stevet
Well-known member
Insinkerator Dishwashers
An Insinkerator by any other name would have been a KitchenAid but eventually,not by Hobart.
It was Emerson Electric, not Edison that owned Insinkerator and they did come out with a line of KA look alikes based on the 21-23 series machines. But at no time was KA ever sold to them.
Whirlpool approached Hobart and offered them 200 million bucks for the line. As this was half of what Dart And Kraft had paid for Hobart in 1980 to prevent Canadian Pacific from raiding Hobart(long story there) they saw it as a quick way to get their money back. End of story. Stupid move on their part as the KA division made many items used in production of Hobart commercial machines and then Hobart needed to find new sources outside the "family" to supply us with motors for many of our products. Many of us viewed it as shooting ourselves in the foot but that was how the bean counters at D/K thought.
The ISE machines were the same mechanically as the KA but they never had a "Superba" high end unit. They all had the timer on the door and they spent $250,000 to redesign the door latch to slide horizontally instead of the push down handle on the Ka machines. Personally, I thought it looked really sleek with the style of the control panel. They had a 2000 series which was a 21-22 series based machine with the Hobart designed washing system and then the 3000 series which had the Whirlpool pump design. They also had their version of the solid state controlled machines too.
All the rack features were similar to KA except they did not include the "China-Guard" under the upper washarm and that was also where the plactic upper washarms began to show up. But it came with the stainless tank trim which was an option on most KA's.
They were priced very competitively and gave great value for the money. I have an 2 Aunts that I purchased them for and they are still running strong to this day. One Aunt has the ISE in the upstairs kitchen and a KDM-21 in the basement kitchen and the ISE is much quieter and does just as good a job as the KA.
I guess whatever deal they had with Hobart to build them didnt last too long or expired or more likely, when WP came out with the 24 series Kitchenaid/Whirlpool clones, ISE could no longer get a machine that they could sell at a competitive price or WP may have decided not to sell it to them anymore. Maybe someone has more info on that.
Hope that sheds some light on the subject. I do have some sales brochures of the ISE machines. I may be able to scan them and add them here.
An Insinkerator by any other name would have been a KitchenAid but eventually,not by Hobart.
It was Emerson Electric, not Edison that owned Insinkerator and they did come out with a line of KA look alikes based on the 21-23 series machines. But at no time was KA ever sold to them.
Whirlpool approached Hobart and offered them 200 million bucks for the line. As this was half of what Dart And Kraft had paid for Hobart in 1980 to prevent Canadian Pacific from raiding Hobart(long story there) they saw it as a quick way to get their money back. End of story. Stupid move on their part as the KA division made many items used in production of Hobart commercial machines and then Hobart needed to find new sources outside the "family" to supply us with motors for many of our products. Many of us viewed it as shooting ourselves in the foot but that was how the bean counters at D/K thought.
The ISE machines were the same mechanically as the KA but they never had a "Superba" high end unit. They all had the timer on the door and they spent $250,000 to redesign the door latch to slide horizontally instead of the push down handle on the Ka machines. Personally, I thought it looked really sleek with the style of the control panel. They had a 2000 series which was a 21-22 series based machine with the Hobart designed washing system and then the 3000 series which had the Whirlpool pump design. They also had their version of the solid state controlled machines too.
All the rack features were similar to KA except they did not include the "China-Guard" under the upper washarm and that was also where the plactic upper washarms began to show up. But it came with the stainless tank trim which was an option on most KA's.
They were priced very competitively and gave great value for the money. I have an 2 Aunts that I purchased them for and they are still running strong to this day. One Aunt has the ISE in the upstairs kitchen and a KDM-21 in the basement kitchen and the ISE is much quieter and does just as good a job as the KA.
I guess whatever deal they had with Hobart to build them didnt last too long or expired or more likely, when WP came out with the 24 series Kitchenaid/Whirlpool clones, ISE could no longer get a machine that they could sell at a competitive price or WP may have decided not to sell it to them anymore. Maybe someone has more info on that.
Hope that sheds some light on the subject. I do have some sales brochures of the ISE machines. I may be able to scan them and add them here.
