Dishwasher recommendations
- Thread starter evilmike
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figmentPez
Staff member
One thing I've learned from my parent's buying appliances is never buy the cheapest model a company makes.
Fortunately, you can add it back in yourself!
It makes the run-off upset the environment, but hey! Clean dishes!
--Patrick
It makes the run-off upset the environment, but hey! Clean dishes!
--Patrick
Let's see. 8 people. 5 dishes per person per meal. Two meals at home per day. 80+ dishes to wash each day. And that's when the toddler doesn't decide to empty the kids dish cupboard onto the floor and play with them.
I'm going to disagree with your solution.
We run our dishwasher twice a day, most times packed completely.
But if you're volunteering...
I suppose, however, that you don't often run into families with 7 children in China.
...A soup bowl, a plate for the appatizer, a plate for the main course, a plate for dessert and a coffee cup saucer? I'm sort of at a loss at how you can have 5 plates per person as the "normal" number. I've had meals with more ppp (plates per person - it should totally be a sorting measure for meals!), but standard breakfast has, what, 2? Or are you counting cups/glasses/whatever?
I'm using the word "dish" to include everything the "dish" washer is expected to clean.
So we have a plate, possibly a bowl, one or two utensils, and a cup at each setting - so between 3 and 5 per place. Then we dirty another 10-20 dishes preparing and serving the food, so that adds about 1-2 dishes per person on average, so between 4-7 items to be washed per person, per sit-down meal.
Okay, that I can see. I was confused because I was equating "dish" with "plate"; if you include everything, 5 is far from an unreasonable number.
Necronic
Staff member
I've always heard good things about Maytag. It's more expensive but apparently it's a pretty good brand
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You make this sound like a bad thing. That stuff should not be used on a wide scale. I would rather have to put in a little elbow grease than completely thrash the ecosystem.
Living around the great lakes I'm well aware of the damage phosphate based cleaners play a significant part in:
http://www.onearth.org/article/lake-erie-death-watch
But we've successfully been using phosphate-free laundry detergent for years without having to deal with clothes that remain dirty after a washing.
The switch was a night and day difference for the dish detergents, though. Even if we rinse off the dishes beforehand, and use copious amounts of rinse agent, and trying a dozen different detergents, we still get dirty dishes out of our dishwasher after running it.
I expect that both dishwasher design and dishwasher detergent composition will improve over the next decade to account for the loss of this cleanser, but in the meantime none of the substitutes actually work.
I haven't gone to the length of adding it back in myself, but it's very, very irritating because we're wasting water and time either scrubbing them before, or rinsing them after, or running the item's still dirty through again. That also has an ecological impact that's less-than-ideal.
Had I known it was going to be this bad, and had warning before the switch, I would have stocked up on the old detergents.
Taking what stienman says into account, you might want to concentrate your search on used dishwashers, or ones made prior to 2011. If you purchase something newer, there is the chance that it may not be built to withstand such alkaline cleaning solutions (basically meaning lots of aluminium parts), so check for any sort of warning label on anything newer ("new detergent only" or some such).
--Patrick
--Patrick
I would occasionally run an empty load of washing soda or pickling lime in my dishwasher just to clean it up.
I find it somewhat ironic that many of the "safe" dishwasher cleaners use citric acid as their cleaning agent instead of carbonate/phosphate. And what do you think is the active ingredient in those "clean my dishwasher" packets? Citric acid. So I suppose that means that the proper way to clean your dishwasher after using "new and improved" detergent would be ... to run a load with old detergent, of course.
--Patrick
I find it somewhat ironic that many of the "safe" dishwasher cleaners use citric acid as their cleaning agent instead of carbonate/phosphate. And what do you think is the active ingredient in those "clean my dishwasher" packets? Citric acid. So I suppose that means that the proper way to clean your dishwasher after using "new and improved" detergent would be ... to run a load with old detergent, of course.
--Patrick
The big benefit of a machine above doing it by hand is Sanitation. When my parents put in the dishwasher 30 + years ago we stopped getting each other sick. If one of us came home with the flu, is did not spread as badly to the other brothers.
Make sure you either have your hot water heater set at 140 or else use the built-in water heater, works pretty well.
--Patrick
Necronic
Staff member
Technically dishwashers don't usually get up to a temperature necessary for sanitation, and I'm not sure they are spec'd to handle water that hot (ed: just looked it up, anything over 140 could damage your dishwasher's filter, so 140 is pushing it). In college I lived in "Co-ops", basically co-ed hippie frats, and whenever the size was over X people (18?) we had to abide by local health code. This meant that our houses required Hobart sanitizers instead of dishwashers. They literally do nothing other than spraying near boiling water on it.
The dishwashers I've used have a "sanitation" setting that heats up the water significantly, but now I'm curious if they actually get up to the FDA definition (165F to 180F). I suspect they don't.
ABS softens at 180C, well above the boiling point.
I believe the main reason most industrial washers don't use plastic is because it's not durable and easy to clean. Bang a pot too hard and it cracks, if it gets a deep scratch it can harbor bacteria.
I know that's why "commercial" mixing equipment does not have a painted/enameled finish on the attachments.
--Patrick
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