Dishwasher Energy Labels in the European Community

Here is a brief overview of what the EU document "COMMISSION DELEGATED REGULATION (EU) No 1059/2010" says what dishwasher labels should look like:

The EU says that "The electricity used by household dishwashers accounts for a significant share of total household electricity demand in the Union", so it is important to push for higher efficiency dishwashers. In the official document it is assumed that a family uses their dishwasher 280 times a year, or just under once a day on average, which is how the numbers printed on the label are arrived at.

Even though this is an "energy label" (with energy consumption shown in kWh/annum), it also contains useful information about noise, water consumption and number of utensils washed.

The water consumption of dishwashers is measured in litres per year (L/annum):

The place settings (second icon from the left in the label) is the number of people this washer can wash up for! For example 5 people would use 5 forks, 5 knives, 5 bowls, 5 plates, etc. A place setting is the cutlery, glasses and crockery for one person. Here is the icon for a dishwasher which can handle the mess from 8 people:

There is also an icon which tells you how good at drying the dishwasher is, here is the version of an appliance which dries very well (a class "A" drier):

The calculation of the drying efficiency class seems extremely complicated while at the same time a bit rough and ready. It involves looking at the total wet area (presumably of all the plates and glasses and knives and forks...?) and also counting the number of water traces and wet streaks.

If you want to try our software for creating these label images at 300 DPI or more just contact me. We can add your company name and logo at the top of the label. After that all you have to do is fill in the data each time you want a new label created.

Note that the regulation also says: "...any advertisement for a specific model of household dishwasher contains the energy efficiency class, if the advertisement discloses energy-related or price information." Which means either you advertise with not a lot of information, or you give the correct technical details.