Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Dishwashers & Santitizers

[Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah (welcome]

Ten years of using our common house and we love our commercial  
dishwasher set up. It's in a corner. To the left of the unit is a  
spray sink with a support across it for the racks that get filled.  
There is a steel counter to the left of that, with two regular  
dishpans, one behind the other.

Dirty plates get brought to the small counter area to the left of  
THAT, where compost is scraped into a pan, silverware is tossed in the  
back dishpan to soak (by now the dishpans have hot soapy water in  
them). Usually, if someone is doing dishes as the dirty ones come in,  
the dirty plates each get (by the person doing the dishes) a quick  
swish with a dish brush, in the front dishpan, and then get lined up  
in the rack. (The spray thing makes more splash and mess, and uses a  
lot more hot water, to the point where we could even run out of hot  
water on a big occasion.). Dirty dishes can also be stacked, but that  
gets both sides messy.

 rack slides into the corner unit. Whoosh swoosh clunk swoosh and in  
at most two minutes it's done. Slid out the other side of the unit,  
onto a steel counter with space for two full racks. Stuff comes out  
quite hot.

The hot Corelle plates and bowls almost dry themselves, so in a few  
minutes it only takes a quick whisk of a clean white dishtowel to have  
them ready to stack. They go onto a two-tier Rubbermaid trolley. Top  
has dishes for about 40 people, mid shelf has caddies of silverware,  
lowest level has a tub with clean dish towels. The trolley is at the  
beginning of the serving line. Then wheeled in to get loaded with  
clean dishes.

Although some folks like to do the silverware in the big flat basket,  
I prefer to stand up handfuls of silverware in the plate racks, using  
the standard boxy do-hickies from a normal household dish drainer  
rack. The rectangular boxy things cram into the rack neatly.

This system goes fast, and almost always things come out very clean.  
There is a divided rack for glasses, which we usually do last.

We hand wash stemware, and pots and pans and good knives.

The chemicals feed from covered supply buckets on the floor, one of  
which is (ugh) chlorine bleach. But it works and we haven't found  
anything better.
Also, the guys seem to enjoy the steel and steam and whooshy noises!  
We never lack for someone to run the machine.
Oh, and the system can go continuously for hours, once a year or so  
when we have a big open party, or an all-day fundraiser. Once we  
served something like 250 meals in a day, sequentially, and just kept  
running the dishes through and restocking the serving cart with the  
clean ones. We couldn't have done that with a residential type one.

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
www.rosewind.org
RoseWind Cohousing, Port Townsend WA
where the weather is still mild, sweatshirt enough while gardening.....
two resales available