A a child, the dishwasher in our house almost never worked. It was instead my sister and my job to wash them by hand. The only time I remember it ever working was when we moved to a new house with a relatively new dishwasher. For a time it worked, but eventually that one also became just wasted space in our kitchen. It was our family's belief that dishwashers didn't work very well and so us children were made to wash just like my parents were made to wash before us.

Only later as an adult would I learn that actually, we just never did any dishwasher maintenance, so of course they didn't work. It's not necessary to wash dishes before you load them or to avoid the dishwasher entirely, they just need routine cleaning and maintenance to keep working well. They're actually more water-efficient than washing by hand (UK Water).

For dishwashers there's a few things to do every so often:

• Clean spray arms, make sure spray holes are clear
• Clean inside, including the inside of the door
• Clear out drainage area
• Clear out limescale
• Clean out filter if there is one

To make things easier, I've made an app called Lumberyard (an app to keep up with maintenance logs haha). With Lumberyard, you'll never need to wonder when the last time you cleaned the spray arms on the dishwasher or cleaned the filter on the washing machine. You'll still have to do the actual maintenance, your phone can't do that yet, but with helpful reminders and tracking your stuff can stay working the way it was meant to for much longer.

This is only one example of the sort of thing you'd keep up with with Lumberyard. It's coming soon and it will help save money and stress by keeping up with your logs!