Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: the Dishwasher envelope please!

[Kay Argyle (argyle]

Wasatch Commons has a Hobart commercial dishwasher.  We don't prerinse under
a tap.

The clean-up crew or cooks set bus-tubs half full of soapy hot water, one or
two for regular meals and about four for larger events, on the counter
between the dishwasher and the compost bucket.  Mostly people clear their
own tables, although it's not uncommon for the clean-up crew to snitch
plates from under the noses of people who linger!  Any food left unfinished
goes into the garbage or compost, and the plates are dropped into the water
until the clean-up crew starts loading dishwasher racks.

The Hobart has a single rack, instead of the top and bottom racks in
residential dishwashers, so loads are smaller, but on the other hand the
cycle is over with by the time you can unload a nearly dry rack and reload
it -- 90 seconds.

The temperature spikes to 190F at the end of the rinse.  Dishes come out hot
enough to steam dry in a few minutes and put away without wiping -- much
more sterile.

I would strongly recommend getting at least four racks -- two with prongs,
for plates/bowls, and two flat, for everything else. That gives you enough
to have
* one being filled,
* one in the dishwasher,
* one steaming, still too hot to touch, and
* one cool & dry enough to empty.

EVERYTHING goes in the dishwasher -- plates, glasses, bowls, flatware,
crystal stemware, utensils, pans, cutting boards, bus-tubs, sponges, stove
burners, knives with wooden handles!  There is very little that has to be
hand-washed, just a few pans too massive to fit.

We have about fifty residents total.  It's not uncommon to run more than a
dozen loads following a special occasion with a larger than usual turnout.

We started using the common house in July of 1999.  In not quite four years
it has needed service twice.

Two caveats -- (1) It requires special dish detergent, so when the clean-up
crew realizes at 7:30 p.m. that it's out, somebody can't just run to the
store to pick some up (that sort of stores closes at 5:30 if you're lucky).
It's easy to run out without realizing it, because it self-feeds through a
hose feeds from the bottle of detergent -- and a bottle lasts quite a few
months, so people forget to check it.  On the other hand, apparently the
clean-up crews have been using normal dishwasher detergent while our
maintenance finds someone to fix the pump that feeds the detergent -- just
tossing in a little each cycle.

(2) We have hard water, coming out of limestone aquifers.  Because of the
high temperature, a fair amount of water evaporates, leaving a film behind,
which has to be cleaned off.  It's not difficult -- when you shut it off for
the evening, unscrew the rotor arms, run a scrub brush over them to keep the
holes open and over the inside surfaces of the dishwasher, and empty the
filter baskets -- but a lot of clean-up crews neglect it.  One of our
residents uses lime-away on it every month or so, but it can be a major
struggle -- and hard on the fingers -- getting the knobs to break loose when
they have several weeks' lime build-up sealing them in place.

Kay
Wasatch Commons
Salt Lake City, Utah
argyle @ mines.utah.edu
*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*'``'*:-.,_,.-:*

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