How did these KA dishwashers get water to the top rack?

[maytaga806]

I keep seeing these come up used for sale and can’t understand how anything on the top rack would get clean when there is absolutely no spray arm or tower for the top rack?? I know there are higher grade models that have a nice chrome arm, but this one doesn’t. I’ve looked into old threads about these machines and can’t find anything regarding this.

 

[appnut]

You had to load very carefully even though they were a hurricane in a box.

Not until the 18 sesries in 1975 or 1976 did they have multilevel spray arms under the top rack.

Main reason why I hated KA dishwashers. They were so arrogant until the 18 series.

 

[qsd-dan]

Had to carefully load the top and bottom racks so water could reach those areas. This is why I don't recommend pre 18 series Hobart dishwashers except as a backup/overflow/parts washer.

 

[agiflow]

Did they assume that you would only wash tableware and not pots and pans? What was the thinking behind that? As well built as those machines were that doesn't seem very well thought out.

 

[maytaga806]

This is what I thought bob! Seeing what people do though nobody would have known that.

 

[turquoisedude]

Funny coincidence... I was just having a conversation about why my folks picked a GE Potscrubber over a KitchenAid Regency dishwasher back in 1978.

The salesperson at Eaton's was pushing the KitchenAid (it cost more so he'd have gotten a few bucks more in commission). He also said the KitchenAid was a better dishwasher. My mother's stinging reply to that was 'It has one bloody sprayer. How the hell is that better?'.

We were upgrading from a 1968 Viking (Westinghouse-built) top-loader with an impeller wash system. She had a point...

 

[qsd-dan]

Don't get me wrong, they're definitely not slouches but the added upper arm in the 18 series improved performance and made loading easier.

 

[tomturbomatic]

There are secrets to loading the pre-18 KAs . I remember putting an 8 qt Farberware sauce pot in the very middle of the bottom rack of our 15. Glasses sit along the sides of the upper rack and bowls are loaded from the center of the upper rack facing outward. The water patterns from the 4 way hydrosweep are so perfectly designed and spaced that they create great water patterns. If you look at the openings in the arm, a small depression around each opening creates a diffused fan of water that spreads out to provide a far reaching area of coverage for each spray. It does not cope as well with big things in corners, but there are ways of loading these machines to get clean items out of each rack. It is true that there were many ways that Hobart lagged behind the times all through their KitchenAid design history, but if you worked with the machine and were familiar with where your dishware and cookware fit you could live with it until the next redesign came along.

 

[circlew]

We had a KDI-16 from 1971 until the kitchen was torn out in 2006. Don't remember any real issues with things getting clean, but my mom never crowded things in. After she died in 1995, and dad moved to my sister's in late 1997 before passing in 1998, it was only me. I guess I ran it about every 3 or 4 days.

 

[DADoES]

 
I consistently BobLoaded™ the KDI-17A, including placing some bowls and small saucepans at perimeter of the lower rack.  Cleaning failures on anything, anywhere in it, were *rare* after I quickly figured out the pattern.

It's interesting to note that I recall Consumer Reports, or maybe it was Consumers' Research, stating in a 1970s-era review that they believe a single spray arm below the lower rack is sufficient ... prit'much directly discounting the brands that touted two spray arms.[this post was last edited: 3/5/2025-23:40]

 

[tomturbomatic]

The consumer testing mags never loaded anything but plates and saucers in the lower racks and glasses and cups in the upper rack. It was like they were not aware of what people put in the machines so they never gave credit for separate water sources for the top rack and never tested a machine by blocking the lower rack and loading really soiled stuff above.

 

[combo52]

Many dishwashers only had the water coming from the bottom

In fact, among early dishwashers, they all work that way the impeller machines of course only had a water source coming from the bottom of the machine.

Whirlpool made one arm machines into the 70s, the cool 1962 whirlpool SJU 70 dishwasher only had a lower arm, and it was top rated in consumer reports at the time for its great performance, but as Tom and Glenn says you do have to load them in intelligently, but the machine is plenty powerful enough to get the water all the way to the top of the machine. In fact, if you run one with the door open, it’ll hit the kitchen ceiling.

Tom is completely right in reply 10 probably for consistency alone consumer testing magazines did not bother trying to wash pots and pans and baking dishes, etc. in dishwashers so you really didn’t see the advantages of having a real top wash arm, for the same reason they selldom found the poor performance by the dishwashers that had a center tube only as they just couldn’t cope with a heavily loaded lower rack and wash things in the corners of the upper rack, which is why nobody bothers to build such a design today.

John L

 

[Chetlaham]

GE had a work around. They managed to build a pop up spray tower with two different fanned spray configurations such that both plates and cups, saucers, bowls ect get clean very well in the top rack and the corners irrelevant of how the bottom rack was loaded.  This design has the advantage of simplicity with less that can go wrong. 

 

 

Standard tub GE used the pop up tower until the very end and they could do so because of the available water pressure and deep sump.

 

[combo52]

Center pop-up wash arm washing effectiveness

Oh Chet I forgot that GE used special water that can change directions in the middle of a stream too bad nobody else ever figured that out, can you imagine how revolutionary it would be if water could change direction after it squirts out of a nozzle lawn, sprinklers, and everything else would be so much more effective you could program it to water your whole lawn from a central circular sprinkler, lol

And you wonder why nobody takes you seriously, because of the stupid shit you say all the time that just isn’t true.

John L

 

[Chetlaham]

GE did, it happens to be called deflection.

 

 

I've used enough Potscrubbers to know they clean really well in the corners. Potscrubbers were among the best dishwashers ever made in particular the GSD1200 and up series between 1983 and 1992.

 

 

You just happen to disprove of GE because its not Whirlpool.

 

[agiflow]

That's why I think Whirlpool was ahead of the pack. I miss my WP8700XT. Even with that Tower, loading was the most convenient and the most secure dishwasher I've had for dishes.

It was ingenious how Whirlpool designed a tower with a rubber diaphragm underneath that would expand and rise up to meet the bottom opening to keep good water pressure.

Eliminated the problems that could occur with a direct feed second arm.

 

[tomturbomatic]

If you will look at ads for the Wash Arm GE machines, the text states that the wash arm washes up, the pop up power tower washes OUT and the power shower washes down. The only "UP" is from the wash arm at the bottom.

Even the Maytag DWC4910 convertible portable has a pop up spray tower with two rings of spritzer holes to try to provide angled sprays to the top rack. The one I have was such an unsatisfactory design that it still smells like new inside because it was basically unused when we took it off the delivery truck behind a dealer. The use and care book does not even show where to load pots and pans. I used it once and with Maytag's teeny tiny holes in the wash arms, it cleaned very well. It was just a matter of what would fit in to make the most advantageous use of a full width wash arm above the top rack. It sort of reminded me of some Kenmore models from the 70s with a big power shower above the top rack.

In the late 70s, I saw a Hotpoint-built Duracrest dishwasher at the Hecht Co. with a variation of the pop up tower. It had an opening that was angled off to the side to try to spray water up, over and out but it was hard to imagine that the opening shaped similarly to a urethral meatus could be counted on to adequately wash the entire top rack.

The first machine I ever saw with a real water source under the top rack was a ghastly colored Waste King portable with a Halloween orange interior, a flat black top with a hole in the front edge where the timer came through and a sort of "Z" shaped orange wash arm that provided water for both racks.

 

[Chetlaham]

Have a look at this video of a GE pop-up tower. 

 

 



 

 

 

 

[petek]

The first dishwasher I bought in 75 was a one armed KA Deluxe portable in avocado green. Deluxe meaning it was the BOL model, one cycle plus rinse & hold. It worked wonderfully. I don't recall ever having issues with it missing spots any more than other dishwashers we've owned with one glaring exception which was the piss poor GE builders grade model we had for a short period in our then new house, which I replaced with a Miele.