Machines of Grand Repute, Volume I: The GE Potscrubber Twenty Eight Hundred

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What, you thought that I could possibly keep one dishwasher in place for more than three months?

 

That would be boring!  And worse than boredom, it would prevent us from exploring the utmost in fabulous diversity of design.

 

So, without further ado, let's explore GE's entry to the high-end market:  The Potscrubber 2800:

 

(That's not a smudge, it's a reflection, by the way.  This thing is shiny!  And a big thank-you to Roger and Terry for rescuing it!)

 

The Potscrubber 2800 is frequently referred to on our site as the GE equivalent of the KitchenAid.  KitchenAids have a lot going for them; generally speaking, if you've had one, you'll have one again someday when you get tired of not having had one.  

 

Triple-porcelain, sturdy construction, generally sound wash system design, and good water distribution from the 18-series on make them hard to beat.  The racking is flexible, the washing cleans things without flipping most things over and filling them with water, and the filtration is excellent (whether or not you believe in having to clean filters).  Moreover, the filtration is total, rather than bypass.  More on that later.

 

So, with the expectations set thus, the GE was aiming to surpass an already very high bar.

 

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Controls, left

The control panel on the 2800 is excellent.  The touchpads are responsive and, surprising for this machine's age, all work properly.  Mixing and matching cycle options is easy, and you don't get scolded with unresponsive touches or obnoxious beeps.

 

Unmarked on the control panel but noted in the documentation is a tiny segment of panel above the "China/Crystal" pad that serves as a control panel lock.  This does a good job of deterring toddlers who can otherwise deduce controls adequately to reprogram your DVR with ease.

 

A tiny LED tells you which cycle is actively selected, and a la 1981 Cadillac, an "efficiency meter" shows along the top of the systems monitor display to tell you energy consumption--on a scale from "LO" to "HI," like so:

 

LO = = = = = HI

 

So, "Short Wash" plus "Light Soil" plus "Energy Saver Air Dry" yields LO =          HI.

"Potscrubber" plus "Heavy Soil" plus "Sani-Temp" plus "Heated Dry" depletes the power grid with LO = = = = = HI.

 

 

[this post was last edited: 1/25/2012-23:47]

 

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Controls, right

Please forgive my aging camera's irritating tendency to blur.

 

The delay start feature is useful, and as Gary pointed out with respect to the new KitchenAids, doesn't burn down your house.  It's also highlighted in the original advertisements for this model, shown below.

 

 

 

Quieter than its standard kin, it has copious insulation on every surface, from a tank jacket to panels that cover the under-portions and kick panels.  Still, a GE turbine-pump dishwasher won't kick on like a whisper and fail to rouse you from your slumber, should you choose to have the delay start run it later at night.

 

 

 

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Commercial

So much for embedding:  

 

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Super Racks

Probably the best feature of the GE (especially after using the reverse-rack Maytag direct-drive) is its deep, voluptuous racks.  The top rack accommodates a sea of cups, glasses, and bowls, and the divided section on the left--too thin for tumblers--makes a handy bin for utensils, Glad-ware lids, and the like.

 

Side clearance is adequate for most cookie sheets and broiler pan inserts, although the spacing on the side is not adequate for the drip pan itself, so if you need to run that through the dishwasher, you'll be placing it in the top rack.

 

The good news is that GE's extensible wash tower is the ne plus ultra of any they had designed to this point; telescoping, segmented, angled, and multi-jetted, it's the next best thing to a full-sized wash arm you can get.  Even tall glasses in the corners come out sparkling.

 

However, the Super Rack's depth causes a problem with the tower, since the lowest portion is closest to the middle.  For 90% of loads, this poses no issue, as the angled jet of the tower easily reaches the corners.  As illustrated in the photo below, however, if you place a deep pot in the top rack (easily done, with room to spare), then its propensity to "hog" the centermost portion of the water can prevent items in the corners from coming clean.  

 

Nice touches abound.  The racks are thick and substantial, and a balancing axle on the back-top of the rack rolls against the roof of the dishwasher, preventing the irritating jiggle that many dishwashers demonstrate nowadays when the rack is fully extended.

 

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More thoughtful features

Constructed almost like a love-letter of atonement for the sin of the ill-fated Silver Shower, this silverware basket is excellent, spacious, and has a clever hidden door that covers the right-middle compartment so that small items such as baby bottle lids and the like can be safely washed without being tossed akimbo.

 

Here it is stowed in the retracted position, where it blends seamlessly into the basket handle:

 

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Silverware basket

...and here, it extends to cover your dishwashing dainties:

 

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Deeper is, again, generally better

If you saw the thread about the plastic-tub D&M Kenmore, then you know what it is to be turned on by a sculpted door-liner, only to find out you've been the victim of false advertising.  

 

In that unit, the portion where the liner offered increased depth only went a third of the way up the door, rendering the spacious lower-rack useless for cookie sheets and other items that needed the depth to also offer some height.

 

In the GE, this touch is not overlooked, and the deep insert goes all the way up, making flexible loading with challenging items possible.  Also, a clever notch in the top rack prevents tall items from blocking spray to the outer rows.

 

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Dispensers

The dispensers are extremely easy to use, far removed from the monster-cup of the Thermador and Westinghouse.  One covered wash cup and one pre-wash indent are offered, as is a rinse-agent dispenser (naturally).  However, the outward simplicity of this cup belies what lies beneath.

 

If you're familiar with lower-line GE dishwashers, then you know that a giant cam is affixed to the timer, and comes by to "whack" the dispenser at just the right moment and release its contents.  Clunky, bizarre, and 100% mechanical, it's nothing if not reliable.  (Ever wonder why their timers were a third of the way down the door?)

 

Rather than engineer a simple spring-loaded bimetallic trigger for the 2800, GE instead took the questionable course of attaching a five-fingered plastic half star-gear to a clock motor, mounting it on a crossbeam, and having this contraption powered by the electronic timer.  As the clock motor turns, the fingers of the star gear turn the door and trigger the dispenser.  When the dispenser is closed the next time, the star gear (with which it meshes behind the door liner) is spun back around to begin the process all over again the next cycle.

 

This is a weak point in the design, and indeed, this machine began its life with many an undispensed detergent charge; use and frequent opening/closing of the door appear to have loosened things up a tad.

 

[gadgetgary]

I have this dishwasher too

Love it.

There are so many options and it is excellent in its washing ability.

 

Good Luck with your new toy!

 

 

[kenmoreguy64]

Nate -

Congrats! Those GEs are rockin' perfect to me. I am glad you got yours and that you seem to like it so much already.

I got my second Potscrubber 1200 from Master LeFever last fall. LOVE them. This era GE dishwasher in my view is hard to beat.

Gordon

 

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Under the hood

The turbine pump and Perma-Tuf tub are really where the similarities between this dishwasher and the other standard-fare GE models ended.  The 2800 has a full metal frame around the front of the tub and back behind, which is striking and unusual (being used to plastic-tub dishwashers on rollerskates, with minimal frame to speak of).  The door springs are also routed under plastic guards and are very nicely done.

 

Inside, a very different wash system (though familiar to the 1200/Potscrubber III owner) is in place.  The wash-arm is mounted on a plastic fitting that looks like the 3-D equivalent of an S-curve.  This puts the center of the arm off at an eccentric orbit, and a tiny star-gear affixed underneath the arm runs in a toothed track on the wash-arm support.  As the arm turns around the center, the center itself turns in an eccentric circle, causing--hypothetically--the wash arm and hole pattern to vary constantly.  In theory, the wash jets move all the time, never circling the same path twice.

 

Wash action isn't about pressure--it's about volume.  This machine moves a ton of water around constantly, even if it's not in the form of needle jets.

 

If you're confused by the filtration, try to look at it as the Filter-Flo of dishwashers.  Rather than all water being taken off through a filter, all water is instead pumped through the grid-covered pump intake at the bottom-right, as you would see in any other GE dishwasher.  Large particles, like olive pits, bottle caps, and Volkswagens are kept out by the grid.  The schmutz-laden water is then pumped out the wash arm, onto the dishes, and a certain percentage of it hits the back of the dishwasher, or falls down the three inches in front of it.  Back there is another grate that helps to keep out tree branches and small children, and then beneath that is a sump.  The water flows into the sump, forward through a section of fine mesh screen, and back into the tub to be recirculated.  Any food accumulation on the mesh panels is swept off by a downward-angled jet on the tip of the wash arm.

 

Since the back sump is a quiet place, any food particles fall to the bottom and are trapped until the machine drains, at which point chunks of yuck are ejected immediately down the drain.  Any particles that failed to be processed through the filtration system are simply pumped out the main pump intake when the drain valve opens, and multiple water changes serve to assure that serial dilution takes care of the rest.

 

An interesting side-effect of this system is finding huge chunks of food debris in the sink (I use it with a unicouple).  It's second only for a Jet-Clean Maytag for ejecting intact clods of food from the filter system.

[this post was last edited: 1/25/2012-23:50]

 

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Filter-Fail

Like I said, olive pits and Volkswagens.

 

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Overall satisfaction rating

In terms of performance, if a KitchenAid as a 10, this would be a solid 8.5.  Dishes are spotless, glasses and flatware shine, and there are plenty of cubbies for problem items.  This machine uses less water than the Maytag but changes water more often, resulting in good elimination of particulates.  Loading is flexible, the racks are spacious, and you can get a ton of dishes into the 2800--and get them spotlessly clean to boot.  Rejects are rare and are usually clearly attributable to some sort of loading taboo.

 

The cycle combinations are flexible and straightforward--you pick features and the machine adjusts, rather than being scolded into submission by incompatible combinations.  The cycles are variable from the Potscrubber-Sani's 80+ minutes to the Short Wash/Light Soil combo, which takes the entire affair down to 28 minutes.  That's a breath of fresh air in a world of silent but never-ending wash cycles that fight a war of attrition with food soils.

 

What knocks this machine down is the same thing that makes me give a wide berth to a KitchenAid Selectra.  Electronics are trouble-prone nowadays, and they are not the stuff of forever from 1984, either.  Touchpads go wonky, electronics go brain-dead, and the veritable cornucopia of sensors in the 2800 can present fascinating and funny combinations of error conditions that can stop the cycle or stop key actions from happening.  For instance:

 

- The cup didn't open.  Sorry about that.

- You left the cup open, dummy.  Press "Start" again to bypass?  (Mine says this all the time.  The cup sensor is faulty.)

- I underfilled, so the wash arm isn't turning as quickly as it should, so I'm going to stop and sound the "Blocked Arm" alert.  I won't resume until you tell me it's okay to, so your dishes will just sit, covered in sludge and detergent.  (A magnet outside the bottom of the tub on the side of the machine serves to sense the pulses of rotation created by a corresponding magnet set in the wash arm.)

- The water's too hot.

- The water's too cold.

- I filled too quickly.

- I drained, but it took longer than I expected.

- I tried to drain, but it seems that the line is plugged.  (Probably with an errant Volkswagen.)

 

The 2800 is a fine machine, with a lot of features that give it unparalleled flexibility and washability.  But I wonder if these same features really lend to its most important ability--durability.  Instead, the panoply of foolproofs can cause the user to tear his or her hair out trying to overcome a myriad of sensed error conditions, and after a while, you can't help but miss a plain-old timer dial.

 

If you ache for the performance but cry because of the bells and whistles (or, more accurately, beeps and messages), get a 1200.  And make sure it doesn't underfill.

 

[roto204]

Thanks!!

Thanks, Gordon and Gary!!  :-D  I really do enjoy this machine--for as long as it chooses to be around.  I think this one might be a long-term keeper, assuming it agrees.

 

[lebron]

Nice machine

Interesting write up on this GE dishwasher

 

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I almost forgot...

One day I found an object in the wash arm, and I swear this didn't belong to me--but there it was, lodged in the filter-cleaning jet.  I removed the wash arm, shook it, and found--yep, a chicken bone.  This puppy made it past the pump guard, and indeed, the pump!

 

Like I said--Volkswagens.  

 

[mattl]

Had one of these for many years, always did a great job.  In fact the 2800 has kept me sold on Ge dishwashers.  The 2800 replaced an older Kitchenaid from the early 70's.  My 2800 died when it started having the gaskets deteriorate.  For the last few months of it's life it streaked everything with black gooey rubber like substances, have no idea what was causing it, but the stuff was very hard and in some cases impossible to remove.

 

I replaced it with a mid line GE that lasted all of 8 years, then was prone to flooding the kitchen.  Out it went and I briefly tried a Whirlpool but paid to get that POS of of the house.  Went back to an upper mid line Ge and have not looked back.  It cleans anything I throw at it, and it can hold just about anything.

 

[mrcleanjeans]

Nate you're great!

Love it, your descriptions crack me up and your observations fascinate me. The multi orbit elliptical pattern of the wash arm, I would say, helps the tower,by ever changing course, to reach further to the items in the top rack. A true test would be to put a large pot on the bottom rack , inverted, in on of the corners, and see if glassware or such,directly above itin the top rack will get clean!