said:

Is there a problem with standard ice cube trays rather than an inbuilt ice maker?  Admittedly it requires some thinking about to prepare them an hour or 2 in advance.

We just have trays now, but have mostly had a built in ice maker. I kinda hate the trays. We have 6 of them and we fill them as soon as one is emptied. Even with 6 trays we run out of ice some days. 

With both, when we have people over we have to buy ice since we run out. I hope to have room for a portable ice maker in our next home, as well as a built in ice maker.   

36 minutes ago, Maggie Mae said:

I never want another garbage disposal in my kitchen again. So gross when they don't work. I'm fine with scraping extras into compost or the trash. 

We use our dishwasher, but not everything fits and sometimes its just easier to handwash. I don't understand using paper plates when you have a dishwasher that works. Looking at you, Duggars, you lazy-ass people. (Or is it lazy ass-people?) 

I am so the opposite! We do a pretty go job at scraping plates but it never fails that some how a small piece of cereal or random noodle will be in the sink after the dishes are done and having to touch it and throw it away makes me gag. We have only had one incident with a garbage disposal didn't work properly, and yeah that was pretty gross. But once in 17 years is a pretty good record. We do always scrape the big stuff off, even with a disposal and we always purchased a heavy duty one so it can handle the small stuff. 

[AliceInFundyland]

Also in existence are reusable ice cubes. These are useful when you have a fridge too small to keep ice trays. I keep them in a Tupperware or a baggie depending on how full my freezer is. They would go great in a dishwasher

I think people are slightly judgemental in this thread about what the norm is. In fact - with no disrespect to any specific poster in this thread, I feel as though we get into some conversations at times that feel like debates about who is most "woke"

I think most of here are bright and intelligent folk. We all are doing are best and we all have challenges.

I have no car. We have one dumpster in our parking lot that way more than my five units feels entitled too. We do not have recycling. I hate it. We do have money back on cans and bottles here. And the homeless community is diligent about utilizing that. So - I separate mine out and they do get taken. Nonetheless our trash is regularly destroyed. This also results in most of my paper waiting for some kind of shredding opportunity - because identity theft happens.

And if anything seems like it can be free cycled... It usually is.

That's my end game though. I am not able to haul recycling around on transit with any logistics.  It is extremely irritating that our building does not have it. I have requested it.

Do what you can when you can. It's ok to have a dishwasher or a garbage disposal. Nobody needs to justify these things in my opinion.

Sorry. Rant over.

ETA: I don't know that I am explaining what I see very well. Others may see typical drift, if so, please don't mind me.

Edited April 28, 2019 by AliceInFundyland

[feministxtian]

I may be a bit biased here, but as a now-desert dweller, ice (and lots of it) and cold water through the fridge door are not really luxuries. I NEED that shit like NEED it. I've also confessed that I'm a whiny, lazy, spoiled, entitled little bitch who wants certain things and will have them. 

(I feel really guilty that my house is a wreck and there ain't much I can do about it because my ribs are still fucked up so I"m whining about everything).

[Smee]

I didn’t get the competitive vibe at all, just find it interesting what’s “normal” around the world. If anything, the recycling question highlights how “woke” various local governments are, not the people who happen to live there. It sounds like we all make do with the services easily available to us, and we all take advantage of certain conveniences. 

Well, except the disposable plates. That I was freely judging. 

So a garbage disposal crushes food up and sends it down a pipe somewhere else, right? Where does it travel to? A regular garbage bin or some kind of composting system or sewer?

Ice-makers are another thing that’s not very common here (Australia) which is odd, given our climate. My freezer has a little compartment in one corner where there’s two slide-in ice cube trays, and when the ice has set you twist a little plastic handle and it turns them upside down to tip all the ice into a drawer.  So you can re-fill them and store a bit more ice that way. But you do have to manually fill the trays each time. For parties most people buy ice.

 

[feministxtian]

3 minutes ago, Smee said:

So a garbage disposal crushes food up and sends it down a pipe somewhere else, right? Where does it travel to? A regular garbage bin or some kind of composting system or sewer?

it goes into the sewer system with the rest of the water. Personally I'd like to see houses be built with grey water recycling capabilities. All the water from your sinks, shower, washer, dishwasher (NOT TOILETS) would go into this tank and it would be recycled for lawn watering, toilets, stuff like that. OR it could go through a filtering system, get hit with UV light and be recycled back into drinking water or pool replacement water or something like that. I designed a system but didn't get the pump sizes quite right and sizing the tank would be a bitch because it's dependent on water consumption per family. 

Anyway, welcome to my next rant of the night. 

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

9 minutes ago, Smee said:

So a garbage disposal crushes food up and sends it down a pipe somewhere else, right? Where does it travel to? A regular garbage bin or some kind of composting system or sewer?

I believe everything that goes down a kitchen sink, with or without a garbage disposal, goes down to the sewer. (Unless someone has their own "gray-water" system to reuse water.)

I think my local waste water treatment system uses some of the solid waste on grass and trees in a mostly desert area. I just remember a startlingly green area along a highway, with signs warning people that the area wasn't for recreation. I seem to recall seeing trucks spraying a dark liquid there sometimes, too.

ETA--Cross posted with @feministxtian, who explained gray water better.

Edited April 28, 2019 by WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?
ETA

[Someone Out There]

2 hours ago, Smee said:

Ice-makers are another thing that’s not very common here (Australia) which is odd, given our climate. My freezer has a little compartment in one corner where there’s two slide-in ice cube trays, and when the ice has set you twist a little plastic handle and it turns them upside down to tip all the ice into a drawer.  So you can re-fill them and store a bit more ice that way. But you do have to manually fill the trays each time. For parties most people buy ice. 

I'm also from Australia and similarly I have the twisty thing (it kind of annoys me how much space it takes up in my freezer though).  I would assume that the difference is that 1) we just don't have the plumbing fixtures to the fridge that people in the US do, 2) I don't think people generally had oversized fridges like the Americans until fairly recently and the holes for fridges also reflect this.  The oversized fridges are the ones that tend to have the ice cub makers so far as I can tell.

I'm also not sure where people are using all this ice...  About the only thing I use it for is making crushed ice in summer (I love my ice crushing machine).  When I was living in an apartment that would stay warmer in summer I used to freeze a bottle of water and drink that over the course of the day and at some point while living there I bought the ice crushing machine.

[nvmbr02]

35 minutes ago, Someone Out There said:

I'm also not sure where people are using all this ice...  About the only thing I use it for is making crushed ice in summer (I love my ice crushing machine).  When I was living in an apartment that would stay warmer in summer I used to freeze a bottle of water and drink that over the course of the day and at some point while living there I bought the ice crushing machine.

We go through a fair amount of ice. We have 5 people here and it is hot year round. My teens usually use ice to make a protein shake in the morning and both have 40oz Hydroflasks they fill about halfway up with ice every morning that way it still has a fair amount of ice after school so when they refill it it stays cold through whatever practice they have at the time. My oldest is currently doing paddling and she drinks a huge amount of ice water on beach days. My son is doing track at the moment and doesn't go through as much currently as he does when he is doing cross country. I don't use ice for my water, but both my husband and younger daughter do.  Once or twice a week my husband will make a few cocktails for us, and those usually use a fair amount of ice.  We also don't have room in our fridge so if the kids are having a soda (which is pretty rare) or some other drink that is good cold, but doesn't have to be refrigerated they will usually have it over ice. 

Interestingly enough we were in Australia earlier in the month and both condos we rented (in Sydney and in Cairns) had large fridges with built in ice makers and water dispensers that weren't hooked up. I assumed they didn't have the plumbing done. One place had a large pitcher and ice trays so it wasn't a big deal, the other had neither. So we ended up buying a pitcher and a couple of ice trays and leaving them there when we left. 

[Marly]

I think garbage disposal systems in sinks are very rare to non-existent in the Netherlands. People usually just scrape their plates and pots before either putting them in the dishwasher or washing them by hand. 

My parents got a dishwasher when I was 12, I think, or maybe even a little later than that. Dishwashers are pretty common here now. I think the only places where they aren't (as) common are student housing units* and (smaller) appartments that have their washing machine connection located in the kitchen (meaning no seperate area for laundry, and the washing machine then usually takes up the space of a possible dishwasher). SO and I currently don't have a dishwasher because our washing machine is located in the kitchen and there is no space left for a dishwasher.

I do recycle: we have a big Ikea shopping bag for paper/cardboard in the hallway, when it's full we deposit it (without the bag) in the communal paper/cardboard bin in front of the appartment building (bin gets emptied weekly). We keep a separate bag for plastics and cans, and one for glass, in the kitchen. When it's full we take it to the communal plastic+cans bin at the end of the street. The glass recycling bins are located there as well. Unfortunately, there is no "green" (food/plant material) recycling possible where we live now, and I feel really bad everytime I have to throw away food scraps into the normal thrash bin. I've looked into composting options for balconies, but unfortunately our budget currently does not allow for that (the composting bins are quite expensive and we just don't have that kind of extra money right now). 

* I was very lucky and did have a dishwasher in my student housing unit. I loved it. 

[IsmeWeatherwax]

UK calling! In general our kitchens don't have the room as standard for a dishwasher. In this house (1950's build) I have the choice of washing machine or dishwasher, washing machine wins! and a space for my tumble dryer. My previous house (1880's) teeny tiny kitchen washing machine only, tumble dryer had to go in the shed. The house before that I had a mahoosive kitchen! I was able to have washing machine, tumble dryer AND my first very own dishwasher! I was the grand old age of 33 and it was my pride and joy! until I discovered how absolutely disgusting they get even with rinsing off before loading, eew no thanks, it takes 2 minutes to bleach my sink and scrub it with boiling water, so yes I loved the convenience of my dishwasher but I don't want another one. My friend uses her as storage lol

I bottle fed all my 4 kids so that meant washing all their equipment by hand in the sink before sterilising in the steamer bottle machine, Avent for the win! After seeing the grim of my dishwasher I wouldn't use it for doing my baba's bottles, tho I was anally retentive when it came to doing them...I wouldn't allow anyone else to do them ?.

*everyone is different and has their own way of doing things, and variety is the spice of life ?*     

[nvmbr02]

We clean our dishwasher (well, when we have one) fairly regularly. It does depend on what type of water you have a few other factors though. I mostly breastfed my younger two and didn't have a dishwasher with my oldest but I always just hand washed bottles and pump parts. 

When we lived in Italy we didn't have a garbage disposal (we had a compost bin that was collected weekly) and our washing machine was in one bathroom and the dryer in the other bathroom.

Here in Guam our washer and dryer are outside (though they are getting rusty and they were both brand new when we moved in) and our dryer is broken more than it works. We can't line dry stuff outside because our patio is covered (we live in a townhouse so no private outside area outside of the patio) and stuff doesn't dry quickly in a covered patio with the humidity. Plus gecko poop. So we hang wet laundry all over the house, from the stairs, tall cabinets and shelves. And I go to the laundromat for things like bedding and towels. 20 days until we move out of this house and I can not wait. 

[Glasgowghirl]

24 minutes ago, IsmeWeatherwax said:

UK calling! In general our kitchens don't have the room as standard for a dishwasher. In this house (1950's build) I have the choice of washing machine or dishwasher, washing machine wins! and a space for my tumble dryer. My previous house (1880's) teeny tiny kitchen washing machine only, tumble dryer had to go in the shed. The house before that I had a mahoosive kitchen! I was able to have washing machine, tumble dryer AND my first very own dishwasher! I was the grand old age of 33 and it was my pride and joy! until I discovered how absolutely disgusting they get even with rinsing off before loading, eew no thanks, it takes 2 minutes to bleach my sink and scrub it with boiling water, so yes I loved the convenience of my dishwasher but I don't want another one. My friend uses her as storage lol

I bottle fed all my 4 kids so that meant washing all their equipment by hand in the sink before sterilising in the steamer bottle machine, Avent for the win! After seeing the grim of my dishwasher I wouldn't use it for doing my baba's bottles, tho I was anally retentive when it came to doing them...I wouldn't allow anyone else to do them ?.

*everyone is different and has their own way of doing things, and variety is the spice of life ?

I'm looking at flats to move into in a few months and the sizes of some of the kitchen's it's a tight squeeze for even the washing machine. It will only be for me so it doesn't need to be massive but I wish they were not so expensive to rent.

 

[backyard sylph]

It's recommended to run the dishwasher through a cleaning cycle once a month. And as someone said, if you run it full, it uses fewer resources than hand-washing, and is more sterile. People should certainly use what they like and have access to, but it isn't more moral to work harder and use more water, etc., so I expect no one truly believes that; it's just that we work with what we have, and find our own contentment. 

In this rented house, the ice maker produces noxious ice. I would never make a martini with it or put the ice in lemonade; that odor would have a flavor as it melted. I have lots of silicone trays, but they are messy to use in a freezer compartment that is 1/4 taken up by an ice maker that can't be made to work nicely. I think newer refrigerators have replaceable filters, which is necessary here if you grew up in a city with pleasant-tasting water.

So I buy 7 lb bags of ice every couple of weeks. They are less than $3, and fit into two 1 gallon freezer bags that I reuse until they are dead. The ice is clean, and nicely clear for drinks. 

Reusable cubes are good for sodas, but most mixed drinks tend to do best with the slight softening effect of the partial melting process.

Edited April 28, 2019 by backyard sylph
water filters

[IsmeWeatherwax]

2 hours ago, Glasgowghirl said:

I'm looking at flats to move into in a few months and the sizes of some of the kitchen's it's a tight squeeze for even the washing machine. It will only be for me so it doesn't need to be massive but I wish they were not so expensive to rent.

 

Im in the South East and we need a 3 bed and the prices are shocking. My friends daughter has just moved into a 3 bed house share and she is paying £550 pcm.

[Glasgowghirl]

1 hour ago, IsmeWeatherwax said:

Im in the South East and we need a 3 bed and the prices are shocking. My friends daughter has just moved into a 3 bed house share and she is paying £550 pcm.

A lot of parts of Glasgow are the same, where I am things are not quite as crazy but I have noticed since the University I am at moved their campus to the outskirts of my town prices have went up a great deal, even in areas that are not that great. And a lot of one bed flats are the same price as two bed flats. 

 

[VelociRapture]

We’re looking to move this year and we’ve already talked a little bit about having our own vegetable garden when we do. We’d love to be able to raise our kids to help grow food with us if we have the room in the backyard. If we end up being able to do that then we’ll likely look into composting options because it’d be a great way to reuse food scraps. We also really like the idea of finding native plants to the area that are good for honeybees and planting those all over the front yard rather than having tons of grass out there.

As for recycling, our state has a bottle deposit. My husband saves the water bottles we use and then returns them at the store - he usually uses that money to buy himself a four pack of beer, which I’m cool with since he’s the one taking time to return them. We also have a recycling bin we use for other items that are allowed. I did recently buy a reusable water filter pitcher that we keep in the fridge. We use that for cooking, making tea and coffee, filling our daughter’s sippy cup, and I’ve been drinking that a bit more recently since the cold liquid soothes my morning sickness a bit. I like that it gives us water that tastes fresher while saving us money and cutting down on our use of plastic water gallons. 

Other than that, we just do what we’re able to do, which definitely isn’t as much as others. We will never get to a place where we’re 100% green all the time (or maybe even 50% or 25%), but I’m of the opinion that small efforts are always better than not trying at all. 

[Iamtheway]

The stuff our house has that our apartments did not that has bettered my quality of life the most:

1. The carport. Love having my own spot and never having to look for parking (or remeber what areas you can park in in different days) but even more I love it when I don’t have to get snow and ice off the car in winter and never come out to a car that has been shoveled in by the snow plow and have to be dug out. 

2. The dishwasher. We put everything we can in there and it saves both time and our minds because we both hate doing dishes and would always leave them too long and sometimes argue about who’s turn it was to do them. We also had so little room to dry them.