commercial dishwashers

[barbouni]

I have heard of a few people installing undercounter models in their homes. Can the chefs answer a few questions? I am seriously considering this option. Are they very loud? Is the 2 minute cycle a true cleaning and drying cycle? Can you throw everything in there? How much pre-washing do you have to do? Stemware ok? In other words, I am completely clueless about this item and want to know exactly what to expect.

Thanks

[RETREVR]

I have never used an under the counter model. I can tell you that most of the heavy duty units need to fill and heat up to a very high temp which would make it impractical for home-use unless you feed a few hundred guests each night. However...
We installed a unit in our new kitchen that would do well in a home kitchen. We do not have a dining room so it is not asked to do as much as a typical restaraunt unit. Our unit has no internal heater and runs at only about 145deg(from the buildings water heater). It takes only about a gallon of fill water. It has a wash, a rinse, and, sanitize cycle. The sanitize water becomes the water for the next wash. So realy it would take a few gallons of water to run it and there would be no wait time.
The dishes do not come out dry.
Glasses go in a glass rack which is great if you need to do several. Otherwise you need to run the whole rack just to wash a few. Glass racks are highly recomended for safe storage. In fact, even if you don't have a comercial washer, I would recomend glass racks for storing large amounts of expensive stemwear.

[barbouni]

Thanks.

[dano1]

ask for a demo of a couple of models/brands. Have never used the "pro" home models either.

All items need to rinsed/scrubbed/soaked before going into the dish machine though. Got a feeling the undercounter models are a little more involved than cleaning out the plunger trap and the screen under the machine like on commercial models. There is no "dry cycle" on kitchen machines-drip dry and polish as needed.

[Willyp_ig]

I'm not sure about the undercounter models, but a regular commercial dishwasher wouldn't be the most practical for a home kitchen. Like the others said it takes a while for the water to heat up and usually require more prewashing than a normal undercounter dishwasher. If all you're looking for is the sanitizing feature of the commercial models I would reccommend just finding a consumer grade model that includes that feature. The maytag we have has a sanitize feature and i'm sure other manufacturers offer it as well. Good luck with your searching.

[barbouni]

I really want a fast and thorough dishwasher since we have lots of parties. I can't find a residential model with less than an hour cycle. I thought that maybe there was a pro-sumer type product that might be good for a busy home kithcen.

[Sid Post]

I have a top end Kenmore model. It is very quiet and has several wash cycles to use depending on how soiled everything is.

It really sounds like you need a pair of pro-sumer dishwashers from Kitchenaid, Bosch, or similar higher end home unit makers.

To help with wash time, connect your household hot water line to the dishwasher intake instead of the cold. I don't worry about kids in my home so, I have the Pressure and Temperature valve out in the water heater closet up as high as is legal. It used to "dump" at 250 degrees so, it certainly isn't safe around children or drunk adults. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

The difference in wash times on a heated cycle is dramatic because you don't have to wait for the cold water to heat. It starts washing immediately. This helps on the "pots and pans" mode that works on burnt on stuff in a stainless pan. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

On gentle wash cycles I'm looking at 15 to 25 minutes and the lite wash has a 2 minute mode and 5 minute mode.

Things to look for are noise, or the lack of noise. When you wash dishes while people are in the house, it's nice to have clean dishes and amaze everyone that you did dishes with company in the house dining and no one knows it until you open the door to grab something.

The food grinder in mine works too. I've put some really ugly pans in it with no problems in the ~6 years I've used it.

A second dishwasher to back up the first should give you enough cleaning capacity to deal with some really large parties.

<font color="red"> Hot </font> water really helps. My particular case is rather extreme so, I warn extended house guests about the hot water. If children or short term guests are around, I literally turn my hot water heater off. Between solar preheat and the tank capacity, I might have to take a luke warm shower in the morning if I used a lot of hot water the night before but, it is the safe thing to do. When I'm alone, I can take a really HOT shower when I have over done it working in the yard and, my dishes come out very clean.

When I first had this dishwasher, I almost never used the Sani-Rinse function because it took so long. It was like 35 minutes just to heat the water for each cycle so, it was an almost all night affair while I slept. Now, there is almost no time penalty.

[barbouni]

Sid!!! Awesome!! So obvious and I would never have thought of it. Thanks!!!!!!!