Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Kitchen design Dishwashers

[Dahako (Dahako]

Hi-
 
On noise - I like the Eno Commons set up where the kitchen has shutters  that 
can be opened so the kitchen crew can serve and socialize with folks in the  
dining room, or closed so kitchen prep can go on separately from a meeting or  
activity in the dining room.  Could the shutters have a better design for  
noise separation and asthetics?  Sure, but the idea still works fairly  well.  
We designed the kitchen at Eastern Village for shutters (or a  tambour- or 
garage-door type roll-down), but haven't executed the project  yet.
 
On the using more water for a commercial dishwasher, two points.   First, 
most commercial dishwashers are pretty water stingy because they recycle  water 
from wash to wash.  Second, you don't need to use running water to  get loose 
food off the plates, you can use a bus tray filled with water, or a  
half-filled sink.  Scrape the plates well into your compost or trash,  sloosh 
them 
through the bus tray or sink, and load 'em up.  I have seen  this work decently 
at 
both Eno Commons and Takoma Village.
 
Some commercial dishwashers look like residential ones - they are the same  
size and can fit under a counter or be installed in the slightly raised 
position  favored by high end residential kitchens.  These can be installed 
with some 
 sound insulation in the surrounding cabinets if noise is really a driving  
issue.
 
Jessie Handforth Kome
Eastern Village Cohousing
Silver Spring, Maryland
"Where our stove hood sounds like an airplane taking off ten feet away, so  
other kitchen noises are not really noticed much."