What kitchenaid is this?!

[ian_p61]

Hi all,
I was searching online and I found a kitchenaid dishwasher for sale and I agreed to pick it up in 3 days
I was just wondering if you guys could tell me a few details about it.
The seller didn't say a model but here a picture!
Thanks all

 

[qsd-dan]

KDS-17

 

[combo52]

KDS-17

This model was built sold in the US from 1971-1974 and then an extra button was added for no heat dry and they continued to build them another two + years. It was one of the most popular KA DWs ever, it was a well built but complicated machine that we made lots of money on repairing. It needed about 20 gallons of 140 Degree F water per cycle and it would do a very good job in well under an hour, I hope you have abundant water and a solar water heater if you plan to run it often.

 

[ian_p61]

Thanks that helps!

How most likely would it have been installed( I have to uninstall it)!
Also does any have a manual or advertisement for the machine- I love those!

 

[appnut]

Service Manual and User Guide can be found in the Ephemera download document sectiion for the KD17 series.

 

[washer111]

20 Gallons of Water

Look out! If the Water Corporation here about this machine, they'll come and give you some sort of "wastage" fine, and remove the machine for your infractions towards Melbourne's disappearing water supply!

 

[tomturbomatic]

Melbourne's disappearing water supply!

I keep wondering how much worse our situation is going to have to become before we are going to seriously explore harvesting icebergs that are calving from glaciers that are melting and raising ocean ocean levels. Puting some sort of sails on them to help guide them to land and then finding a way to transport the ice inland, maybe on some sort of aquaduct system using slightly modified highways, to melt and fill aquifers could buy us time to relocate coastal cities and provide water for irrigation and other uses in the droughts and fierce temperatures that we are already experiencing. Yes, it will cost and probably be a civil engineering project to rival the other great ones like building the pyramids, the great wall of China and the TVA and the Bonneville systems combined, but this is a case of "your money or your life."

PS: This dishwasher does have a shorter China & Crystal cycle with fewer fills. With loads that are not so heavily soiled, I can start my 18 on the Short Wash Cycle which skips the first two fills and one of the three after rinses. Once the filling begins for the main prewash, I push the Normal Cycle button so that the main wash will be the full 7 or 8 minutes and not the shortened version for delicates. You could try that with the 17 for some water savings.

The other thing you could do is save the water from it for other uses. When I had an electric water heater, I would save the rinse water from my KDS14 by pulling the drain hose out of the standpipe and draining it, through a strainer, into the WCI58. It meant that the washer only needed a few more gallons of water for a full load. You could also save the non-detergent laden water and let it cool for use in the garden. The secret to being able to do all of this is not to plumb it to a drain line, but to use a drain hose to a standpipe.

 

[kenmore71]

The actual water usage as listed in the service manual:

Soak Cycle - 18.9 gallons
Full & Sanicycle - 14.9 gallons
Light soil - 9.5 gallons

Having used one of these machines I can say that if you scrape your dishes with a rubber spatula (but not rinse them) and don't put any truly nasty pots and pans in the machine that the light soil cycle does just fine to get everything clean quickly and efficiently in about 40 minutes!

 

[aquarius1984]

71 litres?

71 LITRES!!!!

To wash a few dishes???? Even at the time these were around,Europe had machines doing EXACTLY the same thing to the same amount of dishes if not more dishes using just 30 litres of water.

Im amazed at such a tragic waste of water for one wash,

 

[chachp]

On a positive note...

I have this model (with the button to turn off heated dry) and love it. It's fast and washes like crazy.

 

[washer111]

Then Again:

This is still more efficient than hand-washing. Your still only using 1.5L of water per item (based on 50 items), so it would help me at least!

 

Besides, that sort of soils can could chuck in here, and the amount of BobLoads possible, I think they make up for the poor consumption!

 

[kenmore71]

12 - 15 gallons was pretty common for dishwashers of the later 1960s up through the 1980s. By that time everyone had large hot water heaters and water was cheap in most US cities. In some medium and small sized towns it wasn't even metered!

I will still say that there exists this paradox about water consumption in the US. We keep getting new clothes washers and dishwashers that use less and less water (and often times more electricity, which BTW can use between 1 and 5 gallons of water to produce depnding on location in the US) and yet much of new construction in the US has shower stalls with multiple nozzles and jacuzzi-style bathtubs holding 80 - 100 gallons!

 

[rapunzel]

"Europe had machines doing EXACTLY the same thing...usin

Not exactly. European machines didn't have self-cleaning filtration systems with built-in food waste disposals. One really didn't need to be too particular about scraping dishes before loading, or cleaning out complicated filter assemblies on a regular basis. In comparison to US machines of that era; European dishwashers were rather aneamic (still are).

"Im amazed at such a tragic waste of water for one wash,..." - that is a matter of personal opinion.

 

[washer111]

Rapunzel:

You've hit the nail on the head right there! 

US machines were indeed gobbling up food bits, while their EU counterparts where storing them away, for one to deal with at a later date, and flushing "clean" water through that garbage (Yuck!)

 

Though some will question whether some US machines were really "disposing" their waste: With some machines only featuring an asterisk shaped disposer...

 

[danemodsandy]

KitchenAid Water Usage:

While it is true that many older series of KitchenAid used a lot of water by today's standards (and even by the standards of their day), there was a reason for it.

Back in the day, KitchenAid was owned by the Hobart Corporation, a company which made commercial dishwashing machines and other restaurant equipment.

That meant they had a reputation to protect. To that end, performance and longevity were consistent goals for KitchenAid at that time. Today, KitchenAid is just one more consumer appliance brand among many, with many products having design origins in common with "lesser" brands. Back then, it really meant something. Their dishwashers washed way better. Their mixers didn't bog down. The products usually required less servicing than the competition.

People who wanted no-excuses performance bought KitchenAid for these reasons. Yes, the products cost more to buy and to operate. But if you wanted the job done without worrying about it, that was acceptable.

And at their most profligate water usage, KitchenAid dishwashers used less water than hand-washing the same amount of dishes. That's what today's governmental poo-bahs forget - dishwashers have always saved water, not wasted it. I get really vexed when I hear that governmental officials want water usage reduced some more on dishwashers - it's going to take a certain amount of water to do the job right no matter how many regulations those asses enact.

 

[washer111]

Agreed:

It won't be too long, and manufacturers will get sick of hearing 'My dishwasher doesn't clean' or 'It takes too long.' They may then include a "Classic" or Heavy-Normal cycle, using more water (and perhaps recommending its use for high-performance). 

 

Although, I wouldn't be surprised if the government knows Americans may not load their dishwashers fully before running them, and wants to curb water usage for a growing population, to ensure water security. 

 

[danemodsandy]

Agreed:

"Americans may not load their dishwashers fully before running them"

True enough. But there are other ways of handling that issue, such as load-sensing capability that wouldn't permit a dishwasher to be run if there weren't a certain amount of dishes present.

Something most definitely needs to be done about today's dishwashers and today's non-phosphated dishwasher detergents. I'm seeing results that are downright hazardous to health.

 

[appnut]

load-sensing that wouldn't permit a dishwasher to be run

I'll have a new career.  Being the model for all brands to use as the standard bearer of my BobLoads!!

 

[danemodsandy]

Dirty Little Energy Secret:

What no one talks about when resource consumption is under discussion is the incredible wastefulness inherent in cheaply built appliances.

We're all familiar with vintage goods built to an engineering standard, not a price. Good appliances used to be expensive. And what you got for your money was something that lasted a good long time. That not only gave the purchaser value, it also meant it was a long time before that particular household needed to use resources to replace the appliance.

A few months ago, I visited an appliance company's premises with another AW.org member; we were just seeing if anything interesting was being discarded. Nothing of vintage interest was getting tossed, but there were several very late-model refrigerators - stainless-steel, french-door, the whole nine yards. Just like what you see on the showroom floor - only dead as doornails, ready to be scrapped.

I don't care how little juice such refrigerators use - if they're not going to last more than three or four years, they're hugely wasteful. Same for other appliances.

I think we're eventually going to have to mandate longevity if we're really going to save resources. Old refrigerators lasted thirty years - and by rights, today's should too, but they don't. I think we're going to have to penalize manufacturers who keep ripping ores and petrochemicals and precious metals out of the Earth, to squander them on garbage that may have an Energy Star, but which is doomed to early failure.