Europe phosphate regulations- all STPP out within 2016 in DW products?

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Went to the store this evening, I took a ride in detergents isle, and started looking for which ones have phosphates or not still....
I was surprised to see that in the new Quantum packages they changed the list, while phosphates still appears in the regular powerballs, always the same 15-30% and regular powders...
Quantum didn't have them listed, Btw, they were new packages in a plastic bag, wrapped up to make a twin package with a paper base holding them, not sure if I have seen mentioned a minimum phosphorous content,, all I could read were usual ingredients and phosphonates....but no phosphates...
 
Couple of thoughts

I have my Bosch dishwasher connected to cold water. I had it on hot water (60C) for some weeks but didn't see any benefit. Sure, I probably saved a litte energy but I had to purge quite a bit of cold water from the line first. Cycles didn't get any faster, either - just a few minutes, as the drying phase had to be extended because my Bosch doesn't have Zeolith and it relies only on cold water for the condensation drying. Have also looked at some Miele manuals and their dishwashers don't run faster with hot water, either. The Eco cycle becomes all of ten minutes faster - from 3:19 hrs. to 3:09. Wow. :-/

Due to their heat exchangers, Bosch dishwashers create their own hot fill, using the heat given off by the hot water spraying in the tub. And even with 60C water going in... the little bit of water cooled down to cold as soon as the spray action began. Really didn't see the point in filling hot water in there when it cooled off in seconds.

As far as enzymes go, I know that many dishwashers are capable of heating in stages. I can hear the heater click on and off throughout the main wash. Even our crappy AEG from 1999 said it would heat in stages to activate enzymes and later oxy bleach.

I wonder which BSH dishwasher you have that is so bad. Mine is from 2010 and takes as little as 55 minutes to wash a full load. Really heavy loads are double-washed and triple-rinsed in 90 minutes. Add five minutes for options like Sanitize or an extra wash in the lower rack. And it achieves this without using crazy amounts of water like these modern Maytags that guzzle 45 liters and it can also wash hotter than modern Whirlpool/Kitchen Aids that max out at 41C unless you opt for High Temp to get either 55 or 60C. The 2006 Bosch at my mom's house will go up to 75C.

By the way, the pumping out during the wash is intended: it's to prevent hot water from being pushed out of the dishwasher by rapidly heating (thus expanding) air that's trapped in the dishwasher when you close the door. Different manufacturers solve this problem differently: newer BSHs will just pause for a moment and Mieles will do a few short spray bursts before resuming the cycle.

Our consumer magazine tested phosphate free detergents a while ago and many of them failed terribly. Those that claimed to also replace salt and rinse aid were particularly bad.

Alex
 
Some interesting points their Logixx. 

 

Generally, I combine purging the line with washing hands, washing up some items too bulky for the dishwasher, or fill into a tub to place onto the garden, and all in all, maybe about 5-6L of water (seeing as the DD can do it in one fill with about 2.5L of water) is used. Being purposeful with it helps "save" water in reality too. 

I factored in the cost of water into my savings calculation, and it comes to about $4 of water yearly - though I save water elsewhere whenever permissible, which makes up for it

 

I too don't notice any reduction in cycle times on Delicates, but I on the rare occasions I run the Fast cycles. 

As I said before, it does "guarantee" the target temperature on the very hot Heavy and Heavy-Eco cycles, and of course saves some wear and tear on the machine. 

 

Given that your machine makes use of cold water to assist the drying process, and because EU machines often have the softeners onboard, they cannot make effective use of hot connections without compromising other functions, it seems (and long cycles mean you have to be standing by to purge again for the rinses). 

If one purges the hot tap, and runs a cycle with a short pre-rinse, that would probably do better for energy saving, though not for water :/ 
 
Probably need to clarify a few things....
I do not know if the most modern or TOL bosch have "heat exchangers" that heats incoming water during the fill and so they fill water hot into the tub, never heard of such a thing anyway, mine does not and I can only imagine that if such feature even exist it will pull much electricty during the phase of filling.
I know my Bosch, as the Haier and the whirlpool did, had the classical modern Invisible/hidden heating element...the same element that in my whirlpool got broken after 2 years, reason why I had to change even if it really was a bad moment financially, the only thing more similar to an heat exchanger is that device , that is what maybe I call erroneously "hidden heating element" that takes it's time to get water hot like every water heater does, usually about 30 mins and or more from about 15 to 65, nothing paragonable to an hot fill machine anyway..
My model is reported above, I do not know what maytags you're alluding to, or KA, not even sure regarding the speech about the temperature, or at least I don't get it, how can they max out to 41degress at max if later you say you can opt for a hotter wash to 60 degrees? Isn't the same with every machine you can choose the wash temp???. Sorry, don't get it...
Anyway, I always and say always run the 65 degrees cycle in our bosch, and results are often disappointing at best as I described...
I came to realize that the fault of this is almost surely imputable to it's weakness for the most, I mean surges and pump power are really ridicolous...
So here I say, if using less water is synonym of silly toy-like surges/jets that cannot reach all the load properly and detach dirt like a dishwasher should do, then is more than welcome and neded a machine that use more water because it will be able to get stuff clean as I expect it to do...and generally I've found that dishwashers that use more water looks that meets this criteria, again, Generally, but anyway not always.
Anyway, even our old rex reached 75 degrees of temperature...
Temperature anyway it is not what matter for the most, you can even have water at 90 degrees, but if diswahser barely moves water then it's useless, you need a fair combination of heat and mechanical action that I could experience my machines were not capable to give, the results I get in the bosch running the heavy cycle at 65degress are paragonable to the ones I'd have gotten in my Rex if I had run the glassware short cycle.. Same was for the whirlpool and haier....
Do not really know what to say...
Regarding the speech about the dishwasher pumping out water during the wash, that is nothing I have ever experienced, never, would be anyway sort of crazy if so.....it already fills too less water IMO, let alone if it also do that purposedly.
All I said is that, sometimes has happened that I forgot something and had to open the machine either during the prewash or main wash to add it...
Or also that power went out suddenly....
When that happens, either because for reasons beyond your control as I said or because you stopped it to add something, the machine before resuming cycle when you close it, or when power returns, will do a partial drain before re-starting the cycle where it left, but since it will drain partially it will result in pump sucking air and the already silly amount of water it use will be nothing.
So, when you start it, you are forbidden to open it again, just let it go....and pray that power will no go out for some reasons, and wash the stuff you forgot by hand, otherwise you'll have to reset and start it again from the very start.

[this post was last edited: 4/24/2014-06:00]
 
Did some researches, didn't know the existence of this heat exchanged system in TOL BSH.... It's pretty new infact.
So, if I got this well, during the wash the heat exchanger heats some water for the next fill for the rinse thanks to the temperature inside the tub..
So it's like if the machine would heat the double amount of water because both if you heat for exchange or thanks to an element, the element is the one that gives heat and takes it's time....but this way allows perhaps little saving in time and sure avoid thermal shocks....cannot help but think that wheter before or after, the water amount has to be heated anyway, so the matter of time required to heat, would not change that much, so to the time to heat water in the wash you have to add also the time to heat the one in the heat exchanger since it would loss it to heat the other water for the next fill...
Do not see anyway much saving in this in term of energy and time, but sure is nice if you are washing fine glasswares that may suffer temperature shocks...
Nice idea after all. But still not comparable to an hot fill IMO.
 
Partial drain during wash

I cannot remember where I read (maybe in a User's Manual) that the partial drain during the wash is caused by an increase of he internal pressure if the door is opened and then closed again while the temperature inside is high and there is a lot of steam. The increased pressure triggers the water level switch, which causes the partial drain.

Both my previous Electrolux ESI682 (re-branded AEG) and my current AEG F99009 do that.

However, in the main wash sometimes they also do a partial drain followed by filling fresh water if they "believe" that the water is too dirty, but this is another story
 
That's not my case anyway because it does that even with cold water in the prewash and if I wait too much even when door is opened, btw, my machine has a floating sensor.....but not sure if it is a water level sensor or overfill prevention.. It shouldn't do that anyway...
Since it will fill while spraying supposedly as kind of load sensing method for customed-to-the-load water use (most machines do that nowadays) I also thought that perhaps it does that because once you stop all the water gathers in the bottom and it may result too high for the sensor, and start draining, but it would not drain almost half of the tub if so...it's not normal...
In any case, a thing more that I hate in it...
None of my previous machines ever did that....I am sure it's a problem in the electronic programmation it has..
To be honest...
I generally hate computerized electronic controls...they do not have the same flexibility and life of electromechanical ones.

[this post was last edited: 4/24/2014-06:53]
 
Logixx your right, Heat exchangers have been on Bosch machines for at least 16 to 17 years.

The Hotpoint machines based on Bosch even had it, even on the most basic models.
 
Really? All of them? It looked quite a new thing in the bosch website...
Didn't know of that, so mine should also have it, funny enough never noticed of that, it always looked it filled cold water even though I have never opened it after the wash to see what water comes in the rinse, first (afterwash) rinse to be exact, but I know it does a warm short rinse after the wash and heater comes on as I can see it kicks on (the bulbs suddenly loose some power) and sometimes power meter would shut off if I am using the microvawe or something else, , then another longer rinse, , and the last long one at circa 60-70 degrees, then drain, fill water and dry by condensation, i also pretty dislike this drying system, not much good as a vented model, especially vented models on the fronts like Miele, not to mention ones with fans that are the top IMO, but one thing it does better than the haier and whirlpol is drying, with the whirlpool I always had to dry all of the stuff with the towel...with the bosch most stuff does not need to, ie pans and dishes..
Glasses and other items comes out with drops on them though..and still have to pass them with the towel.
 
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

logixx++4-24-2014-09-38-47.jpg
 
About your Bosch dishwasher Freddy,

I decided to download the manual of it. I see there are some interesting things about it.

1. The normal cycle doesn't have a heated prewash. But the Pots and Pans cycle has. The prewash is 50 degrees Celcius, the main wash 70 degrees Celcius. After the main wash it has three rinses of which the last one is heated again to 70 degrees Celcius.

2. There is a recommendation in the manual to connect the dishwasher to cold water. If connected to hot water, the temperature of it should be max. 60 degrees Celcius.

3. It looks like there is no heat exchanger in this model.

4. For shorter cycles they recommend only powder, no tabs.
 
Sorry

Louis, I think I told you a wrong number , i looked online as I was not at home (nor I am now) and should have got the wrong one, my correct number should instead be sgs43f02 , my machine has max temperature written next to the program you choose, the stronger cycle do have stated 65 degrees....so it is not the model you got the manual for, I appreciate your effort and if it is not much trouble please look for the correct one...
For istance, my dishwasher is like this
http://www.kelkoo.it/p-lavastoviglie-145101/bosch-sgs43f02-19758805[this post was last edited: 4/24/2014-12:09]
 
For the record, our machine has vented drying.

 

Not that I let it run when I'm around. I cancel and open the drawer to flash dry, save some time and energy. 
 
I've never understood...

Why anyone opens the door.

 

If you're using Rinse Aid, and your last rinse water, was of a decent temperature, the combination should dry your dishes. By opening your dishwasher door, you're letting all the hot steam & thermal heat out, that helps dry off anything still wet. Leaving it closed, you get powerful and good condensation based drying. 

 

I've always noticed, that if I open the dishwasher door, after the cycle, things stay wet. If I keep the door closed (for at least a couple of hours) everything is perfectly dry, even Plastics. 
 
Why anyone opens the door?

I like to use a cloth on concave surfaces like the bottoms of cups and glasses or any other place where water pools and doesn't completely evaporate. Then I just close the dishwasher again and in a couple of hours everything is really dry.
 
Allow me to Explain :)

For me, it seems to save time and deliver better results - especially on the very hot cycles. In more humid weather, it just doesn't seem as if an environment at high humidity will be conducive to drying. 

 

I also haven't been using rinse-aid very much lately either, just on the minimum setting, and that stops all the spotting. The small addition makes flash-drying much easier.

 

Whilst it does work by letting the fan work, shutting the machine off saves whatever minuscule amount of power and drys everything in about 5 minutes - compare that to a 30 minute wait :)
 
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