On December 13, I wrote to Matt, the seller, and offered to purchase his Sink/Dishwasher should he decided to remove it and sell. On the evening of December 14, Matt posted additional photos, which completely confirmed that the machine was a Kaiser. However, I never received a reply from the guy until………
On April 8, from out of the blue, I received an email from Matt saying “I am finally renovating my kitchen and I am ready to part with it (the Electric Sink). If you are interested please let me know what you think is a fair price and we can set something up.” That evening, I replied and made an initial offer. Then four more days passed without a reply back from him. But on April 12, I finally did receive the reply I was hoping for, and a couple more email exchanges later, we had agreed on a buying price.
The plans finally came together last week for me to make the 6 hour drive to the Dayton, Ohio area (Centerville) on Sunday, April 22, to pick the Kaiser sink up.
From the beginning, looking at Matt’s photos he posted in the thread, I knew that the Dishwasher was in Very Poor Condition. The rotating Dish Rack was missing, as was the Drain Plug. The tub was horribly corroded, and the Spray Nozzles were also missing. I also knew that the Lid was in very poor, warped, condition.
As I mentioned in Thread #37850, I didn’t even realize that Kaiser had produced an Electric Sink Model. A Kaiser Dishwasher Brochure on eBay right now, and SUPER Overpriced at $64.99 (on sale for $51.99 today), indicates there are four models:
Deluxe Cabinet Model DA-1
Deluxe Chassis Model DB-1
Standard Cabinet Model DC-1
Standard Chassis Model DD-1
There is no reference to a Sink Model.
In the past couple days, I have been researching the internet in hopes of finding more information about the Kaiser Dishwasher. I did find a story which describes during World War II, that Henry J. Kaiser had a group of engineers working on new ideas for postwar consumer goods. The Kaiser Dishwasher was one such idea that was developed and would operate without an electric motor and pump. The Kaiser Fleetwings Division in Bristol, Pennsylvania, produced the four Kaiser Dishwasher models which were introduced in 1946. The article implies two major flaws existed: (1) Distribution was turned over to the Kaiser-Frazer Sales Corporation (the car division of the Kaiser conglomerate). The Kaiser-Frazer division was ill prepared to market and demonstrate the dishwasher. (2) Lack of adequate field testing did not pick up on the fact that not all water sources were able to deliver the required minimum water pressure of 40 pounds per square inch for adequate operation.
Mainly because of customer dissatisfaction and the high cost of the Dishwashers – upwards of $200 plus freight and taxes, the sales started to decline. According to the article, in early 1948, Sears Roebuck & Company was searching for an automobile that could be sold as a house-branded item. As part of the deal, the Dishwasher line became part of the package, along with factory floor space. However, Sears needed the floor space for other contract work, so the Kaiser Dishwasher line had to go.
You will see in one of my photos, a stenciled date on the sink bowl which reads “11-20-48” which is most assuredly the assembly date for the Sink unit. If there is any other identification on the dishwasher itself, it has long been since painted over with the same green paint that was used on the exterior of the front of the cabinet doors. This November 1948 date is a real puzzler for me based on the takeover of the Kaiser Dishwasher line by Sears, and subsequently dropped at some point. Could this Sink version of the Kaiser Dishwasher really have been introduced, instead, by Sears in late 1948, after the acquisition of Kaiser, as a way of prototyping their own dishwasher line?
What is interesting is that this seems to be the place in time when Sears was getting involved with a broad range of products branded with the “Homart” name. The article simply makes mention of the “Homart” name, but looking at the round tub of the Kaiser Dishwasher, and the fact that other Impeller driven dishwashers were on the market, by 1948, sure seems too much of a coincidence to me to ignore. I, and others here, have tried to figure out where the Sear Homart Dishwasher was produced (I have an Electric Sink version in my collection). I think that part of that puzzle is starting to come to light – were the Homart Dishwashers made in Bristol, Pennsylvania, in the former Kaiser Fleetwings factory buildings? Also look at the similarity between the lid hinge of both the Kaiser and the Homart, plus the lid is round on the Homart like the Kaiser.
The full Kaiser article I have been referring to is at the link below.
Here are photos of, what Robert and I believe to be, the only Kaiser Electric Sink/Dishwasher known to exist.
Mike
www.automaticwasher.org
