Yes - it has a electrode in it that glows. Does that mean I can just use cold water and it will heat it up to the proper temperature? Harry
Yes - it has a electrode in it that glows. Does that mean I can just use cold water and it will heat it up to the proper temperature? Harry
Not advisable. It is to boost the temperature of already heated water to proper temperature and it does not heat it for every cycle so you'd have cold rinses. If you have a more efficient way of heating water than electricity, that is a cost factor also.
No. The heater is turned on for a fixed length of time depending on the cycle selected. The water will get as hot as it gets in that time. There is no thermostat.
Hi Edwin - I guess I have too much time and money on my hands :-) I am retired. I bought a house about 90 feet long with two water heaters - one on each end. They are each 50 gallons each. All the pipes are in the slab. My problems -
- we each shower at about 10 AM - then do one load of laundry at 11 AM - then do a load of dishes at 6 PM. That's it.
Perfect candidate for the instnad point of use heater. Keeping that 100 gallons hot is costly and wasteful.
All that to say read the manual? :-) Save the bandwidth - I did.
My Kitchen Aid just won`t start till its heated the water to its set temp and dishes are clean. So I imagine cold would work but I never tried it, It would be a good experiment.
Even with a built in internal dishwasher heater - Running a cold water pipe to a dishwasher is not advisable. Depending on the model it will either take excessive time to complete the wash cycle while the water heats up, or it will just plain not clean the dishes properly.
In a residential situation, usually one big hot water heater is better than two medium size ones. The point-of-use heaters are more expensive, trickier to install and adjust, and require venting to the outside (for the non-electic models). You may find that a single point-of-use may not be the most economical solution for one dishwasher.
Beachcomber
That is an interesting point - maybe I should contact Whirlpool to see if mine does that - it sounds like it does.
If this is a unit that can heat it's own water, than it's irrelevant (other than the additional time it takes for the dishwasher to bring the water up to temperature). Electric water heater vs. dishwasher heating the water...it's all electricity.
How about reading the water meter before and after the wash cycle. How many cubic feet of water = 1 gal?
Excellent idea - why didn't I think of that? :-) Harry
Hope no one flushes to toilet while the d/w is running! ;) :D
jeff. Appliance Repair Aid
Models very greatly on water use. Call the manufacturer. I'm told some use as little as a couple of gallons. My guess is some models circulate the same water.
The Magic Chef dishwasher we bought in 1977 had us asking the same question in later years; the factory wrote us back that there was never more than five quarts in the machine at any one time. I believe it had four water cycles, so it used five gallons per complete wash.
It still did a passable job of washing when we gave it away during our
2002 move; needed one bottom seal kit, one soaking of the motor bearings and shaft in oil after that, and one door seal kit its whole life. And we didn't know any better and ran it on the liquid detergent.
I have a Whirlpool Gold dishwasher and 2.7 Gal under sink hot water heater. What I have found is that the washer uses about 3 gallons per phase of a cycle, but the phases are not evenly timed. The first rinse cycle uses all the hot water, and the under sink unit has not quite recovered by the time the wash cycle starts just several minutes later and again uses all the hot water. Bottom line is that the washer gets enough hot water though with some cold mixed in, but it does completely deplete your hot water supply with each fill. By the way, the partial recovery time for the 2.7 gallon water heater is only a minute or so before it will start delivering small quantities of hot water again, for washing hands, etc. Our washer has a rinse and wash fill in rapid succession, a long wash period where it also additionally heats the water, and then one (or two) final rinse cycles.
You replied to a 10 year old thread. You think Harry is still interested in finding out how much water his dishwasher uses?
My Kenmore has "water heat" option. Seems like it would cost the same to heat the water with a remote electric heater as it would to just let the dishwasher do it itself. Heating the water adds a fair amount of time to the cycle... I think around 20 to 30 minutes.
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