Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Emptying the dishwasher

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Sep 9, 2023, at 12:52 PM, Muriel Kranowski <murielk [at] vt.edu> wrote:
> 
> Sharon's post about swapping out the sanitizer for (how many?) residential
> dishwashers piqued my interest.  We have one of each, now both 20yo so
> perhaps needing replacement relatively soon.
> 
> I am most interested in knowing who comes back and empties the residential
> dishwashers? For all the nuisance aspects of the sanitizer, its best
> feature imo is that everything gets put away immediately after it comes out
> sanitized.

Who empties the dishwasher delayed the decision to acquire one for years 
(literally). It was seen as a major drawback. Then we decided that emptying the 
dishwasher was a workshare job like any other and a person volunteered to check 
the dishwasher the day after meals. She was usually in the common house the 
next morning so it was not problem. That cleared the way.

(I hadn’t thought of this until just now but somehow, having stray glasses and 
coffee cups sit on the dish table in the kitchen for days before the sanitizer 
was run was not considered a problem equal to that of someone not emptying the 
dishwasher.)

In any event, the woman who volunteered to empty the washer as a workshare job 
moved to assisted living before it was installed, but I don’t think we have had 
any problem with making it the responsibility of the meal cleaners to return to 
empty the dishwashers the next day. This was more comfortable than returning 
later in the evening though some may do that, particularly if they are at a 
meeting or watching a movie in the common house.

We do have two dishwashers so if one is clean and waiting to be emptied, the 
other is usually available for stray dishes. Only for large meals, like a 
holiday, would we have both dishwashers filled. Some people thought we would 
have to have 3 dishwashers to replace the sanitizer but 2 has been completely 
satisfactory. We did have to switch from Fiestaware to Corelle to fit 
everything in. I suspect there were some who were ready to switch anyway 
because the Fiestaware was getting so heavy.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org