GM/Frigidaire Impeller Dishwasher Find

[combo52]

Early D&M Built Frigidaire Portable DW

Barry Thanks for taking the time and effort to show everyone here at AW this DW, it is always neat to see how an early machine operated. Your test results really show the need for a DW to have a detergent dispenser and at least a dual wash, your tests also shows how poorly most impeller DWs washed dishes. If I were going to use this machine to actually wash dirty dishes I would stop it after the first or final rinse add more detergent and start it over again. Of the impeller DWs that I have had direct experience with only the GEs with the SS bow-tie impeller and the WH top loading DWs with the flush through detergent dispenser did a half decent job.

 

The best and only impeller DWs to have a separate roto-rack for the top rack were undoubtedly the best overall performers, all made by D&M in the early 1960s.

 

It is easy to see why the impeller style DWs disappeared, it was a cheap and easy type of machine to build and it was fairly durable but they were no match for DWs that used a real pump and wash arm. It is also worth noting that every [ decent ] DW built today has a full wash arm under rack washing UP and no one uses a silly center wash tower that only washes the middle of the top rack, also gone are the DWs that attempted to wash dishes from the top down.

 

[philr]

That's probably why the later versions of this dishwasher added a second wash and a detergent dispenser. I didn't get so bad results with mine but I usually pre-rinse my dishes (unlike John who lets his dishwashers do that job!).  

 

[bwoods]

I love your technical terminology, like "silly". It must have taken quite a few years of college education to come up with such a descriptor, ha.

The tower wash on the General Electric dishwashers certainly outwash, on the upper rack, the Kenmore and Whirlpool two arm non-tall tub dishwashers that I have had. And DEFINATELY outwash the WP tall tubs that I have had.

Dried oatmeal (usally dried for two to three days) in bowls on the upper racks have never even been even a remote challenge for the GE TW. In my non-tall tub Kenmore, Whirlpool PowerModule and WP built Kitchen-Aid it has been hit and miss for dried oatmeal in the upper rack. Usually most is removed but almost never all.

In the WP tall tub I had, was very consistent in that it never was able to totally get all the dried oatmeal off. In my GE tall tub, it was also hit or miss. Sometimes it got it all, but ufortunately often left at least some residue.

Consumer Reports also agrees that the washing performance of the 1980's tower wash GE's exceeds that of the Whirlpool built units, with the GSD 2800 and GSD 1200 getting top performance ratings.

As far as "only things getting clean in the middle of the rack." That is a funny fabrication on your part. If that were true, it would certainly have been caught by Consumer Reports in the testing of the GE tower washes from 1962/63 through the present. There would certainly have been inumerable consumer complaints. GE would not have been the number #1 selling dishwasher in the U.S. and certainly you would not be the only member of AW.com who has noticed this issue. Many, many of our members have or have had General Electric tower washes.

Attached is the thread 4418 back the recent test of my GSD1200 and cups with dried and hardened fudge sauce were placed in the corner of the upper rack with a pot, in the lower rack, blocking the spray from the lower wash arm. You can see the spotless results of those cups.

Anyway this thread is for impeller dishwashers. For someone who rinses dishes or scrapes VERY thoroughly, I think the D&M machine would be quite nice. Patrick, I believe loves his.

I was surprised in that it cleaned better than I thought. Had I done a better scraping job, the only problem would have been the dried on smoothing in the upper rack. I think that glass had the smoothie remains in it for a couple of days. I suspect that had it been washed the same day, it would most likely be clean.

With the six water changes of the General Electric "bowtie" and the food waste maceration abilities of the stainless impeller it probably would have given pristine results.

Hopefuly, one day I can find a GE "bowtie" and find out from first hand experience!

Maybe Santa will bring me one.

http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?44118

 

[washer111]

Barry's Tower-Wash Thread:

When I saw John's comment, I wanted to see your response before posting that thread. How the Tower-Wash vs. Wash-Arm debate sprung up here in this thread is absolutely beyond me. But now that those comments have been made, I'll continue on:

You'll also notice in that thread there is no comment from John (not to criticize) - which is concerning as it shows he hasn't viewed the thread or didn't believe what he saw. 

As for the "silly" dishwashers that wash dishes from the top, you only have to look at the thread Barry has made of his Electronic Jenn-Air Reverse-Rack machine, or another thread, where he "Bob-Loaded" his BOL Maytag model, where the performance of his machines is demonstrated in full - in terms of its "Tower Wash" performance and "Washing from top" performance.

Jenn-Air: http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?44017
Maytag BOL: http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?37580

 

[washer111]

Getting Back on Topic:

This looks like a fairly nice machine for habitual pre-rinsers. I wonder if having a longer main-wash (or a switch to stop the timer) would improve the results produced by the machine by any amount, or if the machine is destined to produce slimy, disgusting results each and every time?

 

As I put it, this machine would probably be loud enough to wake the living-dead... I don't know whether anything like this would even last a minute in any collection I form - I hate pre-rinsing with a passion!!!

 

[bwoods]

impeller perfromance

Yes, I think, if one wanted to increase the performance of this machine without making any major modification, Mike I think your idea would work very well.

A simple on/off switch could be put on one of the leads to the timer. This would give the detergent extra time for the enzymes to work.

If one was very ambitious they could even put a delay relay on the timer.

I agree 100 percent, prerinsing negates the whole idea of the dishwasher being a labor and resource saving device.

For people who are avid prerinsers (like my mom was) even when it is not necessary, this would be the machine for them.