Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Dishwasher

[Berrins (Berrins]

I have to agree with Kay.  We have a Hobart at Pathways (24 on-campus and 3 
associated neighbor households) and it works fine.  It does all kinds of 
stuff and only takes 90 seconds.  It does take about 10-15 minutes to warm 
up, but that's easily done during meals. 

The 90 second cycle is crucial to cleaning up quickly.  We typically do 
somewhere between 10 to 15 loads per meal, maybe more, depending on the 
number of diners and how messy the meal was.  Even pot luck dinners, when we 
use Common House plates and stuff, take at least 5-7 loads.  A "regular" 
dishwasher takes at least an hour for one load.  Who wants to wait around for 
it to finish to unload, put things away and clean out the dishwasher?  Not 
me...

And a good dishwasher is efficient.  Ours uses the rinse water for the next 
wash cycle, so that helps out.  Washing dishes by hand must use a lot more 
water.  And taking dishes home, as some places do, just shifts the water use 
burden to individual homes.  Finally, commercial grade dishwashers are built 
much tougher than household ones.  

All in all, I highly recommend you spring for the commercial grade 
dishwasher.  They can often be found used at local kitchen supply stores.  

    Roger
    Pathways Cohousing
    Northampton, MA
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