Instead of making our lives easier the dishwasher, and how to stack it, can drive a domestic wedge between couple and housemates.
Should the cutlery face down? What shelf should the Tupperware go on? What is the best place for heavily stained items?
Laying these and similar arguments to rest a group of scientists from the University of Birmingham have discovered the perfect way to stack a dishwasher.
The trick, according to a study published in the Chemical Engineering Journal, is to stack your dishes in a circle around the cutlery basket to ensure the water jets reach all of the crockery.
Dr Raul Perez-Mohedano, the lead author of the study, told the Daily Mail, "the distribution of water inside a commercial dishwasher is very chaotic."
"Areas with a direct impact from the water jets are very localised and these are only able to cover a very small area of all the crockery surface present," he said.
But given the design of most dishwashers, circular stacking might not be possible.
Dr Perez-Mohedano said, "Current commercial dishwashers also show a problem of symmetry - while the ejection of water is produced in a circular movement, the distribution of the crockery follows a rectangular pattern."
"This automatically produces areas where the impact of water is going to occur for longer," he said.
Organising crockery according to stains is also recommended.
Carbohydrate stains should be placed in the middle on the dishwasher, with protein stains stacked in a circle around them.
"Depending of the soil type to remove, the best procedure to follow varies," said Dr Perez-Mohedano. "For example, cleaning of protein-based soils, such as egg yolk, requires an initial swelling/hydration stage which is typically driven by high alkaline conditions at the beginning of the wash-cycle, he said.
"Afterwards, cleaning occurs by detachment of soil layers from top to bottom following hydrolysis reactions.
"Other types of soils based on carbohydrates, like tomato paste, require less chemistry and more mechanical action.
"They are detached in patches of different sizes in a process known as adhesive failure."
Interestingly, the study found dishes with tough stains should be placed in the centre about the blades or in the centre on the top shelf.
The findings, according to The Telegraph, London, "Could now have dramatic consequences for dishwasher design with manufacturers forced to tear-up traditional blueprints and start from scratch with circular loading models."
And in Dr Perez-Mohedano's personal opinion: "A redesign of the way of distribution of water is necessary. There are some ideas out there that have been or are ready to be commercialised."
But if all of this is too much, Birmingham University are in the process of training a robot named Boris to stack the dishwasher for you.
Boris was unveiled in September last year and is the first robot to be able to grip any item placed in front of it.
Professor Jeremy Wyatt said, "It might be five or 10 years in the future, but you're going to have robots working with humans."
So until then, would it just be easier to do the dishes yourself?
