washer111, using the water that is needed to purge the line is a very sensible idea. In my case, and I understand that everyone has different circumstances, I'd have to purge almost a small bucket (five liters or more) from the line and I have no use for so much cold water short of dumping it into the toilet after taking... never mind. ;-p At our old place, we had a recirculation pump and a hot-water connection would have made more sense there. Here, however, we asked out landlord to switch the recirc off because it made annoying noises in the pipes all day long. On top of that, the water cools off fairly quickly - like in ten minutes or so - and I'd have to be standing there purging the line as the DW goes through its cycle.
As aquarius pointed out, Bosch's heat exchanger has been around since "forever". I think it's the company's trademark just like Miele's cutlery drawer. Some of the cheapest models don't have it and special application units, like the counter top dishwashers, don't have it, ether.
The heat exchanger works during the post-wash phase, when dishwashers typically continue to wash without reheating the water. Roughly 15 minutes before the main wash drains, the heat exchanger fills with cold water and the temp inside the tub and inside the heat exchanger equalize. There's no extra energy or time needed to heat the water. This process takes place during every step of the cycle but the final rinse.
Vented drying in dishwashers? It's dead, I'm afraid. Most manufacturers have moved to some sort of condensation drying. I'm not actually sure why, though. For hygienic reasons? Because many people want fully hidden dishwashers these days? I don't mind vented drying - our AEG had it.
As for Maytag and KitchenAid: I'll add screen shots of the manuals for their current dishwashers:
The first one is Maytag's thirsty Pots & Pans cycle, which, by the way, is as fast or slow as the similar cycle on my dishwasher. Don't know what on earth you have to do to get the time up to 295 minutes.
The second picture is from KitchenAid. Seeing that you can use High Temp Wash even on the Though cycle, leads me to believe that even Though washes at 41C (or it might wash at 55C and HTW raises it to 60C).
Alex

As aquarius pointed out, Bosch's heat exchanger has been around since "forever". I think it's the company's trademark just like Miele's cutlery drawer. Some of the cheapest models don't have it and special application units, like the counter top dishwashers, don't have it, ether.
The heat exchanger works during the post-wash phase, when dishwashers typically continue to wash without reheating the water. Roughly 15 minutes before the main wash drains, the heat exchanger fills with cold water and the temp inside the tub and inside the heat exchanger equalize. There's no extra energy or time needed to heat the water. This process takes place during every step of the cycle but the final rinse.
Vented drying in dishwashers? It's dead, I'm afraid. Most manufacturers have moved to some sort of condensation drying. I'm not actually sure why, though. For hygienic reasons? Because many people want fully hidden dishwashers these days? I don't mind vented drying - our AEG had it.
As for Maytag and KitchenAid: I'll add screen shots of the manuals for their current dishwashers:
The first one is Maytag's thirsty Pots & Pans cycle, which, by the way, is as fast or slow as the similar cycle on my dishwasher. Don't know what on earth you have to do to get the time up to 295 minutes.
The second picture is from KitchenAid. Seeing that you can use High Temp Wash even on the Though cycle, leads me to believe that even Though washes at 41C (or it might wash at 55C and HTW raises it to 60C).
Alex
