Dishwashers are amazing appliances, even if they never did anything besides washing dishes. But the possibilities for other things are endless. You can use them to wash things that aren't dishes. You can cook in them. You can heat things in them. And when it stops working entirely, there are many ways to re-use its parts. And some of the hacks in this list are completely unexpected.
16. RIPEN AVOCADOS.
A restaurant worker on Metafilter spilled the beans on his employer's trick for force-ripening avocados: Throw them on the top rack of the dishwasher for a cycle.
21. BUILD A HAND-CRANK GENERATOR.
If your dishwasher dies but the motor is still serviceable, it may just help you survive the zombie apocalypse—or, more likely, help you charge your electronics while you're camping. If you're handy, making the motor into a pretty powerful little generator like this is a snap.
Now, if you are considering cooking in a dishwasher, you should check out which recipes work and which do not. Find those and all the dishwasher hacks in a list at Mental Floss.
(Image credit: Flickr user Sandor Weisz)