I haven't compared electrical but I do know our overhead lighting in the kitchen uses 450 watts total so it may be a wash since I won't be in there

Some soap that people like I found:
http://www.seventhgeneration.com/Free-and-Clear/Dishwasher-Detergent

Septic Safe
Grey Water Safe

This summer we may finish the gray water project, and plumb the dish washer into it!

A lot depends on how you do dishes. The way I do them is to pour a little detergent and water into a quart plastic tub, This I dip a brush into and scrub the dishes. I pile the dishes up, soapy and wet, in the other bay. once done I rinse them off with the hand sprayer hose unit on the faucet and transfer them to the rack to drip-dry. I don't fill the sink and I don't run the water.

Also I note that dishwasher and hand washing are not mutually exclusive. A lot of people, particularly overly fastidious types and older folks, pretty much hand wash the dishes and then run them through the dishwasher. IMHO a lot of this behavior comes from the back when dish washers were pretty weak and couldn't handle certain types of food. Like dried remains of a meal or cheese. The best ones, typically high end units, are so good now you barely have to knock the bulk food off. But still I watch people washing their dishes and then stuffing them into the dishwasher.

Running the dishwasher for tiny loads, or not unloading, is another common practice. More than one family I know uses their dishwasher as their dish cabinet. So the clean dishes, 90% of the load, get washed.

Heresy it is but I figure that some dished don't need to be washed at all. I went weeks camping and never washed my pot, pan and big plastic cup. When your hungry you eat every last bit of food and a rinse, assuming it is necessary, and a wipe dry is more than sufficient. If your eating alone a quick rinse is sufficient. Even with family and friends a quick scrub with detergent and rinse in hot water is sufficient. At home my big, 18 ounce, plastic cup that feeds me a constant supply of black coffee gets washed every few months.

I suppose if I drank my coffee with cream and sugar I would need to give it a bath more often. Reason enough to avoid cream and sugar. Creme and sugar also destroys keyboards and other stuff you spill it on. Black and hot mops right up.





Wow. That's a lot of power use if your kitchen is not the size on an aircraft hangar. Even then, might I suggest some efficient task lighting. I recently worked with some LED strip under-counter lights that impressed me.

You might want to look into compact fluorescent units. I traded in my 60w incandescent bulbs for 20w coils, a mix of CW and WW in the kitchen and bath, and have been pleased with the savings.

There are a few spots incandescent bulbs are still handy. The energy loss is all heat so if your running heat to keep a space warm and your running incandescent lights they are not as inefficient as they seem. What they lose in lumens per watt they make up by providing heat.

If your running air conditioning the issue runs the other way. Incandescent bulbs are inefficient producing light and you have to get rid of the heat the produce. You get screwed coming and going.

I tried the seventh generation stuff and it wasn't getting the dishes clean with a fairly new dishwasher and city water.