UNUSED GE Pot scubber Dishwasher

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Very well said, Paulo.

I have to say my FL washer cleans better, uses less water, energy, and additives, all while being much more gentle on my clothing than my old TL washer. While I like TL washers and enjoy playing with them, I find that well designed new appliances can do a great job while saving resources.

I have never used a dishwasher that cleaned better while conserving water and energy than my Bosch. Every time I unload it I am amazed how even baked on pots and pans are spotless, while the glasses are crystal clear and the silverware is bright and shiny.
 
What is the price for the dishwasher?

It definately has sparked my attention and I am curious as to how much is the asking price.
 
Disagree.

Newer is NOT better. I am on my second "new" dishwasher. Yes, the new ones use less water. Yes they are on longer. Yes, the net net they may use less "energy". However, I can't count how many times I have had to rewash because of dirt issues. And the new stuff constantly breaks. How much "energy" is expended for the production of new parts, new parts distribution, more service trips, gas and energy to service the unit. And then after the 2nd $300 repair, we throw the thing away. How much energy to pick the thing up, disassemble it, scrap it.

To save a few gallons of water and a bit of electricity.

Yep, we'll save the world doing that.
 
Paulo, it was the KitchenAid dishwashers of the 10 through 14 series, not impeller machines, that used, at one point in their advertising, "6 moving walls of water", perhaps with the 14 series advertising. Having dishwashing performance handicapped by miniscule amounts of water so that pumps cannot develop high pressure is bullshit engineering and selling them is bullshit marketing. Tall tub machines have reduced the depth of the sump to where the machines cannot hold much water and that means that once circulation starts, the depth of the water over the pump is reduced to the point that if you were able to fit a powerful pump under the tub, it would suck as much air as water because there is not enough depth over the pump to keep it constantly supplied with water. Reducing the rinsing to only one after the main wash is also bullshit engineering. In 1952, the Apex dishwasher only used one after rinse and CU said its performance was improved by resetting the timer to give another rinse. It does not matter how well a machine filters the water; you have to use enough rinse water to carry off the residue of detergent and food and one rinse is inadequate in most cases. Those long wash cycles have to have the heater operating also since not enough hot water is used to warm up the machine before the main wash so even though the amount used during the wash is small it has to be heated which costs money. I know that some will tell us about dishwashers that do not need much more than warm water to wash dishes just like all of these HE washers that don't really need much water to wash clothes. When the Bendix Automatic Home Laundry appeared on the market there was a list of things the machine did all by itself. The last two things were: It cleans itself and shuts itself off. Same for dishwashers, even before they were automatic; they at least cleaned themselves. Now there are products marketed to clean our dishwashers and HE washing machines. Three times this weekend I have seen ads come on the TV for some Tide washing machine cleaning product with women talking about how their front loaders got stinky and stunk up the laundry room and even the "clean" clothes they were taking out of the washer. In the animation of the cleaning process, it shows all of the crap that accumulates on the outside of the drum being washed away. When washers and dishwashers do not even use enough water to clean themselves out, how can we expect clean clothes and dishes from them? The other way these products are biting us in the ass is that our sewer systems depend on a certain volume of water to function. Without enough water, solids don't move and subterranean constipation ensues.
 
Right On!

Right on Thomas and Tom with your observations about newer dishwshers.

I thought I was alone in my disdain for many of these new machines with only one final rinse.

Yes, proper filtration may take most of the visible suspended solids out of the final rinse water, but does nothing for the chemical residue from the detergents. You can often smell the dw detergent residue on the dishes coming out of some the newer tall tub machines (and smell it strongly). I don't know about you, but I get enough chemicals from the environment already without having to worry about ingesting them from my dishes.

Improper rinsing can also accelerate etching of glassware, from what I hear, and also promote a build-up of white residue on dishes and machine internals over time. Especially if the water is hard.

Give me the GE tower wash anyday, with it's three final rinses.

That's why I was asking if anyone knew the cycle progression of this PS II. Since the water usage is higher than the normal tower wash of the era, I was wondering if there might not be an extra rinse in there somewhere.
 
You REALLY don't want to eat detergent. It all contains benzene compounds, highly toxic. I'm not a washaholic but I AM a rinseaholic.

No way a single rinse is sufficient. Specially when 'drain' leaves at least a cup of the previous fill behind, as all GEs do. The drain solenoid is not positive action. More like a 'suggestion'. It's only held in the drain position by pump output. The instant the pump begins cavitating the drain valve closes, even if the solenoid is still on. Must have saved them at least 75c on the solenoid.

Gawd, I hate the trend toward gutless appliances. Know what GE? You could have skipped the reversing motor and timer and paid for a standalone pump that actually pumped the whole time it was on like my BOL Frigiwhite frontloader does.
 
Yes, I've seen those ads in the picture of the day, with KitchenAid dws talking about the walls of water. But those are not unique to KA ads. The PODs have shown at least another machine, I think the James, talking about using a wall of water, not to mention dissing the other machines and telling people to buy it now because the other machines could only be as advanced when James' patents expired 15 years in the future (that machine was not an impeller machine, but was not a conventional spray arm machine either). Back in the 60's and 70's I knew plenty of people dissing spray arm machines and expressing skepticism about not having impellers. It was a common, often repeated thing back then, that the impeller machines washed with walls of water and the "newer" machines just pissed on the dishes with a lawn sprinkler, completely ignoring the pressure and force of the sprays against the dishes. The line "that's weaker than a lawn sprinkler" when people watch badly set up demos of dishwashers is at least 40 years old.

Again, good design matters. I still remember when KitchenAid used to diss other brands as wasteful in water and energy. And many people used to consider KA machines better cleaners than machines like this model GE, which used more water/energy. There are plenty of machines that drain properly and leave just a few tablespoons of water in the sump and provide 2 or 3 rinses and have plenty of power to clean, and yet, use way less water/energy than the tall tubs (and even conventional tubs) people have been complaining about here.

Just for reference, I've complained about a non-tall tub dw here some time ago, that used only one purge and one rinse after the normal cycle and didn't clean well. I had to use the heavy duty/pots-n-pans cycle to get the load cleaned and rinsed properly. That machine has been praised by people who used it in hard-water areas (I have natural soft water).

After that machine, I've used dws that use way less water/energy, rinse multiple times and don't need much more than a normal cycle to clean -- I only need to use heavy duty/pots-n-pans when I have stuff that is in fact heavily soiled and/or have stuck-on or burnt food on them. The difference is that some machines are designed from scratch to work properly with less water/energy instead of the machine designs that have only been adapted to use less water by cutting rinses and having sumps that make the pumps starve for water.

Again, it's not the amount of water or energy: I've used dishwashers that used 10-12 gallons per cycle (pots-n-pans) that cleaned well and some that cleaned pretty poorly. And I've used machines that use less than 6 gallons on the PnP cycle and clean way better. They also do better in the Normal (3-5 gallons) cycle than all the other machines I've used. The machines need to be well designed for the task, and just like one person from a country does not represent the entire country, a handful of ill-designed tall-tub dws don't represent the entire universe of High Efficiency dishwashers.

Also, water quality and the way it gets used matters. I hated a couple of machines that some people here loved and vice-versa.

Just look at this site and the opinions all around it: some people prefer KA, WP or GE (which used to have huge holes in the spray arms) and some people liked Maytags, which advertised to clean better with smaller holes in the spray arms because that would increase the water pressure. There were satisfied customers for both systems. But there were also plenty of other brands, some with large holes and some with small holes in the spray arms that did very poorly in the cleaning and/or rinsing department. Some of the machines that did poorly did poorly despite using more time, water and energy than a KA. Amount of water and/or energy does not correlate with cleaning ability. Good design does.

I understand the frustration, I would not be able to pick a new dishwasher currently without talking to people who own several different brands and models and asking for their experience, because it's not easy to tell which design is good and which one is bad just by looking at the machines. For example, KA were famous for drying well because they had a drying fan. But I had two Maytags with drying fans that not only did not do so well, but in fact I had a GE Potscrubber that dried better than the Maytags and did not have a drying fan, just a vent. The KA I used cleaned better than the Maytags and GE and used less water and energy.

I think the only conclusion I can arrive to is that the design mattered more than the amount of water/energy used.

I will agree to disagree, but I'd prefer if people at the very least took a dispassionate look at the hard facts first, and the hard facts do not support the theory that one needs more of anything. It's cleaning ability we're after, not who has the highest utilities bill. ;-)

Cheers,
-- Paulo.
 
Well said, Paulo!

My washer (which uses less water than any other US machine on the market), my dishwasher (3.5-5 gallons on regular cycle) and low-flow pressure-flush Gerber toilet all work flawlessly. I have CFL's (spiral compact fluorescent lights) throughout my house. The notion that water-saving/energy-saving appliances produce inferior results is simply not correct.

HOWEVER, as with anything you buy, you should check out ratings via Consumer Reports and get opinions from people who already own the item. I buy EcoSmart CFL's and they are awesome. I received a CFL (different brand) from my utility company and it was awful.

I agree there are some terrible low-flush toilets out there. Again, check the ratings and purchase one that actually works.
 
I don't think this model has any additional water exchanges beyond the 7 that were on my GSD1200 Potscrubber, MAYBE one extra rinse at best.  However, I imagine back then, each fill used much more water than my GE from 1987. 
 
PSII water usage

David,

Was the sump larger in the PSII? Just wondering, as it looks as if the PSII uses the same tub as the other PS's. They used less than 1 1/2 gallons per fill, and the water level, at full fill, comes up maybe half way of the lower front lip of the tub. With the extra 1 and a half gallons in the PSII fill, it seems as if the water level would be periously close to the edge of the lip, if not over, and in danger of outflowing from the tub.
 
PS2 TUB

The tub in these machines were a completely new design and not the same as anything before or later. The pump and motor were mounted differently and there was a large circular sump in the middle of the machine. This was a very interesting machine and it was neat that they finally tried a real upper wash arm [ that all DWs have today ]. The PSII only was made a few years and thier were quite a few problems with this machine. If you read the service manuel for this machine thier a large number of items that are listed that were improved and other service notes that describe how to fix all sorts of problems that occurred
 
Paulo

I have to come down on the side of Tom's comments. I do agree with you that design is the most important thing never to skimp on but when it comes down to it there is a physical limit to what you can get out of one gallon of water, it will only carry away so much soil and that is it.

I think Tom is correct the low low water usage will not heat the machine nor the soiled dishes so a heat boost must be used. 

And if you take the total historical perspective, which you must do, in order to be accurate, from the 1940's forward the switch from dishwashing by hand to machine washing has saved millions of gallons of water and millions of tons of coal. So to argue about the efficiency of machines made from as late a 1996 to the squirt gun machines of the early 2000's is artificial, it is splitting hairs. We've done the best we can by 1996, because water has a physical limit.

My 1997 KA was the last year of the power module machines, it cleans time and time again as good as my KDS-14. It uses less water than my KDS 14. 

But when they went to the tall tub design KA blew it big time and they have been scrambling ever since. If you look at CL today you will see many many 2 and 3 year old machines out there for sale because the owners want them gone! And they want to recoup some of their $1000 spent to get these horrible machines.

 

Yes the idea you need to buy special cleaning agents to keep the "cleaning machines" clean is a blatant ROAD SIGN something has gone really wrong somewhere. The idea you need to start using TEASPOONS to measure  your detergent in order to avoid sudslock for a load of clothes that is just as dirty as a 1950's load of clothes is looney at best!

 

Which tells me this is all due to some government idiot WHO never does dishes nor washes clothes and has to create their job everyday in order to keep it. None of these "government regulations" is based in real science or real experience.

 

They are all bojack regulations!
 
PSII

I wonder what problems GE was having with the PSII??

Jon, I couldn't have said it better. You hit the nail on the head. Some government leaders don't have enough common sense to think about the REAL implications of theses arbitrary Energy Star regulations, but are looking at THEORETICAL savings only. Theory and Reality often differ.

I remember a Consumer Report article (late seventies or early eighties, I believe) and in their dishwasher test, they had commented on which brands could gobble up lasagna noodles. Can you imagine some of todays, poor excuses for dishwashers, trying to eat up a lasagna noodle?

Most don't even have openings in th sump grate or filter large enough to take care of something that large. When I had a GE Tall Tub, the owners manual warned against leafy items, such as lettuce, being left on the dishes.

Can you imagine a dishwasher that can't rid itself of a piece of lettuce. And GE was right I often had pieces of lettuce, and evrything else, flattened up against the small openings in the sump grate after the cycle. Once I had a cooked egg white that somehow did manage to slip through one of the grates and clogged the anemic little toy drain pump opening, and the dishwasher couldn't drain.

Many government regulators, and even Consume Reports don't take into account the water and electrical usage needed to scrape and/or rinse dishes before loading them into these newer dishsplashers, some of which cannot even rid themself of a garden pea.

So if you compare the REAL cost of running, let's say a 1973 GE Tower Wash, which could rid itself of most any garbage on dishes, with it's soft food disposer and wide sump grates with one of these modern dishsplashers, I think you will find there is a whole lot more water usage in these new machines which require you to prep dishes. You have the water used by the machine itself + the water used to rinse the dishes and dispose of the food down the disposal.

If you have one of the newer machines that have no disposal system whatsoever, you also have the water usage added in for removing the filter in the bottom of the machine and washing it by hand to remove residual garbage. And personally, I don't want every drop of wash and rinse water to be filtered through garbage. I just have an aversion to dishes washed and rinsed in garbage water. Which is what these filter only machines do.

Any machine that cannot rid and dispose of normal food wastes is not a dishwasher but only a machine that splashes water on dishes. That's why I often call some of the newer machines "dishsplashers" because they don't even come close to being a dishwasher.

It's also been mentioned, on this site, that people are leary of chemical residue left on dishware with only a single final rinse offered by many of the newer Dishsplashers. So, if you are concerned that you don't want to injest chemicals, then you have to manualy set the dishwasher for an additional rinse. And if that dishwasher is a disposer free model, you are just going to rinses the dishes again in garbage water unless you remove the filter and wash it by hand first.

What about cleanability. How many newer dishwasher can handle dried oatmeal on bowls in the upper rack? I have had GE tall tubs and a Whilrpool tall tub that left oatmeal, consistently, on dishes. And, of course, after the dry cycle, it was baked on.

What about the water required for you and me to pull these out and wash them by hand? Shouldn't that be used in the government rating for energy efficiency??

My older GE Tower Wash and my Maytag reverse rack don't even raise a sweat in removing dried oatmeal.

Yes Jon, lets have some of these congresspeople, who are trying to impress the world with their evergy saving legislataions,and make themself look important go home and wash a load of dirty dishes in their Energy Star machines.

With their six figure salaries, I am sure they havae maids to rinse and wash food off before they put dishes into their machines.

Let's let the President and the congress people do their own dishes for a week. Let them scrape and rinse and wash the wasted down the disposer to just to prep them for their Energy Star Dishsplasher. Let them wait almost three hours for dishes, that were virtually prewashed, to come through just one cycle. And let them find out they have chemical residue on them, from incomplete rinsing, in their modenr Energy Star Dishsplasher. Let them give dishes another rinse or two and add more time to that three hour cycle. Let them pull out dirty bowls with dried oatmeal and take a srubbing pad and try to get the oatmeal off that the modern dishplasher dried onto the bowls.

So now they have spend their time scraping, rinsing, running a disposer, running a dishwasher, and rewashing by hand dishes with residual dried on oatmeal and egg yoke. Let's see how much they like their Energy Star machines then, after spending four hours total on something a thirty or forty year old machine could have done better in 45 minutes.

I think we would have some new legislation fast.

Instead of government legislation for energy, I think we would would start seeing government legistation for machine competance and we would all of of a sudden have "Performance Star" rated machines. And as a result, we would also be saving the environment a lot energy in the process.
 

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