Dishwasher Tragedies

[gansky1]

Oops. In a frenzy of good housekeeping, I put this drawer organizer in the dishwasher without thinking, in the bottom rack. Since the heating element in the Maytag is right below, you have to be careful about plastics. It's never hurt any Tupperware, Gladware, etc. but it didn't like this Rubbermaid from the 80's!

It's been a long, long time since I've had any mishaps in the dishwasher - anyone else got any good stories?

 

[pulsator]

I don't ususally melt plastic in the dishwasher, I'm more of a stove top melter. I will most often melt the handles off of spatulas while cooking various things. I just never can get into the habit of taking the spatula out of the pan and laying it on the counter! Was the dishwasher harmed at all?

 

[gadgetgary]

Since the heating element in the Maytag is right below

Is this the older Maytag with the dishes and glasses reversed? Wasn't there fan drying? If so, what role did the heating element play?

I can put ANYTHING in my KA-22 series with absolutley no melting...I even have washed plastic 'silverware' with no problems.

 

[mayken4now]

Greg:

Mom used to say all the time in the 70's use the top rack for Cheap Plastic!

Oh yes, burt a many.

(wonder why she sold tupperware for a while?)

Steve

 

[gansky1]

No damage to the dishwasher, this is the first design of the Maytag dishwasher with the one-piece pump unit so it pre-dates fan-forced drying by just a hair. The heater was energized in the fan forced machines until the energy saver option was available that only shut off the heater and left the dishes clammy. I always liked the burst of steam from the vent when the fan started.

 

[Cybrvanr]

sadly, I cracked two out of a set of 8 of my grandmother's neat etched iced-tea glasses. Each glass in the set has a different mid-century modern style pattern etched into them, really space-age looking, and really goes well with my kitchen design. When I had put them in my older Fridigaire DW. One of the broken glasses came from when it fell over onto another dish and banged around in the cycle. The other one broke when one of the wheels came off the track, and a dropped the upper rack...that was the only thing that broke AAARGH!!!! I've never been able to find any more glasses that are as neat as those (or obviously have the memories of drinking iced tea or lemonade on her porch on a hot summer's day!)

 

[dalangdon]

I melted a few things on my old KitchenAid, but with this new one (Bosch) I haven't had any trouble. It doesn't have a heating element that I can see, so I'm not sure how it dries.

I did ruin some cheap plastic placemats from Ikea - it took the paint of them in big patches. It was no big deal, but I thought it was strange.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Plastics in Maytag heated dry and fan

Greg, could you try heating it with a blow dryer on each side and sort of mash the sides flat again with two pieces of wood? All to be done, of course, when you have absolutely nothing to do.

Does anyone have a report on what happens to things like Rubbermaid pitchers in the lower rack when using the heated dry in the Maytag DWs with the large circular heating element and the fan? Thanks

 

[christfr]

oopps

i dont usually melt things but my mom was sure good for doing that..years ago she had a kenmore dw and on a hi temp wash it would shatter thin glasses was for ever cleaning that machine out

 

[retroguy]

melted mess....

I've started putting plastic spatulas, and long handled plastic spoons on the top rack of my GE Potscrubber under coffee cups. This because of its propensity to wash them out of the silverware rack. I've lost both a plastic spatula, and a serving spoon when the heating element melted the #$%^ out of them. Talk about a stench that lingers!

 

[toggleswitch]

When my mother got her first DW - a Lady KM TOL in 1969 she LOVED the *Sani* Cycle to prevent cross contamination amoung ill children. (It had a yellow roto-rack and no visible timer. It was electric advance. YAY! The water temperature indicator lights were FABU!)

Anyhoo nothing beats the smell of a burning rubber pacifier that hits the heating element!
(I forget what this is called overseas/elsewhere- it's the nipple shaped thingie that kiddies suck on to keep quiet. Be nice!)

 

[retroguy]

The nipple shaped thingy that kiddies suck on to keep quiet

Toggle.....I'd BE nice if there were an adult version! =P

 

[seamusuk]

Nipple shaped rubber things.......

Hey Toggle

In the UK its known as a Dummy lol

Seamus

 

[frigilux]

And there's Chapter 23, Togs.

 

[mixfinder]

Dishwasher disaster

My Grandmother died in 1982. I was given a set of dishes with windmills on them and and a blue and red border and some glasses with a gold detail on embossed designs. They were greasy, filmy, from being up in a cupboard for years. I ran them through the dishwasher and when I opened it, there were no designs left visisble on any of the dishes and the gold was completely washed off the glasses. My mom has never forgiven me. She has alzheimers and is right at the spot where the last thing she remembers is what happened in the 80's, so I am hearing about it all over again.
Kelly

 

[markgray]

My son is home from school for the summer...In his attempts to help "keep house" he filled both detergent compartments with Dawn dish washing liquid..Needless to say he started the dishwasher and was out the door. The mess was...well words cannot begin to describe what the kitchen floor looked like..and both of the family pets were freaked out as well. I ended up putting liquid fabric softner in the dishwasher and filling it with cold water by hand; after getting the suds under controll I ran a half gallon of vinigar through the dish washer. Everything seems to work okay now...but there for awhile I was considering just pulling the unit out and getting a new one.

 

[toggleswitch]

That is the last major plastics melt-down that I recall.

It was an interesting machine..had a selectable 12 or 26 minute dry.

Then the timer would rapidly advance electrically to *off*.
Those clicks and cams moving (as well as the cycle-status indiator lights) were fascintaitng as a kid.

 

[DADoES]

Only plastic incident I recall is a Mr. Coffee Tea Maker pitcher that warped in the bottom rack of the BOL WCI/Frigidiare DW that was originally in my first house. What can I say .... I was used to a KDI-17a and didn't think about the exposed element.

 

[toggleswitch]

IIn his attempts to help keep-house he filled both detergent

I woked in a tall Manhattan skyscraper that had two brand new renovated kitchen areas, one per floor. The last one out was supposed to start the DW-ers. This was usually the attorneys.

We could not get the very high fallutin' attorneys to figure out that the liquid wash-up dishwashing detergent on the worktop was for hand-washing and the box of powder for automatic dishwashing that was beneath the sink was for the machines.

WHAT A MESS and it leaked FAR down!

Book-smart, yes.
Life-smart. NOT!

 

[pulsator]

Speaking of Dishwasher tragedies, I'd say that just owning this dishwasher is a tragedy in itself. We preWASH as well as prerinse our dishes and we STILL have to use the longest cycle possible on this machine in order to get semi-okay results. I have to use the Soak and Scrub Cycle with the Super Scrub and Sani Rinse options selected. Glasses still come out with yuckyness on them that wasn't there when they went in! I've been trying to convince mom to replace it with either an older KitchenAid by Hobart, or a new Miele. She claims that she thinks this machine does fine, but I can tell that she isn't satisfied with the results. We are thinking that it is going to need a new upper wash arm as the old one keeps getting stuck. I have trained myself to hear the upper wash arm go by and over the past couple weeks I have noticed that it is getting stuck, I often open it and try to spin it to see if there are any obstructions, but when it goes around a couple times and stops I close it and let it continue. Then when it's time to unload, I often notic that the upper wash arm is right where it stopped after I spun it myself midcycle. AAAARRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!

 

[toggleswitch]

Is there a piece of glass, etc. preventing water-flow to the upper spray-arm(s)?

 

[pulsator]

Nope, I've checked everything I can think of that might be blocking waterflow. It now appears as if some of the holes are getting clogged. I don't know what to do about it. I use Dishwasher Magic monthly and still the holes are starting fill up. I think that I am gonna need to replace the upper wash arm assembly.

 

[polkanut]

Shorly after my wife and I bought our home she started to move some of her plates, glasses, etc. Well both her and her mother were heavy smokers at the time so everything was covered with cigarette smoke residue. She sprayed every item with Simple Green, and filled the cups with Cascade like I had showed her. That evening we showed the house to some friends, well imagine our surprise when we saw all the suds. This was a 1980 GE dishwasher. I grew up with a 1974 KA, don't ask the model no. though.

 

[DADoES]

Arm bearings can wear over time.

 

[nasadowsk]

When I was living in an apartment in Hartford, I had a dishwasher. I had always heard you shouldn't use Dawn in a washer (my dad says filling the washer with Dawn was a popular gag in FDNY...).

Anyway, one day I was pretty bored and had nothing to do, so I decided to dump some in and see what happened...

Had something to do for the rest of the day

 

[gansky1]

Suds in dishwaser

are quite easy to get rid of, just pour in about 1/4 to 1/2 cup cooking oil. The detergent will "eat" and suspend the oil, knocking down the suds. Allow the machine to finish it's cycle as normal and wipe up the floor.

 

[maytagbear]

Fortunately,

I have been such a big fan of dishwashers all my life (even though we didn't get our first one until 1973....) I knew better from an early age not to use a high sudsing detergent in a dishwasher.

I've been very lucky, and have only lost one item, a beautiful Dansk Melamine spoon, in dark Orange, and have charred a few wooden spoon handles when they got knocked to the sump. (Yes, I put wooden spoons, and wooden handled rubber spatulas in the machine. Bite me.)

I am no longer "fussy" about loading (for "fussy," read "a*al retentive,") but I make an effort not to throw things into the machine.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[appnut]

My mom used to put cheapo plastic ice tea spoons in the utensil rack of the 1959 waste king. Yep, smell of melted plastic on heating element. And one time, it even caused the drain solenoid to sty open.

We'd had the 1972 roto rack for a few months. Mom bought a new Tupperware juice pitcher. Well, given I"d been exposed to KAs with forced air drying, I figured the Kenmore would have the same benefits. Nope, that heating element would glow bright orange when on. The pitcher was melted into a malformed thing.

 

[mrtide]

Not exactly a

I was in the process of making ice tea and needed the pitcher out of my new WP in my apartment. It had just finished and the glass pitcher was hot. Without thinking like a real idiot I sat the pitcher in the sink and poured cold water in. The bottom cracked and I rally hated losing that pitcher as it went with a set of glassware-sort of a clear green with a "geodesic looking design on the outside" A normal size pitcher but squatty glasses.

 

[rayjay]

Jamie, I have the same dishwasher in white. I have no problems. Almost everything comes out clean without pre-rinsing. My cousin had a problem with his in that there was a crack in the back of the top wash arm. SO... the water was leaking down to the bottow and not spraying through the top wash arm