New Dishwasher Shopping

[henene4]

Cut your hand on a sharp piece of plastic

Like, what?

I had many filters in my hand, none had any sharp edges.
Especially as we are talking DW, if you cut your hand on the machine, I would not trust you unloading knifes...

And yeah, if there is food down there you would want to get it out there.

That is why the filters are removeable.

Unlike on machines with grinders, where you have to disassemble quite a bit to even get close to the sharp blade by which you most definetly are more likely to get cut then by a plastic and metal screen filter.

Are you even listening to yourself sometimes?

If I throw 750$ at a DW I'd throw it at a Bosch.

Quieter, more options, better sensing and perhaps even a variable speed pump.

 

[combo52]

DWs With Grinders

NONE ever require cleaning, and none are able to be cleaned by the consumer, because they NEVER need cleaning, the only food ever left in a DW with a chopper is what you see laying in the bottom of the DW.

 

You are not able to get your fingers near any sharp blades for two reasons, They don't have sharp blades and two you have to disassemble the pump assembly to get to them.

 

Show me one owners manual that tells you how to take a DW apart to clean the chopper or any part of the pump of a DW that has a chopper.

 

We are supposed to be appliance professionals here, listing to this crap over and over again makes me think I an listing to Sara Sanders at a WH briefing, LOL

 

John

 

[iiijohnnymaciii]

Bosch

What sold me on the Bosch SHEM3AY56N was the amount of water/minute it uses is more than even Mattag MDB4949 , the rinse cycle gets the water hottest at 162, it also had the shortest heavy duty max cycle time of any of the other washers by a fairly large margin. The pump assemblies are also all the same motors from their 800 series line on down. The real test will be real world cleaning, so I'm not getting my hopes up until I run a load and I'm not going to be totally gung-ho on Bosch until I at least get to that 5 year mark, but it looks promising.

 

[yogitunes]

you guys do realize if the machine contains a food grinder...its a "SOFT FOOD" grinder....

it's not a WOOD CHIPPER!

the machines I have seen with filters you had to clean, was an extra benefit for particles that could damage the pump...like broken glass...

I don't pre-rinse.....just scrape off the big stuff, and toss it in, even if it has to sit for a day or two....but that's all part in seeing what my UltraWash can handle...

 

[good-shepherd]

it's not a WOOD CHIPPER!

LOL

 

[henene4]

Was about to say that you better never drop a toothpick, cherry pit, olive stone or shard of glass in there.

Really, there are tons of videos of people takeing there DW apart because they don't clean well anymore and show the grinders all gunked up...

What is really bizar is that grinders in WP designs use the grinders to mash any soft food into a slurry that goes onto an accumulator screen that is then cleaned by a backflow during draining if I am not mistaken.
And people love them.

Filters are accumulator screens that are cleaned by bachflow during draining.
And people hate them.

Only difference: You can't drop pasta in the DW and have it disappear, you either have to scrape away such residue or remove it from the filter after it was bathed in 140F water for several hours...

 

[yogitunes]

well they use the word 'grinder'....but in reality its more of a pulverizer/macerator....

but lets have some fun with this.....a little magic trick...as I have done this several times.....

bake and frost a chocolate cake, place in dishwasher...we'll even give you the benefit of doubt, use the Heavy Cycle, at the end, the cake should be gone, and the plate spotless!

I also like JohnL's test of a dried up ketchup bottle in a dishwasher....

share your results!...or even your own test

 

[mattl]

My previous DW was a GE with a "pulverizer" or so called grinder.  Soft food, fine anything else not so fine.  There was a good sized filter above it that stopped most large hard stuff from getting in, I still needed to clean the DW by hand from time to time - a harder chore than with my new KA filter style machine.  With it all the "gunk" is consolidated in one area, quick easy clean out.

 

My KA has the ball bearing racks upper and lower and I have to say I love them.  Easy in and out, no hang ups. 

 

As I stated before, I've had a lot of dishwashers over the years, among them  a mid 70's KA Superba later replace by the GE 2700 and none compare to the cleaning ability of my latest KA.  I have one of the older Whirlpool "Hurricane in a box" DWs down the basement for odds and end clean up, while it will blast just about anything clean, on more than one occasion it has broken stuff with the waters force moving it around - one year I put the frosted glass chimneys from my exterior lights in it and it blasted the frosting off the glass - a little cleaner than I wanted.

 

All in all I'll take my new KA over any of the others.

 

[DADoES]

 
The grinder on WP talltub (Point Voyager) models is more of a blender-type mechanism.

Pic 1) The blade doesn't contact the screen to grind against it (that'd cause an increased noise level and wear on both the blade and screen).  The blade whirls in the space to chop food chunks into bits small enough to pass through the screen into the soil separator.

Pic 2) The screen can get clogged with debris.  The example pic says "lint & hair" but paper labels, plastic wrap, and fibrous food residue can also get stuck there.

 

[48bencix]

Sears Kenmore Ultra Wash

My current Dishwasher is a 2000 Kenmore Ultra Wash. I think the main thing about this type of dishwasher is that there is a filter in the system and it is backflushed with a purge cycle. I do rinse all of the plates and other items so I am not counting on the grinding aspect. The other newer dishwashers such as Maytag and Kitchenaid have systems that do a similar thing. In some ways it is similar to self cleaning filters that some Whirlpool and Kenmore washing machines had.

Other dishwashers that I have had had neither self-cleaning or any type of filters. They just used many wash and many more rinses to remove all of the food particles. Of course those machines had powerful motors and sprays to dislodge the food. Mostly they worked well but not as well as a dishwasher with a filter, self-cleaning or not.

So when looking for a dishwasher I tend to want the convenience that I have always had. The Ultra Wash has never had any problems and I probably will keep using it until it fails. The racks are vinyl coated and show some rust. Also the knob timer is quite audible. But it still works well and has a pretty short cycle. Water usage is reasonable but not as low as newer units. Most likely the purge backflow system will be discontinued because it does use some extra water.

 

[iiijohnnymaciii]

1 hour wash

Does anyone know the details on the 1 hour wash cycle for the Kenmore Ultrawash 13229? The manual states that it uses more water and energy. Water was at 7.9 gallons, but what are the wash and rinse temps? Also, does it still use the diverter? Thanks.

 

[henene4]

As far as I understand the WP diverter design has no position that operates all arms at once.
You wouldn't want to anyway as this machine should use a single speed motor and can't compensate for the needed increase in flowrate to maintain pressure which you really want in a quick cycle.

The basic operating principle is to use several really short pre-rinses to purge lines and prewarm dishes and remove as much dirt as possible so the verry short main wash is as quickly as possible as hot as possible and can remove the pretty well presoaked residues.
The diverter will switch pretty frequently.

Interim rinse(es) follow the same pattern so the final rinse can be as hot as possible as soon as possible.

The heater is basicly on the entire time and there is no load size or soil sensing.
Just max fills and timed cycle steps.
And I assume there are only temp maximums set and those are probably pinned pretty high (around high temp settings).

Drying is shortend to ommited under the assumption you would open the door pretty soon after the cycle ends and dishes would basicly flashdry instantly.

Fun fact there: Mieles Solar Eco cycle that skips any heating uses about the same amount of water as the Whirlpool one hour wash and assuming both machines need about the same per fill on could guess that the Whirlpool would run a simmilar fill pattern:
Pre-Pre-Main-rinse-finalrinse-dry.
Maybe changing a prewash for an additional interim rinse so the final rinse has better purged lines to work with.

I know that on Bosches version of this the spray pressure is pinned to max and every cycle step including interim rinses are heated.
That only does 3 or 4 fills though, temps for mainwadh being 120F and rinse 160F IIRC.

Miele has 149F mainwash and 140F final rinse listed with 3 fills only though.

In the EU on cold fill Bosches and Mieles approach are both remarkebly simmilar: 65C mainwash (presumably max pressure), interim rinse (presumably heated), final rinse (65C Miele vs 70C Bosch, 150F vs 160F), short dry, done.
Both use about the same amount of water (10l Bosch vs 10,5l Miele, 2.6gal vs 2.8gal).

Bosches VarioSpeed+ cuts the Eco cycle to 1:05 with a simmilar pattern, the Auto with Speed now adds a prewash adding about 14min IIRC.
Funny enough, half load is combineable with Speed cutting Eco by a few minutes only adjusting for shorter heating times and cutting Auto down to Eco basicly.
You can still ad lower rack intensive still adding 5min and sanitizing still adding 15min IIRC.

I'll check that tommorow before driving back up north...

 

[iiijohnnymaciii]

Great Info

Thanks Henene! Great info there! I greatly appreciate it.

 

[appnut]

I have a 4-year old Kenmore Elite with the 1-hour Expr4ess wash cycle.  It uses temp from water heater.  It's a prewash, rinse, main wash that's about 18 minutes long, a 1st post-wash rinse that's about 6 minutes long and the final rinse is 22-24 minutes long.  The heating element is energize during the whole cycle.  How do I know this?  Once I had to interrupt the cycle during the prewash.  I heard water sizzling on the heating element as everything was dripping (a sound I don't normally hear).  The interior tempera4ture probably gets to around 125 to 130 degrees.  the final rinse is so long that water temp most likely would reach at least 140 degrees.  When cycle is finished, I open door and let everything flash dry usually.  And the rate it "dries" is about as quick as when it's flash-dried from a normal cycle.  

 

[henene4]

Heated dry

I red heated dry is avaible on that cycle. How much time does that add?

If you would be worried about decent heat exposure for bacteria reduction purposes I would think heated dry could help with that aswell.

 

[appnut]

Henrik, the user manual for this particular dishwasher says it has a variable speed motor.  

 

Henrik, the basic heated dry adds 35 minutes on mine.  

 

[henene4]

You're right Bob, thanks!

Totally skipped over that.

Am surprised to find that at that price point with a WP DW TBH but if used correctly it is an amazing add on.
And it dosen't have the weired drainpump-esque motor!

So the 1h wash will just blast away at max I presume, so a little more noise but great results.

And with 35min of heated dry the interior should get quite balmy for sure!

 

[appnut]

My 1-hour wash can take off 4 day old oatmeal on bowls and my water heater is set at 120.  I put the bowls in the bottom rack and use Cascade Platinum with Cascade Complete in prewash.  

 

[iiijohnnymaciii]

Options!

I was set on the Bosch, but the Kenmore with the PowerWave spray arm coupled with 7.9 gal of water in 1 hour and an extra dry option is very intriguing. I know that Andrew has raved about the TotalCoverage/PowerWave spray arm in previous posts. From what I've read, it looks like it uses a gear system to allow water to pass through different holes of the spray arm at different intervals to increase coverage and power.

I will be set to purchase on 4/30 and hopefully have a unit by 5/3. I guess it's something to think about until then.

I appreciate all the input. I have definitely learned a lot in the last week.

 

[combo52]

Reply # 47

Hi Glenn, I am really surprised that you posted this crap, The clogged grinder plate is only clogged because the drive for the grinder is stripped out.

 

We have serviced hundreds of WP built point voyager DWs and there is never a single particle of stuff on that grinder plate,

 

We have also seen dozens of clogged grinder plates like the one in the stupid video that were clogged, the solution is not cleaning the plate but instead REPLACING the broken wash impeller and or broken drive ,If you just clean it it will be clogged in one or two cycles.

 

Glenn You are usually one of the few people on this site that never get things wrong.

 

John L.