Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Dishwashers & Sanitizers - Sound and Cycle Time

[Douglas G. Larson (ddhle]

>  We have three Kitchen Aid residential style dishwashers and we do
pre-rinse.
>> How large are your dinners?

> I have no personal, direct experience with commercial (sanitizers) 
> machines, but I have observed a Meiko brand at a local Cooking Class
establishment.
> They have Meiko model FV40.2 and its  an under-the-counter style but 
> does dishes in about 3 minutes or less.

>> How noisy is it? Can people talk comfortably around it?

>> I'm wondering if we just bought a new-used sanitizer if it would be
quieter. Ours was used when we bought it in 2000.

>> What I'm hearing here is avid sanitizer users with others saying less
avidly that residential machines do the job and are quieter. Am I reading
this right? There don't seem to be 
>> _avid_ residential dishwasher users.


Our regular dinners serve 30 to 36 people. On nights with a lot of guests it
can be over 40 and on special events, like Thanksgiving, it can reach 60 or
more. On the regular dinner nights we sometimes use only 2 of our 3
dishwashers. The big pots, big bowls and big trays we hand wash. Our 3
Kitchen Aid dishwashers are pretty quiet. You can hear them when you stand
next to them but they're still pretty quiet. From the dining room they are
not audible except to people with extremely good hearing. Like all
residential machines, however, their cycle time is close to 2 hours. 

The Meiko FV40.2 I mentioned, I believe is pretty quiet. The last time I
heard it was over a year ago when I last took a cooking class from that
school and the classroom where I was sitting was a good 15 to 20 feet from
the dishwasher. The staff did use the dishwasher during class and my
recollection is that while slightly audible, I could barely hear it. Also,
since the cycle time for the Meiko is under 3 minutes, any sound is of short
duration. 

You didn't ask, but my residential Miele is very quiet. I have to be
standing next to it to hear it. But, like the Kitchen Aid and every
residential brand I am aware of, the cycle time is 90 to 120 minutes. 

So, to summarize you can easily hold a conversation standing next to our
Kitchen Aid machines and to the Miele that I own. I believe the same is true
for the Mieko sanitizer I spoke of. 

Douglas Larson,
Songaia Cohousing