[badtension]

I've been washing dishes by hand my whole life and just recently got a dishwasher. When washing by hand pre-rinsing and soaking is essential so I kept doing that even after getting the machine, only recently discovering that I am wasting water this way.

Thanks for the tip about the old dishwashers.

[wizofaus]

Soaking is definitely necessary for many sorts of baked-on food remnants. But rinsing is mostly unnecessary unless you're expecting to leave the dishes in the machine long enough before running it that food particles dry out and get stuck - in that case just run a quick rinse cycle, it'll almost certainly use less water than doing it by hand