Dishwasher purchase for school

I have been asked for advice on purchase of a dishwasher for the school staff room. Cups/mugs and occasional plate with about three uses a day. Reliability is more important than price.

Any informed opinions welcome. Mielle comes to mind?

Cheers.

Reply to
EricP
Loading thread data ...

No greasy pans then?

Heavy handed teachers?

I would go for cheapness and assume it might need replacing after 4 years.

Select on basis of layout of baskets and their suitability for your purpose.

Reply to
John

Most domestic ones will have limited mug capacity. A commercial machine with a choice of baskets might be more useful.

Buy enough mugs so that it can always be run fully loaded.

Especially for a commercial machine you may require an external water softener.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

*sighs* in the old days we used to get to do the teachers washing up.
Reply to
Mogga

Miele would be a good choice for this. No quality issue, 5 year warranty and impeccable service.

I have one of the models where the machine will do a half load - i.e. one basket only - which may be useful here.

More to the point is that most models come with a variety of rack inserts which can be moved, swapped or left out entirely. If you wanted to, you could easily fill the entire machine with mugs and cups.

Reply to
Andy Hall

and I suspect that the carefully-dissected rabbits in Biology ended up in the Biology teacher's casserole.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

Having been there look at

length of wash program - if the machine is loaded at the end of break will the mugs be washed by lunch? This is I think the critical factor. The Primary school I work in has about 50 staff and the latest staffroom refurb has seen the installation of 2 domestic dishwashers. Don't think about commercial models as they wash quickly-10 mins or so (but less than half the amount of a domestic machine) but need cleaning out at the end of every day - they retain hot water which helps in the short wash time. IME you will need someone who is dedicated to doing this.

Malcolm

Reply to
Malcolm Race

On Fri, 20 Jul 2007 16:16:49 GMT, EricP mused:

I've seen plenty of dishwashers in semi-commercial environments and almost all of them have a reasonably short lifespan. You really want to be looking at commercial machines. Failing that, buy the best you can, Miele would be good or failing that a mid range Bosch without all the extra electronics. Don't buy cheap.

Reply to
Lurch

Think outside of the box - get disposable cups!

Reply to
John

Not after they'd been in formaldehyde for a month!

Reply to
<me9

And disposable occasional plates. Most occasional plates in that sort of environment tend to be substitutes for polystyrene or paper packaging anyway...

Reply to
Frank Erskine

The Fisher & Paykel Dishdrawer has two separate drawers. One can have clean cups in it and dirty cups are put in the other until it's full.

formatting link

Reply to
Matty F

And forget the 10 year guarantee if they find out its being used in a non domestic environment. Like when they send the engineer out.

Reply to
dennis

I recently bought a Siemens DW that does all of that from John Lewis for

350UKP delivered - not sure about service though. And it seems to be far better made than the Zanussi it's replaced, and (if it matters) it's quiet and has a 'triple A' energy rating.

Rob

Reply to
Rob

What's 'triple A'? I thought energy ratings were A to G...

Reply to
Frank Erskine

On Sat, 21 Jul 2007 09:35:26 +0100, Frank Erskine mused:

They were, but then someone made a machine more efficient than an A, so 'AA' was brought about, then someone madew a machine more efficient than 'AA'.... and so on.....

Reply to
Lurch

We had fresh rabbits, probably shot earlier that day by one of the pupils.

When I was at primary school we had a caged squirrel in the classroom.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

You can't expect today's teachers to spend precious seconds rinsing out their own cups!

Mary whose Spouse's staff room beakers - everyone's - were apparently tar-lined and there were no ill effects.

Reply to
Mary Fisher

Ours went into the formalin chests along with rats, dogfish and unidentifiable - er - things.

Mary

>
Reply to
Mary Fisher

Yes and no.

Guarantees on DWs are not normally for more than 5 years - I think they have a more agressive life because of temperature and chemicals than washing machines for example.

It is very common to see good quality domestic dishwashers used in kitchen areas of offices in countries elsewhere in Europe, especially Germany and Sweden precisely for this application. Usually, they are loaded up by the staff during the day as cups and plates are used and run once or twice a day by the cleaner or the office administrator. Pattern of use is really similar to domestic in fact.

A while ago, I did ask one of the administrators in a company that I visited about the dishwasher because it was on my list of possibles at the time. I asked about warranty and how that worked. The comment was that she had wondered as well and checked with the manufacturer. They confirmed back in writing that there would be no problem for this type of use, but that they would draw the line if the unit were installed in a commercial catering kitchen.

Of course, warranty terms and conditions do vary from country to country and manufacturer to manufacturer, but I would not automatically assume that a warranty would be void in this application. The prudent thing would be to ask the manufacturer directly and to get a written confirmation.

Then if the answer is no, a view can be taken as to whether the warranty is a purchasing criterion or not. Even without an honoured warranty for 5 years, it still makes sense to buy one where the manufacturer offers this on the product for home use, vs. the two year warranty of most. It means that it will have been engineered to last this time. On large products like dishwashers, manufacturers (or really the insurers) don't want to have service callouts and certainly not replacements during the warranty period. It's a different issue to small portable items where the manufacturer is playing the numbers game and expects a certain proportion of items to be returned, binned and replaced.

Reply to
Andy Hall

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.