Growing up in an old farm house was a constant adventure. Remodeling brought forth interesting challenges and revealed our family home had begun its life as a log cabin in the late 1700s. One addition was constructed using what was called Wattle and Daub, which is basically sticks woven together around vertical staves that are packed with a clay mixture to form up the walls.

One morning in the late 1950s, we awoke to discover someone had dumped off an old dishwasher on our front yard. My father, being somewhat frugal, decided to have it installed in our kitchen and our trusty plumber Don undertook retrofitting that old dishwasher by removing the cabinet next to our kitchen sink. Don tolerated my tagging along during his many plumbing adventures in this old house, and I relished the opportunity to “work” by his side. In reality, I was probably more of a hindrance than help, but he was a kindly old soul.

The dishwasher itself was a practical joke one of dad’s friends thought would be hilarious, but the joke was on them because that discarded dishwasher worked flawlessly for most of the next two decades! It was, after all, a very simplistic appliance with few parts to wear out, other than the rubber door gasket, which was all that was wrong with it the day of installation and an easy fix. As was typical, back in those days, there was no internal heater or extra sanitizer rinse because water heaters came set for 140° F from the factory, hot enough to effectively offer a sanitary rinse that killed most waterborne pathogens. We didn’t need no steenkin scald-guard mixing valves! And regulations governing most residential tank-style water heaters allow for as much as a 30° F deviation, so, in reality, that 140° F could be 170° F during the initial draw of hot water! We also did not wear helmets, knee pads or elbow pads when riding bikes or skateboarding! No pump to wear out because gravity drainage was utilized and a normally closed solenoid valve held water back until the wash or rinse cycles had been completed.

One of my current jobs is being the facilities chairman and board member of Horn Farm. A fire that resulted from a lightning strike had gutted the farmhouse, which was what drew me into serving on a committee to craft an appropriate reconstruction design. I received this recent inquiry from another board member: “Dave, should we look for a dishwasher without an internal booster heater in order to conserve energy?” Given that we are going to incorporate PV solar into the reconstruction project, and limited roof area for solar panels, we have been striving to incorporate PHVAC and appliances that use minimal energy.

Believe it or not, tank-style water heaters once came from the factory set for 140° F. I remember, all too well, the issues that followed: where once a 40-gallon tank was sufficient to serve a family’s hot water needs, we ended up having to replace that new 40 with a 50-gallon water heater to avoid an angry customer response. Given that dishwashers did not have their own booster heater, they did not provide the same level of cleanness folks were accustomed to getting, and consumers were not happy. Before long, dishwasher manufacturers produced models with a booster heater to heat water retained within the tub between 130° F to 170° F for a sanitizing rinse sure to provide squeaky-clean and bacteria-free dishes. In order to claim a dishwasher has a sanitization cycle, it has to heat water to a minimum of 150° F for the final rinse to meet the NSF/ANSI (National Sanitation Foundation / American National Standards Institute) Standard 184, which will kill 99.9% of bacteria. The FDA (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) regulations dictate that commercial dishwashers must heat their sanitizing rinse water to more than 165° F.

Dishwashers today, like pretty much everything mechanical we deal with, are a far cry from that simplistic gravity drainage model my parents utilized. Onboard electronics control multiple options consumers can choose from, including whether or not to incorporate a super-heated sanitizing extended rinse. Miserly water usage has become refined and suitable for thorough cleaning, and many models incorporate food scrap grinding to eliminate any need to pre-rinse or clean out a fetid disgusting accumulation of decaying food waste.

Dishwashers today, like pretty much everything mechanical we deal with, are a far cry from that simplistic gravity drainage model my parents utilized. Onboard electronics control multiple options consumers can choose from, including whether or not to incorporate a super-heated sanitizing extended rinse.

Believe it or not, the first dishwasher was invented in the 1850s by Joel Houghton, but had to be cranked by hand to work. However, it was a high society gal who loved to entertain by hosting fancy dinner parties using her fine china, which far too often was chipped or broken during servant’s hand washing, who invented and patented the first commercially successful dishwasher. Josephene Garis Cochren was quoted: “If nobody else is going to invent a dishwashing machine, I’ll do it myself!” Cochren did as promised and showcased her invention at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. Cochren’s dishwasher was an immediate success. William Howard Livens invented the portable dishwasher in 1924 and we utilized a later model in our first home, a row home with an enameled steel sink and cabinet, by wrapping the discharge hose with a wire cut out of a coat hanger where I fashioned a deep hook to snag the cross-hair of the basket sink strainer to keep the hose from taking off to soak the kitchen floor during discharge cycles! It had a butcher block top to be utilized after the dishwasher was rolled away when not in use. In the 1950s, dishwashers were mostly a luxury appliance and by the 1970s, they became a standard appliance included in new homes as well as retrofitted into existing kitchens.

Energy Star-rated dishwashers use 30% less water than conventional dishwashers and can save 8,000 gallons of water per year! But even standard dishwashers use far less water (3 to 4-gallons per use) than hand washing (as much as 27-gallons per event). Compact dishwashers, sometimes referred to as apartment models and 18” wide instead of the standard 24” width, typically use 3.5-gallons or less per cycle.

If you get dizzy following the pace of changes within our industry today, imagine how exciting it was to grow up in the 1950s through 1970s and witness improvements that made life more enjoyable – like dishwashers, central air conditioning and TV remote controls!