Application for BobLoad in the new Whirlpool 920

[murando531]

Here it is, the first fully loaded, soil laden load in the new dishwasher!! My husband's mom and stepdad and brothers came over for holiday leftovers, and most of the dishes had already been sitting for a couple of days. There was dried on chili, with remnants of hamburger meat and tomato pieces left stuck on, chicken and dressing stuck on silverware, green bean casserole (there was even a stray green bean that dropped into the silverware basket), and the rest was coffee stains and dried oatmeal, and some dried sauce from the bread pudding Angie (mom in law) brought over. It was absolutely killing her that I wasn't rinsing anything off, lol. Freaking out that we'd have ants all over the place. In all my years of being the sole operator of the dishwashers everywhere I've lived, I've never once had a problem with ants in the machine because of not rinsing or washing before loading, but I also never let them sit more than 2-3 days at the most, and thats more likely to have been a full load long before anyway.

Unfortunately, I don't have pictures of the after, because last night when it was done our friend Mark was here who is very generously helpful, and I couldn't really say no. He was oogling at how pretty the interior is, so it also boosted my ego a bit too. Plus we were doing homemade pizzas and had dishes piling up so we kinda needed the room.

*the door has smears on it because I ended up taking all the silverware out and laying it on the door, and just flipping the dividers up. I'm not a fan of our flatware because the ends are too wide for any dishwasher's divider slots, and I also wanted to test the abilities of the silverware spray when they're all nested together.

 

[murando531]

Sensor cycle with no options, and as you can see above, the estimate was 2:35. After about 20 minutes I checked the timer and it was down to 2:14, and about 10 minutes later I checked again and it had gone up to 2:38. I think entire duration was just under 3 hours, but I honestly didn't feel like it was that long because of cleaning the rest of the house. I paid as much attention as I could, and from what I could tell, it did a 5 minute prewash, then a purge, the main wash, where the dispenser snapped open right at the beginning, and washed for around 50 minutes, then a purge and two rinses. I adore that the main wash is long and the detergent is released immediately starting. Those enzymes need to be used to their fullest potential, not only for good performance but also to justify buying high quality detergents without feeling like they're just being swept down the drain after 12 minutes (only peeve about the PowerClean, but it comes from an era where detergents were lightning fast and 12 minutes was all it needed).

The results? I opened the door, nervous at what I would find, because it was this load that would determine how the machine would do on a normal basis...

The door gleamed with not a single spot, I searched every dish with Mark trying to find any kibble or grit at all, to no avail. Even the silverware that had been nestled in the basket was sparkling, and the stray green bean was no where to be found!! So I said "Well, I'm sure there has to be some crud in the filter this time..". To my amazement, not even a speck!! The water remaining in the sump, crystal clear. I have been in shock since then.

I was truly expecting to have to make compromises with this machine, and yet it's excelled in every aspect, from looks and build quality, loading flexibility, quietness, and cleaning. I know some will think this was a lightly soiled load, but I left enough cruddy chili and such left in the containers to give even the Maytag Voyager a challenge, and I thought surely the filter would be gunked up, but evidently not at all!

Needless to say, I'm extremely happy with this dishwasher. Whirlpool has come a long way with this design, and I admire their attention to detail in this machine. The pump, while small, has plenty of oomph, and rarely does the machine just sit paused like I expected, and I really do think the silverware spray bar and the TotalCoverage spray arm make a huge difference. I can only imagine, what if the PowerClean and Voyager had a silverware spray like this? There would have been nary a complaint about the in-door basket, because that was really their only weak point if not loaded correctly.

 

[johnb300m]

WELL. Color me impressed!
That's awesome!

The green bean shocks me.
Even on the hurricane-like DuraWash, or my parents' older GE Triton...legumes and other objects would remain in the basket if too large the fly through the holes.

 

[murando531]

I think that's what shocked me the most, lol. I deliberately left it there and didn't expect it to get past the coarse grate on the filter, much less disappear completely. The drain port looks to be a decent size, and the drain impeller has wider paddles than the one on the Voyager, which looks more like a eight pointed star. I didn't think to look for it in the sink disposal, with all the commotion.

I'm going to go by the manual, which states that with only scraping and no rinsing, and 3-4 loads a week, the filter should only need to be checked and possibly cleaned ever 4-6 months. So we'll be seeing how true that is! Haha. So far though, I'm impressed, and if it self cleans like this and performs as well as it has thus far, I'll be very happy.

 

[appnut]

Andrew, I am so proud of you I can hardly stand it.  You actually let some food remnants stay on the dishware beyond what you usually do with the scraping.  Yep, I would consider the load you just did as light to average soil.  Nothing extraordinary, even the wayward string bean.  My SmartWash defaults to 2:41, but that includes the standard heated dry.  On mine, about 15 to 20 minutes into the wash it will add 38 minutes and then later take away minutes toward the end of the wash cycle.  For soil such as yours it last about 55 minutes.  For heavier soil it can go from 65 to 70 minutes.Oh, I'm forgetting something.

 

BobLoadPlus certification.  You really stretched yourself out of your box to do this load.  And it was very good loading, reminded me of what I'd do.  And all your photos were excellent.  So you received the ultimate certification.

 

[magic_clean]

Silverware

spray arm

 

[mrb627]

Nice.

Score one for Whirlpool...

Malcolm

 

[mark_wpduet]

Love this report

I usually run my dishwasher every 3 to sometimes 4 days. It takes that long to fill it to the max here in our house (usually), not always. Sometimes sooner. Anyway, things will get dried on and sit there all that time. I've never had an ant problem from doing this.

There was a post a while back from someone (I can't remember) and they showed a pic of the new whirlpool or Sears machines and it showed the exact spray arm that is in your new machine. People were talking about how weak the spray looked and how the wash pump of whatever it's called was merely a cheap pump used in fountains. I was thinking WOW these new machines are going to be awful.....I'm so glad to hear that this is not the case at all.

Thanks

 

[peteski50]

Whirlpool DW!

Congrats on this DW! I work at home depot and this is one I recommend! I have also sold many of the Amana with the SS tub! My only objection is these really long cycles! Thats why I hold on to my GE tall tub from 2002 only 84 mins and cleans beautifully! Many customers are so taken back that have old machines when they hear how long the cycles will take! One question do the spray arms work one at a time or do they both operate together? Thanks
Peter

 

[appnut]

Spray arms one at a time.

 

[joeypete]

Looks nice!

The Amana that came with my condo had the silverware basket on the door and I didn't like it at all. It was one of the Maytag designed Amana's and it cleaned pretty well. The basket didn't have the lids on it though and when I opened the door the silverware would slid out. Drove me nuts! So I ended up using a zip tie to attach it to the front of the bottom basket. Worked great! Then I got a new dishwasher lol.

Glad to see you like your new machine! It's beautiful.