A man who tweeted about the moment he realised that his dishwasher trays were height adjustable has seen the post go viral - as thousands of others admitted they had no clue their own appliances could do the same thing.

Mike McLoughlin, from Ireland, tweeted that he'd lived in his present house for ten years and assumed his dishwasher just wasn't built to take his largest dinner plates.

He'd been hand-washing them for a decade.

In fact, the tray of his domestic machine was simply set too high, meaning ‏his plates could have fitted in easily.

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The tweet that propelled Mike McLoughlin to Twitter stardom, for today at least

What do you mean there's two levels? Irishman Mike McLoughlin has prompted a Twitter whirlwind after he realised after a decade that his dishwasher could fit in large dinner plates - if he adjusted the tray height

He tweeted the revelation and more than 84,000 people have now liked it, with many sharing their own moments of realistion relating to dishwashers and other household appliacnces.

@zuroph originally wrote: 'I moved into this house in 2008. It always annoyed me that the lower level of the dishwasher wasn’t tall enough to fit my biggest dinner plates. Been handwashing them all this time. This week I discovered you can raise the upper shelf and all my plates fit fine. TEN F****** YEARS'

The only glimmer of hope in for McLoughlin was that he wasn't alone. An avalanche of tweets quickly followed with many rushing to their dishwashers to see if this was a feature they too had overlooked.

@IpCollins wrote: 'A perfect example of a first world problem. But I bought a new set of plates before realising this too.'

One man was delighted with the solution, thanking Mike while sharing a selfie on Twitter

@dusted1969 added: 'err, not only you mate. I've been in this house 4 years and didn't realise...'

@lpowertweets proclaimed: 'The magic of twitter. 5 years of confusion about why my dishwasher was the only one on the planet that didn’t fit normal dinner plates.

'A year of measuring every dinner plate that crossed my path for one that might. Fixed in 30 seconds. @zuroph you are my hero.'

@ullamuddle penned: 'Omg. This is breaking news to me. I avoid my dinner plates all the time. You’re my kind of genius.'

The ongoing thread threw up other similar scenarios too, with many admitting they'd left protective film on shower screens and fridge freezers for years, only realising when the film began to peel.