Cohousing-L Mailing List: fridge

[HeidiNYS (HeidiNYS]

Dear Kai,

Lyn's experience of a non-commercial fridge [non-freezer] sounds like a good 
way to go.
While we like ours, our commercial while spacious is noisy.  If we had it to 
re-do, I think this is how we'd go.  We, like Rosewind, keep incredibly little 
in fridge.  while it's a wonderful luxury to have to space when needed, we 
could get by with less.
Best,
Ruth Hirsch, Cantines Island, Saugerties,NY

From: "kaiann" <kaiann [at] sonic.net>
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Re: CH kitchen, esp dishwashing set up
We are in the contruction part of Yulupa CoHousing (Santa Rosa CA), and have
done some research on dishwashers.  I think (without the actual experience
of actually cleaning in our common house kitchen) whether you get a
commerical DW or two good residential DW's depends on how many people you
have/anticipate for your meals.
We spent time at appliance stores counting plate slots in residential
dishwashers and finally decided that it wouldn't work well, because even
with 2 residential DW's, we'd likely have to do more than 2 loads of dishes
to get everything done (excluding pots, pans).  As residential DW's have
long cycle times (90-120+ minutes), it would mean waiting around or coming
back to load the third load--just didn't seem efficient.  We also talked to
our "neighboring" cohousing in Cotati CA, and they HIGHLY recommended a
commercial dishwasher.  They have about 30 units and I think at least 40
people eating meals together.  If you do go residential, we were impressed
with BOSCH models for # plates they could hold, water conservation, and
quiet use.
As for refrigerators, it again seems like it depends on how often you're
having group meals.  Someone else commented on having 4 meals/wk together--I
could see how you might run out of room with one residential Frig with
back-to-back meals.  We've opted for an Amana frig with refrig on TOP and
freezer on bottom, because of wanting to have full size shelves for large
mixing/serving bowls, rather than a side by side frig/freezer type with
narrow width shelves.  Who know if this will be adequate--I guess that we
could always buy another frig if needed.  As for noise, our frig will be
located in our pantry--pluses and minuses to this.  The refrigerator is the
highest energy consumer in the kitchen--I don't know if commercial models
are made to be more energy efficient, another issue that we considered.

Kai Gelphman
----- Original Message -----
From: "Lynn Nadeau" <welcome [at] olympus.net>
To: "cohousing L" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 8:07 PM
Subject: [C-L]_ Re: CH kitchen, esp dishwashing set up


> Our experience at RoseWind (Port Townsend WA) has been different from
> that of a recent poster, who recommended a commercial fridge and
> residential dishwashers.
>
> We heard how loud many commericial fridges were (and heard of communities
> where they had to turn it off during meetings) and chose an in-between
> model. It's like a large residential fridge (confusingly, the brand name
> seems to be "Commercial"?), no freezer. About the size of a larger home
> fridge, but with only basic shelves. It gets used on meal preparation
> days, but in between has mainly condiments and oils in it. We make all
> the leftovers go away at the end of each meal (mostly take-home in yogurt
> tubs we stash in a dining room drawer for the purpose). Our separate
> freezer in the pantry is used for bulk-purchased organic frozen corn,
> butter, cornmeal, ice cream, garden rhubarb, coffee.
>
> Our stove is a Dacor, with 6 burners - all flat so very large pans work.
> Has griddle add-on. Non commercial, but not regular residential either.
> Our convection oven is separate and used regularly. There is room for 3-4
> racks in it, so it has been adequate.
>
> We are very happy with our counter-top commercial dishwasher. The layout
> is such that the dishwasher itself is in a corner, with tray sliding in
> one side and out the other, at a right angle. A stainless steel spray
> sink precedes the DW, but we've found the pre-rinsing can use very little
> water. First people use a good silicone spatula to scrape their plate
> into the compost bin, then they drop their silverware into one small
> dishpan of soapy water, and set the scraped dishes on the counter by the
> spray sink. (The empty plastic trays stack in an open storage space right
> below that counter. Empty, they are light.) A second dishpan of soapy
> water, and a dish brush, are plenty to "rinse" each dish as it's loaded
> into the tray that is sitting over the spray sink. Usually for a big
> meal, the rinse water is only changed once or twice. Using the dish brush
> instead of the spray also keeps the dishwashing people MUCH dryer! Ditto
> for the floor. Tray is loaded, slides in, gets blasted with the
> soapy/then rinse water, tray slides out onto steel counter (which has
> room for two trays to be air drying). Our dishes are Corelle, which is
> lightweight, durable, and dries very fast. They are kept on a rolling
> Rubbermaid cart which is at the beginning of the serving line at meal
> time, then is rolled into the washed-dish area at clean  up. A quick
> whisk with a clean dish towel (a set of white ones reserved for dishes
> only) and the hot clean dishes are unloaded onto the serving cart. Zero
> carrying of trays of dishes. Glasses and cups are done last, and left to
> air dry. Silver can be done in a big flat tray, but some of us prefer to
> do it in little stand up baskets (from household drainers) which can be
> crammed into the plate-rack trays, so no water pools in the spoons.
>
> Just beyond the area where the clean dishes exit, we have more stainless
> restaurant gear: a counter and 3-part pot sink, where pots etc are washed
> and left to drain.
>
> On the other side of the kitchen we have a regular residential type
> double sink. Used in prep, and during clean up for fragile wine glasses
> and miscellaneous items such as food processor parts, measuring spoons,
> blender parts, last dishes that missed the last DW load. These go into a
> normal drainer rack.
>
> A lot depends on the layout of your work areas. We had excellent advice
> from architect Mary Kraus, and the traffic flow works really well. I
> think there are some shots of our kitchen on the website
> (www.rosewind.org).
>