Growing up
When you were younger, chances are you were told to respect your mother and father. But if you were anything like most kids, you went through a period of rebellion where your parents and their rules seemed seriously uncool. Then as you grew into an adult, you realized that they weren't evil and probably made amends. Believe it or not, this has been the same progression home appliances have gone through. For years since their inception, appliances have ignored Mother Earth and used as many resources as they darn well pleased. But in the past couple years, appliance manufacturers have started coming of age, minding their mother, and building much more environmentally-conscious devices. The Bosch SHE55M12UC is back for Christmas, sporting stubble on its face and a fiancé on its arm. This model sips resources, using only an estimated 259 kWh per year, and averaging only 2.86 gallons of water used per load. With those stats, it earned the coveted ENERGY STAR badge of approval. These stats make it 80% better than the national minimum, and a lot better than even most other ENERGY STAR models. But since it's built by Bosch, the 2009 ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year, that should come as no surprise. Oh yeah, the SHE55M12UC is back for the holidays, and you can bet it's got a gift for mom.
Take action
The SHE55M12UC comes with an EcoSense wash system. This advanced system uses turbidity sensors to determine how dirty your dishes are and make adjustments to ensure that your dishes are washed thoroughly using as few resources as possible. This system is so smart it can vary the wash cycle in 48 different possibilities. The EcoSense system allows the dishwasher to use 20% less energy than the industry standard without sacrificing any wash quality. But every new Bosch dishwasher comes with EcoSense. What if you want to take efficiency to the next level? Don't worry — the ENERGY STAR Partner of the Year has you covered. On select dishwasher models, including the SHE55M-series, you get EcoAction. Rather than a standard system, EcoAction is a cycle option. Here's how it works: Normal dishwashers heat water to very high temperatures and use that to wash your dishes. But heating water to those temperatures and what uses the most energy on a normal cycle. So, Bosch has an energy-saving alternative. By pressing the EcoAction button, you can use up to 25% less energy than you would normally for the same cycle. All it does differently is lowers the water temperature by just a few degrees and adds five to ten minutes to the cycle length. So if you can spare a few minutes, you can save a lot of energy with the EcoAction option on the new Bosch SHE55M12.
Bring on the white gloves
The ENERGY STAR badge isn't the only seal of approval the SHE55M12 received though. It was also awarded NSF certification for select cycles. Why does this matter you? Well, when you wash your dishes, do you want them to look clean or would you prefer they be clean? Many dishwashers wash dishes by removing the food and polishing them up a bit so they look nice when you take them out. Looking nice is great, but that can leave you with the a lot on your plate in terms of germs. NSF-certified wash cycles, on the other hand, actually clean your dishes so you get a clean that goes deeper than just what you see on the outside. In fact, 99.9% of bacteria are removed during these loads. Furthering this is the SaniDry hygienic possibility. Helping to kill those nasty organisms, the water temperature is raised to a burning 160° F temperature that almost no bacteria can survive. Not only is that much safer, but it's might reassuring to know that in order to find the little germs on your dishes, you'd need a lot more than just a white glove. You'd need a powerful microscope. Which dishes would you rather eat off of?
Music to a parent's ears
If you've got kids, you know all about nightmares. There's the kind with ghosts, the ones with bears, and then the dreams with assorted other foes. Then there's the kind you have, where you just get the kids put to bed, clear the table, load the dishes, and settle down to finally put your feet up, only to have the dishwasher wake everyone with a din akin to the Fight for Middle Earth. Who wouldn't scream at that? Luckily, the SHE55M12 is ready to comfort you and soothe you back to sleep with a library-safe 47dB rating. That barely-audible rhythm sure sounds like a lullaby now.
Sleep even more soundly
Another comforting feature of the SHE55M12 is the warranty it comes with. Bosch provides a full one-year parts and labor warranty on the entire dishwasher. After the first year, there is another full year of parts coverage for the whole machine. The electronics and dish racks carry an additional three years warranty for parts beyond that (5 total). Finally, this dishwasher carries a lifetime warranty against stainless steel rust through. This warranty, along with other safety features like the AquaStop leak-protection system and ChildLock sure do help take some stress off your mind.
