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Ot: Dishwashers

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tooki:

--- Quote from: james_s on December 27, 2020, 11:14:57 pm ---
--- Quote from: Nusa on December 24, 2020, 06:15:52 am ---I like the Bosch brand also, mainly because of the integrated water softener that is not found in most dishwashers in the US. However, it's difficult to find dishwasher salt in the stores here. Luckily, pool salt seems to be the same thing and works wonderfully. I got a 50 pound bag on sale for $5 that should take me a decade to use up.

--- End quote ---

Bosch dishwashers are nice when they work, extremely quiet. I've had to fix several of them though and they're kind of a pain to work on and at least the ones I worked on had some questionable designs. Most recently I fixed one my friend had, the pump failed and the problem turned out to be the face of the impeller sheared off the backing, I'd never seen that happen before. About a year later he replaced the whole thing because it started leaking somewhere else.

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Totally agree. I have a Bosch and the door no longer stays up. First time that broke, it was because the spring-and-cord assembly used cord molded into a plastic anchor which breaks. Replaced under warranty (which ended up being a separate fiasco). Years later, it broke again, but this time, because the pulley the cord wraps around snapped off — yup, it, too is anchored in plastic. Warranty expired, the repairman fixed it by driving a bolt through, since the “real” fix would involve replacing the entire plastic base of the machine, which would cost nearly as much in labor as the machine was worth. That fix failed a year or two later, and I’ve not bothered telling the apartment management, as it doesn’t bother me enough to want to deal with it.

Upshot is, while I fundamentally like the machine, I wouldn’t buy one, as they’ve simply cut too many corners.

tooki:

--- Quote from: Jeroen3 on December 28, 2020, 06:59:39 am ---
--- Quote from: Alex Eisenhut on December 23, 2020, 07:04:46 am ---...
Why not load the whole door (it is mostly empty, no?) with a big tank of gel-type detergent?

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I want one. I have automatic dosing on my laundry washer and it is perfect. Setup the milliliters based on your water hardness once, and just let it do it's job.
Refill your favorite liquid when it's empty. None of the "juicero" fear bottles people are afraid of.
Some vendor will come around and will start selling pre-wash capsules.

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What’s weird is that Miele (I’m assuming yours is a Miele?) allows you to fill your own canisters on European models, while US models are indeed locked to their TwinDos “UltraPhase” detergents. Nothing stopping you from physically inserting a canister filled with something else, and you can tweak the amounts, but the firmware won’t let you select what it is. (If I had a European one, I’d simply have one dispenser with my everyday detergent and the other with fabric softener.)

tooki:

--- Quote from: james_s on December 28, 2020, 08:31:03 am ---
--- Quote from: Halcyon on December 28, 2020, 05:30:47 am ---I have a saying: "dishwashers are not garbage disposals". However the lines are blurred in some countries where dishwashers seem to be built with impellers/blades to churn food.

Either way, if you have one of these machines, it still doesn't hurt to get the solid bits off first (don't be a lazy prick), that and with regular cleaning, it should last for many years.

I have a model that has a fine filter that traps food particles. I clean it about once per week (if not more often). It gets really gross if you leave it. I then run an actual dishwasher cleaner (or a cap-full of trisodium phosphate) while empty once a month to help clear any built up fats and oils in the plumbing.

Dishwasher's aren't magic. The waste doesn't just disappear. For the same reason, you wouldn't throw food or fats/oils straight down the sink. Eventually you, or someone downstream from you will have a major problem.

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Why shouldn't they be garbage disposals? Mine has blades that grind up bits of food and dispose of them, it doesn't work as well as the Insinkerator disposal in my kitchen sink, I wouldn't throw a plate in there that still had a bunch of food on it but I don't wash the dishes by hand before I put them in, I have a dishwasher precisely so that I don't have to wash by hand. It works very well, dirty dishes go in and they come out sparkling clean. It's far from the quietest dishwasher I've used but it works as well as any I've tried. Got it for free too when it was brand new, someone bought a house that had a brand new dishwasher and decided they wanted all stainless appliances back when that was all the rage. The dishwasher was white which is my preference anyway so I was happy to haul it away. That was around 12 years ago.

I put almost all of my food scraps straight into the sink, the disposal shreds them up and they end up with the solids in the sewage treatment plant. In a sense they do just go away, they decompose along with all the poop as microorganisms convert it back into nutrient rich soil.

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Well one reason is that garbage disposals are insanity to begin with. It makes no sense to burden the sewage system with food scraps it was never intended to handle. It’s not that it can’t handle them at all, but it wasn’t designed for it. However, new wastewater treatment plants designed to produce and capture biogas actually benefit from garbage disposals, so the situation may change in the long run.

Nowhere outside of USA has significant use of garbage disposals. We may see this change due to the biogas aspect.


As for not handwashing before putting in the dishwasher, you’re absolutely correct on that. In fact, the glass etching so many people experience is in part due to the dishes being too clean. With no food left to dissolve, the detergent ends up attacking the glass. I do what the experts say: scrape but don’t rinse.

My stepdad used to literally scrub the dishes (albeit without soap) before putting them in the dishwasher. All the glasses looked like cotton candy. I eventually talked sense into him and my mom, and the new glasses still look fine years later.

Alex Eisenhut:
Well, FWIW, I bought the cheapest powder detergent I could find, and it does seem to work better. And for some reason the rinse aid seems to work better too, finally no puddles in the bottom of cups.

vk6zgo:
Useless information corner:-

German & Australian dishwashers have different operating programs.

A short term job I had a few years back consisted of opening up cartons, unscrewing a panel from the dryer, & reprogramming it for Oz.(they gave us a "magic box" that we plugged into an internal connector to do this).

Apparently, the factory stuffed up, so they paid for our time.

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