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Automatic Washer - The world's coolest Washing Machines, Dryers and Dishwashers

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dj-gabriele

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Jun 24, 2007
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Hi guys!
Here in Italy today is the last day of the Christmas holidays, Epiphany here called Epifania or better Befana (the old lady that brings coal to bad children and sweets to good ones, descending from the chimney and leaving them in socks), tomorrow everyone still on vacation is going back to work and students are going back to school.
We celebrated (again) preparing a overly "energetic" lunch and so managed to fill 3 dishwashers at full load: this was the one comprising the biggest quantity of baked on pans and stuff. Let's see if the machine can cope with the dirt!

The machine is a new SMEG LSP1449N under-counter dishwasher (not built-in), nothing exceptional, that I presented you a few months ago when we bought it (at the time it was still on the balcony covered in its plastics, we finished renovating and now it found its place in the kitchenette.

On this first picture you can see the lower rack and the door, we don't rinse anything and scrape only major debris from our dishes, everything just goes right in the machine.

dj-gabriele++1-6-2011-08-08-41.jpg
 
On this second picture you can see the upper rack and what's beneath the top layer of stuff: glasses and utensils, on the sides we put a couple of small not too dirty cups.

Some more information about the machine: it holds 14 place settings and the lower rack is of the open-space kind, the cutlery bin can be positioned anywhere on the machine or removed altogether as there are cutlery holders on the sides of the top rack too. The cutlery bin shown here is from a 45 cm SMEG dishwasher as we wanted another one to keep on the sink till we filled it and alternate it to the main one.

The water usage of the machine is 13 liters on most programmes, if you add prewash (by pressing the first button, all the cycles are modified adding it except the "bio" cycled, used here that becomes the energy saving cycle and the one used to calculate the energy ratings for the Eurolabel, it lasts 3 hours and only has one rinse and a purge, we never use it. With said cycle the energy use is 1,06 kWh.

With the BIO cycle that we use most often the energy use is only 1,2 kWh and lasts only 100 minutes and has 2 real rinses.

dj-gabriele++1-6-2011-08-18-45.jpg
 
On this last picture you see the front of the machine and a zoom of the left part of the control panel, where you select the cycles.
For this load I used BIO cycle that is fairly quick and does a nice job while using so little energy.
THe machine can be hooked to hot water up to 60°C but given that a single fill is just a little more than 3 litres, there's no time for hot water to arrive to the faucet, even with a circulator pump, that it has stopped loading so it simply is a waste as water has to be heated two times!

Now we only have to wait, I'm going to post the results of the wash as soon as the machine has finished!

Oh, we used Finish "power powder" and separate salt and rinse aid as they achieve the best possible result!

Oh, BTW, on the left you can see a quite rare Italian 20 ampere 230V outlet fitted with a slim 16A plug!
That's cool as that's the only outlet I know that can deliver a whopping 4600W of power to a "standard" appliance should it require it... but given our electric contract is only 3 kW... that won't ever happen ;)

dj-gabriele++1-6-2011-08-24-36.jpg
 
Very interesting dishwasher. I like the fold down cutlery trays in the upper rack -what a great idea.

I am curious as to what you mean by "our electric contract is only 3kW." Is that the maximum amount of electricity you are able to use at one time?
 
RESULTS RESULTS!

Both lower and upper rack were nice cleaned and dry!
Only one thing came out dirty, it was the pan in which the roast was cooked: half an hour on the stove and then 2 hours in the oven at 200°C

Have a look at the pictures!

dj-gabriele++1-6-2011-11-08-59.jpg
 
THE OFFENDING PAN

Here you can see a detail of the pan that remained dirty!
Honestly that's very minor dirt for something that was baked for two hours on high heat after having been cooked on the stove!
Too bad I didn't take a "before" picture, it was gross...

dj-gabriele++1-6-2011-11-10-53.jpg
 
Now, answering the questions

@ joe_in_philly

3kW." Is that the maximum amount of electricity you are able to use at one time?

Yup, with a tolerance of 10%, plus a "grace period" of 10 minutes when we can use up to 4 kW of power, that is useful when the oven is on "fast pre-heat" as it draws 3,3 kW, otherwise the meter trips (it trips anyway at least twice a week anyway).
Now we're going to upgrade to a 6kWh contract as we can't cope anymore with the standard one. (oh mind that in Italy electricity is the most expensive in all the western world, that's why contracts are so small compared to other countries)

@ Iheartmaytag

Is that door resting on/pivioting on the cord?

No, there are 5 cm of space beneath the machine as the pedestal is recessed and the wooden trimming is cut lower for the door to open smootly
 
Gabriele,

That is so interesting. I have never heard of anything like that before.

Where I live, in Philadelphia, we don't have anything like that. In the past, during the summer, the rate of electricity was tiered with the first 500 kWh per month at one rate, and anything over at a slightly higher rate. The only way to know how much power you have consumed in any particular month would be to go outside and look at the power meter. As a part of a several year plan to deregulate electicity in Pennsylvania, we now have the ability to choose our power generator. Starting in 2011, in Philadelphia we have many companies to choose from, with different rates and contracts.

Joe

Shop and Compare Electric Rates in PA

Find an electric supplier near you and compare energy options for your home or business in Pennsylvania. Enter your zip code to get started.
www.papowerswitch.com www.papowerswitch.com
 
Hello Gabriele,

is this a "norm" for the whole Country? (Italy) How can you use 2 major appliances at the same time? I guess you can't.
I can turn on virtually all my appliances at the same time and nothing happens. The power won't shut off.
Ingemar
 
Why not use appliances on same time?

Here, I am preparing for a holiday now, and at once washer, dishwasher, dryer, and boiler were on, and nothing happend... why would power swich off... I remember when I was quite young, and when we turned the washer and dishwasher on, fuse would blow, but then we"ve just changed fuse from 12A to 18A, and that was that xD
Interesting dishwasher.. but I only wonder if that Smeg was made by Gorenje, or Gorenje took dishwasher from Smeg?
 
BTW , here we don't pay to use , we use to pay lol
In my house we usually use 300 kWh per month , wich is about 85 euros or 120 dollars or 75 pounds per month.
Here energy is expensive :(
 
@ jlbrazil

In Italy, 300kwh/month would be around 70€/month on a 6kwh contract but then again, sorry but I dind't consider Brazil as being "western" world

@ nrones

That SMEG dishwasher is a 100% SMEG design and product made in Guastalla, I had a friend working there before the moved to Bologna. They outsource the "new" plastic tub washing machine and the cheap refrigerators, they are made by either Gorenjie or Beko, some washing machine come from the BSH group.
We never had fuses till the early '60 and even then the preferred was a combination of magnetic and thermal switches and later they were accompanied to ground fault interrupters, colloquially called "salvavita" (life-savers).

@ gorenje

In fact you can't! The meter simply trips, they've done historically that thing to limit the fluctuations of the daily power curve and eliminate high inrush currents to residential buildings as they're difficult to predict. Anyway, thanks to this, the last black-out I remember was during the heat wave of 2003!

@ joe_in_philly

About our power meter: it is of the electronic kind, it shows you the instantaneous power consumption and the mean of the last months during the three daily price slots (morning, evening and night/weekend). If you happen to go over your instantaneous quota of energy, it displays a warning signal like "danger of disconnection, percentage XX of power exceeded" and if it stays the same, it will trip after a definite amount of time.

In Italy too the market is deregulated but the prices are quite the same, one can be lucky if he can save 7% in a year (in the case of Edison of Italy (part of Energie de France) to some 40% more!!!)
 
- The 3 KW-only thing - "3KW inhabitancy" electric company contract is the most common on Italy cause it cheaper (less taxes) than other ones.
Eg in my rental I too have 3 KW contract, but I have not the same fiscal agevolations, cause my inhabitancy is still at my parents.

you have to consider that ranges/hobs in Italy are 90% gas fueled and dishwashers became common only the last 15-20 years, so having just 3 kw available has never been a big issue

Actually delay timers on appliances are handy nowadays : when I have to run both W and DW (new thread coming soon!) in the meanwhile, I start the washer then i set one hour delay on the DW, so I'm sure it will start while the washer is rinsing and draws little power

@Foralouysius : that detergent + rinse aid dispenser is sooo familiar *LOL* . Guess both Smeg and Electrolux outsorce them from Eltek

@ DJGabriele : it's 100% SMEG .... but not made in Guastalla :-)) It' s made by Bonferraro, a company owned by Smeg based in Bonferraro di Sorgà, a village that's close to Mantova but in Verona province (link)

 
electric meter & indoor electric breaker box

This is my electric breker box that is installed above the main entrance in the flat and my electric meter. You can see a small arrow on the right side. It switches from the main rates to lower rates. (lower rates- from 10 PM to 6 AM and every Saturday and Sunday and Holidays)
Ingemar

gorenje++1-7-2011-14-33-8.jpg
 

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