Thank you to Unimatic for today's Picture of the Day: finally my questions have been answered ;)

[passatdoc]

My family moved into a 1930's home in 1961 and Mom immediately set about remodeling the kitchen. Maple cabinets, ivory Formica counters (de rigeur at the time), built-in steel double oven by Frigidaire, garbage disposal, steel electric cooktop (Tappan----this was not a swift move, the previous gas range had been where she placed the cooktop, to use existing venting, and a gas cooktop would have been better than electric coil---I know there was a gas line there), and the piece de resistance, a KDS dishwasher with matching wood panels, same model depicted in today's picture of the day. Built-in fridges were only for the VERY wealthy, but she built a cabinet enclosure around the fridge so it looked semi-built-in. Very few folks owned garbage disposals or DWs, because of the remodeling required, and I remember people coming over just to watch these new fangled appliances work.

By age six, I was responsible for loading/running the DW, with my younger sister helping to clear the table and rinse. I also had to unload every load. In our neighborhood, DWs were unusual because most of the 1930s homes had never been remodeled to accommodate a DW.

We had the same Superba VariCycle, with the same buttons, but we NEVER EVER used the Utility and Utensil cycle. I even remember that the forbidden button was white. Why only use Full Cycle or Rinse Hold? Because mom had misplaced the owner's manual and did not know what would happen if the white button were pushed. I assumed years later that it was a Pots/Pans cycle, but this is the first time in FORTY-NINE years that I have had proof that the dreaded white button would not launch a nuclear missile or was with Red China. We moved to another house ten years later, the VariCycle was still going strong, and no one ever used the white Utility/Utensil button in ten years of ownership. The next house to which we moved had a broken DW which mom replaced with a new KA DW. That time, she saved the manual, there were more than three buttons, and we knew the function of each one, so we used featured like SaniCycle (higher final rinse) and Utility (pots and pans).

 

[bajaespuma]

That's so funny...

We had a GE SU- 70 at the same time you had your KitchenAid. I had the same experience with my Mother and our machine. Since the nitwit never bothered to read the manual, she NEVER allowed the pink HEAVY SOIL-DAILY LOADS, or the UTENSILS-POTS&PANS buttons to be pushed on her dishwasher. It was only after 12 years when I was older and had grown a little set that I read the manual and pushed the buttons and realized that, not only were they useful cycles, the known world wouldn't evaporate. Mothers can be idiots.

 

[DADoES]

 
Doesn't the Utility and Utensil cycle run the same wash/rinse sequence as Full Cycle, but eliminates the dry period so any residual soil doesn't get baked on?

 

[polkanut]

I posted a thread earlier in July about a house for sale here in Wausau that has its St. Charles kitchen still intact, including a KA Superba (I think).  I've posted a link to the original thread.  The link in the thread is still active if you want to view pics of the property mentioned.

http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin//TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?35419

 

[peterh770]

Funny

My mother never used the Pots & Pans cycle on our Waste King because it didn't dry!  "Mom!  That's the point!"  "Well, I still don't like it.  Now get in here and scrub your pots; you made a mess!"  "Awwww MOM!!!"

 

[rpms]

My aunt had a electronic Kenmore in the mid 70s. It never strayed farther than light wash. The odd time, if my cousin was doing dishes, she would use the normal cycle. I could never figure out why the dishwasher would glow, warm? The hot and sani never glowed.
When the dishwasher was on its last legs, the timer would only rinse and part wash and stop in the short cycle. My aunt would then hit the cancel and drain and it would drain.
Watching her do dishes was painful. Everything would have to be washed with soap first, since the dishwasher wasn't working properly. Only plates and cups and glasses were put in. It would go till half the wash and stop. Everything was then taken out and rinsed, since there would be detergent on them. Of course towel drying and then wash pots and plastic in the sink.
I asked her why she wouldn't use another cycle? She said it used too much energy.

 

[passatdoc]

KA dishwasher manuals and Disneyland tickets in kitchen junk

Since we never once used Utility/Utensil during the time we owned the Superba, I cannot comment on whether or not that cycle included drying or not. It wasn't an issue of my mother not READING the manuals. She had a junk drawer for the manuals, but somehow the KA manual was displaced. I do remember her calibrating the oven temp using a Frigidaire manual.

We also had a junk drawer for S&H Green Stamps, Blue Chip Stamps, and unused Disneyland tickets (we were in San Diego). Prior to the initiation of the flat price admission to Disneyland, you bought a book of tickets with admission included, typically $12 or $15. These books provided tickets for 10-15 rides (one coupon per ride, graded A B C D or E. The "E ticket rides" were the most sought after: Matterhorn, Submarine ride, Jungle Cruise, etc.

The tickets never expired, so we'd bring along the unused ride coupons on future trips. The problem was, we accumulated lots of undesirable A and B coupons, unaware that they could be traded in for better coupons. There was a point value, A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, E=5, so two B's and an A could be swapped for an E. No matter how hard we tried, we could never use all the A's and B's so they just piled up. Had we known about the exchange option, we could have cashed them in for D's and E's. This was a lesson in life that only mattered in Southern California.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Yes, the Superba had a rapid advance timer and after the final rinse, there was about 5 minutes of dry then it advanced to OFF. We would soak pans and then put them in the Mobile Maid and it would wash them clean. My mother's other favorite trick was to put the pans needing extra treatment where the dishwasher water would drain into them and save the nice hot detergent-laden wash water to soak them a bit then quickly finish them off once the dishwasher was disconnected from the faucet. Our second GE portable with the blue Plastisol and the white racks had a stupid pot smasher cycle. It actually washed less than the regular cycle. It was a real non-starter. The timer just advanced through the first wash while the machine sat silent. This is supposed to clean something dirty? That dishwasher was really pretty to look at, but the original Mobile Maid with its mousey brown cabinet and pink interior was a better performing machine. It even had one more water change in its cycle.

 

[frigilux]

Jim and Ken: Although it concerned a washer and not a dishwasher, I had a similar experience with my mom and our 1960 Model 80 Kenmore. She never, ever used the Wash 'n' Wear cycle because she freaked when the fill/drain cool-down started. She thought that cycle was broken, so I was never allowed to push the forbidden (white, coincidentally) cycle button.

I finally found the manual and read the part about how the Wash 'n' Wear cycle worked, but she wouldn't have anything to do with it because you couldn't use the suds saver with Wash 'n' Wear.

Stubborn moms and white pushbuttons: There's a connection there, somewhere, LOL!

 

[polkanut]

Tom,

My Mom did the soak thing with her pots & the discharged water from our KA portable bought circa 1974.  It was a Regency I believe.  Eddie (Toploader55) has the exact machine.

 

[iheartmaytag]

Our first dishwasher was a GE Mobile Maid.  Mom too would use the drain water to soak the pans and then wash them after the dishwasher was moved away from the sink.

 

Guess it was pretty smart come to think of it.  Nice hot water, with powerful detergent.  But why not just put the pans in the dishwasher to begin with?

 

 

[passatdoc]

Our KA was our first dishwasher. We had moved into the 1930s home from a brand new 1958 house---which was middle class for its time and had neither a DW nor a garbage disposal. That home did not have sufficient space in the kitchen for a Mobile Maid (unless we gave up the kitchen table.....) and the laundry area was in the garage with its code-mandated six inch lower floor (if there is a laundry flood, it just flows out the garage door and doesn't ruin the floor of your home). So there was no way to roll a portable into the garage for storage, unless a ramp was built.

I recall we'd add our cooking utensils if there was room. If not, the utensils were hand washed while the table ware went through the KA. We tended to rinse everything quite thoroughly before loading into the DW, so everything came out clean. We didn't experiment to see how dirty the dishes could go in and still come out clean.

I e-mailed the yesterday's Photo Of The Day to my mother who remembers the DW with its wood panel but not the three buttons. I told her she didn't remember because from age six she had me doing the DW with my sister (aged 4 1/2 as assistant).

 

[passatdoc]

ps

My sister served as loading assistant for years from age 4 1/2 but mom didn't let her operate the machine for a number of years. One time she put Joy dish washing liquid into the dispenser, instead of Cascade, and we had suds coming out the door and on to the floor.

 

[passatdoc]

Just remembered something else

The Superba had an in-door rinse agent dispenser. We never used it because we didn't know how to fill it because the manual was AWOL. However, we had minimal problems with spotted glasses because we had a whole-house water softener.

 

[passatdoc]

@rpms

I have friends who remodeled a late 70s kitchen in c. 1992. They opted to keep their appliances....I am not sure if the DW was original or from the 1980s. They went to the trouble of paying for a matching wood panel (which I would have done on a machine 10+ years old) to match their new cabinets. By the mid 2000s the thing basically didn't wash, they had to pre-wash everything, and it made a ton of noise, rendering their family room (tv, sofas) unusable if DW was running. The main sticking point against a new DW was that they could no longer obtain a matching panel. I said, "so what? get a black or steel DW and be done with it." Five years later, they broke down and got a steel KA (I had suggested Bosch or KA---they went with KA because of the soft food disposer).

They STILL pre-wash all of their dishes despite my assurances that this DW will actually CLEAN their dirty, scraped DW. They are so used to the poor performance of the old DW that they don't trust any new DW to get their plates clean.

 

[polkanut]

Jim,

Shortly after my wife & I closed on our home in 1998, my fiance' (now wife) started bringing dishes and glassware over to the house and washing them before putting them in the cupboards.  The house came with a mid 1970's mol GE Potscrubber.  Well, my wife had never used a dw before so, she sprayed evrything with Simple Green cleaner before adding dw detergent, turned the machine on, and went home.  Later that evening, after going out to dinner with friends, we brought them over to show them the house.  When I took about 3 steps into the kitchen, I stepped in water.  Apparently, the Simple Green caused major foaming, and the dw overflowed.  From that day on, she's never looked at a bottle of Simple Green the same way. lol   

[this post was last edited: 8/18/2011-10:09]

 

[passatdoc]

LOL!!

My sister can be forgiven for trying to use Joy liquid in the DW. She was only six years old at the time.

 

[polkanut]

This was the first time my wife had ever used a dw.  She was 50 at the time.