[jyl]

No real point to this but I know you guys can relate to self-inflicted machinery dilemmas.

My dishwasher at home is an old Hobart LX30H, circa 1993 or thereabouts. This is a high temp commercial undercounter warewasher. I bought it for $250 from a friend’s closing bar, ran the necessary 240v 40A circuit, and discovered the joys of 120 second cycles and hot dishes that air-dry in a minute. Later I designed my kitchen around the commercial dish workflow, with a deep sink and a commercial pre-rinse sprayer. Over the years I’ve made little repairs to keep the old machine going, including JB Welding a seep in the hot water tank that PPOT helped me with.

Well, the old Hobart stopped draining. The drain valve is buried deep in the machine, you can’t even touch it much less get a wrench on it, without separating the upper and lower halves of the machine. Which I can’t see doing, it’s too heavy, you practically need a lift or hoist. So my son and I wrestled the 200 lb machine into my truck and took it to the Hobart service place, who unstuck the drain valve but warned that the fix might not last, the valve is NLA, and other stuff in the machine is ready to fail too. Back at home, the drain valve re-stuck after a day.

What to do. Since the machine won’t drain, each cycle adds more water to the tub until it overflows onto the kitchen floor, and the machine sits full of dirty water all night. Hand-bailing works but isn’t a long term solution.

Thought of these solutions:

1. Give up and get a regular dishwasher. That would be affordable ($500? $1,000?), and affordable is good. That would also be okay for everyday use, when we’ve only generated a normal amount of soiled ware. However, when entertaining or just getting into cooking projects, we generate enough dirty pots and pans and dishes and glassware to fill a standard dishwasher 4X. I hate seeing dirty stuff pile up. With the Hobart, after a pot comes off the burner and the food moved to the next stage, the pot gets sprayed and washed and is hanging up two minutes later. I’ll run the machine twenty times for a typical dinner party.

2. MacGyver the old Hobart. I know how to do this, get a $30 automatic condensate drain pump, stick it to the bottom of the tub, run wire and hose through a hole drilled in the back of the tub to the sink and outlet, the pump keeps the water in the tub from rising above the desired level. A second switched pump can handle fully draining the tub at the end of each meal. It will work, buy me some more time, but how much more? Super cheap though.

3. Get a high end dishwasher that has a super fast cycle. Miele make the PFD404U240 “Professional” model, with every possible bell and whistle and most importantly a six minute “Rapid” cycle. Expensive, $6,700. Asking around, the Rapid cycle doesn’t really replace the 120 second cycle of the Hobart. For one thing, the Miele doesn’t rinse at 180F so the dishes don’t come out hot and air-dry quickly. For another, since the Miele uses standard slide-in/out racks, you can’t air-dry the dishes without leaving the door open which impedes movement in my kitchen. Also, I was told the Miele, while a very high end dishwasher, still isn’t as rugged as a commercial machine. On the positive side, for everyday use it would be just as convenient as any residential dishwasher. And if it has a problem, a Miele service tech will come fix it in my house.

4. Get a new Hobart. The latest model, the LXnR Advansys, looks awesome, even has WiFi for parameters and diagnostics, steam elimination, energy recovery, and can be used with two racks or one. It would be the last dishwasher I ever buy, judging from how long my current Hobart has lasted. However, they cost $9,700, the warranty is void in a residential setting, the Hobart techs won’t service it in a home.

5. Get a refurbished Hobart. The Hobart service place sometimes gets used machines and refurbs them for resale. Problem is, they don’t have any right now. Not sure of the cost, depends on model. Same issue with service as #4.

6. Get a used Hobart pulled from a failed cafe or bar, hopefully a fairly recent one with light use by a little old lady who only drove it to church. This can run anywhere from $2,000 to $3,500 at an equipment liquidator. Less if you stumble across the bar as it’s shutting down. Of course, caveat emptor. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t. Service issues like #4.

Sigh. I feel like I’ve made this complicated. I could simply call Home Depot and have them install a Bosch or LG or whatever. But I am pretty addicted to super-fast cycles and being able to run rack after rack and clean up after a big dinner party in 15 minutes.