4 ms·

I had an old Bosch dishwasher with a pre-heater and a macerator. It heated the water hotter than modern ones. What I noticed was there was no need to prewash di

I had an old Bosch dishwasher with a pre-heater and a macerator. It heated the water hotter than modern ones. What I noticed was there was no need to prewash dishes. Slob roommate left spaghetti sauce in a pan all week while you were gone. Dishwater would strip that right off. If you compare the energy efficiency of my old one with a new ones where you have to pre-wash your dishes with warm water the old Bosch wins both in energy and water use.

SoftTalker 3y ago
Try a commercial dishwasher if you get the chance, they heat the water to near-boiling and will clean a load of dishes in about 60 seconds. Not exactly friendly for your electric bill though.
- amluto 3y ago
  Also not friendly for your delicate dishes.
- sneak 3y ago
  Commercial dishwashers are only sterilizers. They don't do the cleaning that a residential dishwasher does. They expect as input dishes that are visually "clean", having been scraped and sprayed by hand before going in. The 60 second cycle just cuts remaining grease then kills all the germs with harsh chemicals and then rinses. If you think residential dishwashers are bad at getting plates clean of dried-on gunk, commercial dishwashers are 100x worse, as that's not their job. The pre-washing everyone gripes about shitty residential dishwashers now requiring is an expected and designed-for staple in a commercial dishwashing process.
  - davkan 3y ago
    Yeah, you need to pair it with a person who’s entire job is to spray and scrub the dishes before loading them. That said the high pressure sprayer before the dishwasher is enough to get almost everything off dishes except hardened melted cheese. If it didn’t spray everywhere I’d want one for my house.
  - eru 3y ago
    > The 60 second cycle just cuts remaining grease then kills all the germs with harsh chemicals and then rinses. Are you sure they actually use harsh chemicals? I thought it's mostly about the extra heatL
    - amluto 3y ago
      There are low temperature dishwashers that sanitize with a sanitizing solution (generally chlorine based) and high temperature dishwashers that sanitize with heat. If I ran a restaurant, I would go with high temp to avoid residual chlorine taste. And I would skip the rinse aid, thank you very much.
      - eru 3y ago
        If your water is hard, rinse aid helps a lot to make the glasses and dishes look good. For someone running a restaurant, that might be useful.
        mschuster91 3y ago
        > If your water is hard, rinse aid helps a lot to make the glasses and dishes look good. Or if you want a decent job, install a reverse-osmosis water filtration system in the central water piping that takes out all the nasty mineral salts responsible for the hardness and limescale. Also makes cleaning way easier.
        eru 3y ago
        Some people like the taste of hard water. Famously the Romans liked to found cities where the water was hard. But the preference persists for some people today. (And the reverse osmosis thing is a big investment, and might not be feasible when renting.)
        amluto 3y ago
        It would be nifty IMO if dishwashers had two water feed lines, one for wash and one for rinse. Then plain water could be used for washing and expensive softened or other low-TDS water could be used for rising. Or bonus points for a dishwasher that uses RO concentrate/brine for washing.
  - amluto 3y ago
    > Commercial dishwashers are only sterilizers. They don't do the cleaning that a residential dishwasher does. I “learned” this in college, too. And then I did a bit more research and discovered that the dishwasher was very much capable of cleaning, but only if it had appropriate detergent or cleaning solution. But commercial dishwasher cleaning solution is nasty and highly basic, so apparently whoever was in charged decided students shouldn’t have access to cleaning solution. So we only had sanitizer, and the dishwasher only sanitized. After a discussion with the facilities department, I got cleaning solution and its feed line, and the dishwasher magically started washing dishes! One should still spray the food off first, but commercial dishwashers wash just fine.
    - sneak 3y ago
      I worked in a commercial kitchen that had all 3 (wash, sterilize, rinse) of the fluids properly stocked. (In fact, they didn't own the dishwasher or fluids, but subscribed to a machine rental, maintenance, and refill contract, which was just "x loads for y dollars per month, rain or shine", to make costs predictable for the low margin small restaurant.) You still need to thoroughly clean the dishes before they go in, otherwise in 1-2 loads the filters are completely clogged. They are absolutely not designed for dishes to go in that have any residual food on them. In a residential setting if you're going to clean the dishes to that extent, you should just finish washing them, as it's basically the same amount of time for a household's amount of dishes. The only time a commercial dishwasher makes sense is if you need to do dozens of plates and cups and kilograms of silverware. Commercial dishwashers are a bad choice for residential use.
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  The rinse aid might not be the best for you either.
wyclif 3y ago
My parents have an older Bosch from before the present regulatory lack of efficiency by design. It's amazing how well it performs. It's been repaired a few times and hopefully they can still keep getting replacement parts for it for a long time.
eru 3y ago
Did you use to prewash dishes by hand?
gadders 3y ago
We had a Bosch eco-friendly dishwasher for a while. It was absolutely useless. We had to run all the plates through two cycles to get them clean. I now tend to avoid anything labelled as "eco" as it invariably means "worse".
xeromal 3y ago
And the irony is that hand prewashing eats away all your savings of water and energy. Hand washing is tremendously wasteful relative to dish washers.
dgacmu 3y ago
Might be a Bosch thing? I have a fairly new one (7 years old now) and it's fantastic about not needing a pre-wash for everything except egg yolk and oatmeal. Those two are evil. The cycle is very long, though. Mostly I don't mind, as I tend to run it overnight.

SoftTalker 3y ago

Try a commercial dishwasher if you get the chance, they heat the water to near-boiling and will clean a load of dishes in about 60 seconds. Not exactly friendly for your electric bill though.

amluto 3y ago
Also not friendly for your delicate dishes.
sneak 3y ago
Commercial dishwashers are only sterilizers. They don't do the cleaning that a residential dishwasher does. They expect as input dishes that are visually "clean", having been scraped and sprayed by hand before going in. The 60 second cycle just cuts remaining grease then kills all the germs with harsh chemicals and then rinses. If you think residential dishwashers are bad at getting plates clean of dried-on gunk, commercial dishwashers are 100x worse, as that's not their job. The pre-washing everyone gripes about shitty residential dishwashers now requiring is an expected and designed-for staple in a commercial dishwashing process.
- davkan 3y ago
  Yeah, you need to pair it with a person who’s entire job is to spray and scrub the dishes before loading them. That said the high pressure sprayer before the dishwasher is enough to get almost everything off dishes except hardened melted cheese. If it didn’t spray everywhere I’d want one for my house.
- eru 3y ago
  > The 60 second cycle just cuts remaining grease then kills all the germs with harsh chemicals and then rinses. Are you sure they actually use harsh chemicals? I thought it's mostly about the extra heatL
  - amluto 3y ago
    There are low temperature dishwashers that sanitize with a sanitizing solution (generally chlorine based) and high temperature dishwashers that sanitize with heat. If I ran a restaurant, I would go with high temp to avoid residual chlorine taste. And I would skip the rinse aid, thank you very much.
    - eru 3y ago
      If your water is hard, rinse aid helps a lot to make the glasses and dishes look good. For someone running a restaurant, that might be useful.
      - mschuster91 3y ago
        > If your water is hard, rinse aid helps a lot to make the glasses and dishes look good. Or if you want a decent job, install a reverse-osmosis water filtration system in the central water piping that takes out all the nasty mineral salts responsible for the hardness and limescale. Also makes cleaning way easier.
        eru 3y ago
        Some people like the taste of hard water. Famously the Romans liked to found cities where the water was hard. But the preference persists for some people today. (And the reverse osmosis thing is a big investment, and might not be feasible when renting.)
        amluto 3y ago
        It would be nifty IMO if dishwashers had two water feed lines, one for wash and one for rinse. Then plain water could be used for washing and expensive softened or other low-TDS water could be used for rising. Or bonus points for a dishwasher that uses RO concentrate/brine for washing.
- amluto 3y ago
  > Commercial dishwashers are only sterilizers. They don't do the cleaning that a residential dishwasher does. I “learned” this in college, too. And then I did a bit more research and discovered that the dishwasher was very much capable of cleaning, but only if it had appropriate detergent or cleaning solution. But commercial dishwasher cleaning solution is nasty and highly basic, so apparently whoever was in charged decided students shouldn’t have access to cleaning solution. So we only had sanitizer, and the dishwasher only sanitized. After a discussion with the facilities department, I got cleaning solution and its feed line, and the dishwasher magically started washing dishes! One should still spray the food off first, but commercial dishwashers wash just fine.
  - sneak 3y ago
    I worked in a commercial kitchen that had all 3 (wash, sterilize, rinse) of the fluids properly stocked. (In fact, they didn't own the dishwasher or fluids, but subscribed to a machine rental, maintenance, and refill contract, which was just "x loads for y dollars per month, rain or shine", to make costs predictable for the low margin small restaurant.) You still need to thoroughly clean the dishes before they go in, otherwise in 1-2 loads the filters are completely clogged. They are absolutely not designed for dishes to go in that have any residual food on them. In a residential setting if you're going to clean the dishes to that extent, you should just finish washing them, as it's basically the same amount of time for a household's amount of dishes. The only time a commercial dishwasher makes sense is if you need to do dozens of plates and cups and kilograms of silverware. Commercial dishwashers are a bad choice for residential use.
selimthegrim 3y ago
The rinse aid might not be the best for you either.

wyclif 3y ago

My parents have an older Bosch from before the present regulatory lack of efficiency by design. It's amazing how well it performs. It's been repaired a few times and hopefully they can still keep getting replacement parts for it for a long time.

eru 3y ago

Did you use to prewash dishes by hand?

gadders 3y ago

We had a Bosch eco-friendly dishwasher for a while. It was absolutely useless. We had to run all the plates through two cycles to get them clean. I now tend to avoid anything labelled as "eco" as it invariably means "worse".

xeromal 3y ago

And the irony is that hand prewashing eats away all your savings of water and energy. Hand washing is tremendously wasteful relative to dish washers.

dgacmu 3y ago

Might be a Bosch thing? I have a fairly new one (7 years old now) and it's fantastic about not needing a pre-wash for everything except egg yolk and oatmeal. Those two are evil. The cycle is very long, though. Mostly I don't mind, as I tend to run it overnight.