Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Commercial dishwasher for Common House Kitchen

[Rich Lobdill (richardl]

Joani Blank wrote:

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Howdy friends in built cohousing communities

If you have an under-the-counter Hobart or other commercial dishwasher
(2:30 minute cycle) in your common kitchen:

1.  Does it make a lot of steam, and if so is that a problem?
2.  Do your machine have an integral or supplemental water temperature
booster, and/or do you use chemicals?
3.  If you use chemicals, how is the smell of the chemicals? (Does it smell
like bleach or something else, and does anyone in your community have
problems with the smell of the chemicals?)
4.  If you use chemicals, do you use, or do you know of relatively
non-odoriferous or non-toxic or green alternatives?
5.  We know these machines are relatively loud, but they run for a very
short time.  If your kitchen is fairly open to your dining room, is the
noise of the dishwasher problematic?
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We've lived with one of those machines for about a year and I will relate
our experiences:

1) Steam. The only time you encounter steam is when you open the door to
remove a dish carrier at the end of a cycle. That is when you get the
biggest nose hit of the chemicals but I haven't heard significant
complaints.

2)We use chemicals. It was quite a discussion item at the time but I believe
the pre-heater was like another $2K or something so we made a decision based
on cost.

3)      I'm probably a bit chemically insensitive (probably not for my own good)
but I guess it has the smell of chlorine mostly. I do not know of anybody
who has opted out of cleaning due to the dishwasher fumes. I've heard more
complaints about the Simple Green we use for mopping the kitchen floor

4)      I don't know of green alternatives, maybe someone else from our 
community
could chime in if they know?

5)      The noise of the dishwasher is insignificant in my view. You can hear it
churning away but during clean up there is a lot of noise anyway. Our
dishwasher is about as close to the dining area as possible in that it is
installed in the counter facing out to the dining room. People are much more
concerned about the acoustics of the dining room with respect to general
conversation.

I think everyone is pleased with our choice of a commercial dishwasher. It
is installed right next to a big deep double sink. In an average night we
probably do 8-10 loads during cleanup.

Further suggestions: If you happen to be able to design an area near the
dishwasher which will accept a hot dripping load of dishes (a tile or metal
counter top) that will optimize your flow. Our closest place is our big
cutting board counter and we hesitate to continually hit it with hot water
which has some chemicals in it. Also, you will always have more dish racks
full and ready to wash. It would be good to have counter space to queue up
these racks. Get at least four dish racks, two of the plate/glass holder
kind and two which hold silverware and such. Otherwise you will be short on
racks in the process. One last thing: at the beginning of a clean up, you
must run the dishwasher empty so to get it up to temperature before the
first load. And if you go the chemical route, you will still have to have
your common house water heater set at a pretty high temp (higher than you
would do for your house) because the wash temp still has to get to like 145
degF to ensure sanitization.

Rich Lobdill
Tierra Nueva Cohousing