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Thread Number: 35466
New KitchenAid DW with Water Softeners |
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| Post# 529552 7/8/2011 at 18:47 (4,668 days old) by labboy (SD, CA) | ||
Anyone have any experience with these new KA DWs with the integrated water softeners?
CLICK HERE TO GO TO labboy's LINK | ||
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Post# 529561 , Reply# 1 7/8/2011 at 20:15 (4,668 days old) by appnut  (TX) |
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Post# 529577 , Reply# 2 7/8/2011 at 21:19 (4,668 days old) by Frigilux (The Minnesota Prairie) |
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This feature has been available on some European brands for years. The well water in my little burg is very hard, so I have a mechanical water softener. Having washed dishes in hard water on a number of occasions, I can attest that dishwashers clean substantially better in soft water. I think it's a great idea for people who either don't want or can't have a mechanical water softener in their home.
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| Post# 529584 , Reply# 3 7/8/2011 at 22:04 (4,668 days old) by PassatDoc (Orange County, California) | ||
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I have friends in Sweden who've had salt dispensers (water softening) in their DWs for years. I've seen some Mieles in the USA with them (again, not new, but over the past decade). No experience with them. The Swedish friends saw no difference between using salt or not, at least in their water, and don't bother with salt. | ||
| Post# 529598 , Reply# 4 7/8/2011 at 23:50 (4,668 days old) by labboy (SD, CA) | ||
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I know of friends and family in Europe who are very happy with them. Whether or not it will benefit the user depends on the hardness of the incoming source water. I have read in some Miele literature if the water is below a certain minimum hardness level to set the softener setting to the minimum value. (Basically, disabling the softener and not requiring the salt to be replenished.)
I know they can work well. I'm just curious to see if the design of these will be reliable over time as US manufacturers have little experience with them. I will definitely consider this option for my next DW purchase (likely a few years from now to allow the bugs to get worked out.) Bob | ||
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Post# 529635 , Reply# 6 7/9/2011 at 05:32 (4,668 days old) by logixx (Germany) |
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Post# 529657 , Reply# 8 7/9/2011 at 09:54 (4,668 days old) by DADoES (TX, U.S. of A.) |
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To clarify for anyone who may not understand, salt is not dispensed into the wash & rinse water. The machines have a full-function ion-exchange water softener that works the same as a whole-house unit. Salt is used to refresh the resin bed (regeneration) and the resultant salt water solution is flushed to the drain. | ||
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Post# 529659 , Reply# 9 7/9/2011 at 10:08 (4,668 days old) by appnut (TX) |
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Post# 529976 , Reply# 14 7/11/2011 at 11:34 (4,666 days old) by joe_in_philly (Philadelphia, PA, USA) |
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 So, do the new KitchenAid's with water softener hook up to the hot or cold water supply? Can a DW with a water softener be connected to the hot water supply? Nearly all DWs in the US are connected to hot water, with a cold water connection being a unique installation.
The only DW's I have heard of being connected to the cold water supply in the US are some Euro brand DWs. And do all Miele DWs in Europe come with the built in water softener? I know some sold here do not have them.
It seems like connecting a DW to a cold water supply would increase efficiency. I wonder if it will become a trend in the US. It would allow a cold water pre-rinse, and of course no heated water would go cold sitting in the pipes between the water heater and the DW. | ||
| Post# 529991 , Reply# 15 7/11/2011 at 12:10 (4,666 days old) by DishwasherRules (Italy) | ||
hot water vs. water softener in DW
Hi Joe, yes you can use a DW with a water softener even on the hot water supply: when the salt in the tank saturates the water in the tank after it refills salt stops dissolving regardless of water temperature if I remember well from my Chemistry classes when I was a high-school student (in the eary 90s).
I also have several friends and reletives who use their DWs on the hot water and I've never heard them complaining about having to replenish the salt tank too often. Another information you might find useful: here in Italy, all DWs started being equiped with a water softner in the late 70s. When my mom & dad got married in 1974 the DW model they bought came with or without softener. Although the price was higher (about 20'000 old Italian lirae, quite a lot for the time) they went for the one with a softener because the water in our area in hard. | ||
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Post# 529993 , Reply# 16 7/11/2011 at 12:33 (4,666 days old) by joe_in_philly (Philadelphia, PA, USA) |
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Thanks, Ivan. I wondered if the hot water would effect the softening equipment, but apparently not.
The other thing I wonder about is why whole-house water softeners are not common in areas of Europe with hard water. It seems that in the US, when the water in the area is very hard, people install whole-house water softeners. Where I grew up in Ohio, and then in my parent's home in Central Pennsylvania, the water was hard, so we had a whole-house softener. I live in Philadelphia, and the water is not as hard (comes from surface water, which usually is not as hard as ground water sources) and I know of nobody who has a whole-house water softener here. | ||
| Post# 530012 , Reply# 17 7/11/2011 at 14:40 (4,666 days old) by DishwasherRules (Italy) | ||
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DWs and softeners - the way we were
Well Joe, I'll try to answer to best of my knowledge, thougts and considerations.
Speaking of Italy, we must start by considering that every useful appliance or home equipment - such as dishwashers and water softening systems - has always been considered by the average-mentality Italian as a luxury or, even worse, as something unnecessary. "Why do you use a dishwasher? You don't even have a large family!" this is the maxim my gran and my mom heard for years just because they owned a dishwasher and used it regularly (I bet those who said that were just green-eyed because they hadn't one). "Why should I equip my home with a water softener? I buy drinking water in bottles and I can use Calgon in my washing machine." this is what people used to say when they saw an ad for Culligan in the magazines. Leaving aside the issue of prices (household appliances, water softeners and the like were quite expensive when they were first launched on our market, and in a way they still are today) which does represents a relevant matter - I was quoted 1100 Euros to have a small water softener for my flat 1 month ago, I think this is ridiculous - I think we should focus more on the strong opposition to novelties that run through my country in particular. In the 60s, magazines promoted large advertising campaigns on the benefits of automatic dishwashing - superior hygiene, no greasy residues on tableware, time saved, a tidy kitchen without a messy sink, etc. but DW weren't selling well here. In a country where (at that time) just a small number of women worked and their main aim was to be good homemakers, wives and mothers, an appliance like a dishwasher was seen as unnecessary and meant just for those women who didn't care that much about their "duties". Personally, I don't believe that washing up high piles of dirty tableware + pots and pans makes a woman a better wife, mother or whatever, and I'm happy to come from a family made of independent and hard-working women who taught me a lot, but many magazines of the age targetting a female audience (cooking, interior designing, knitting and the like) INSISTED on the fact that a woman had to sacrifice herself, her spare time, her personality and her health to achieve the supreme objetcive of becoming what the wicked mentality of the time considered a respectable lady. And the same was going on in the US as well, wasn't it? Water softeners had more or less the same fate: I have many magazines from the late 60s where advertising boosted Culligan systems, but Joe Public just looked at them as fancy toys for rich people's homes, although his good friend or neighbour recently had one installed and the advantages of the softening system outweighed the fuss of having to fill the salt tank from time to time. | ||
| Post# 530088 , Reply# 18 7/11/2011 at 20:06 (4,665 days old) by washmeup (scottsdale) | ||
Water Softners | ||
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Post# 530124 , Reply# 19 7/12/2011 at 00:17 (4,665 days old) by ozzie908 (Lincoln UK) |
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Water softeners
I was always led to believe that softened water was bad for your health? I have seen warnings for people with raised blood pressure not to drink it, So would that mean you would have to get a seperate water supply for drinking and cooking if so that would be very expensive to install.
I have fitted at my Mums house a electric magnetic device that is meant to inhibit scale build up by not allowing the calcium to stick to itself thus no problems its been in now for 10 years and the washer has no sign of scale nor the kettle the dishwasher does use its own salt pot but thats set very low, The water is so hard there it comes out the tap fighting...:) Austin | ||
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Post# 530171 , Reply# 21 7/12/2011 at 09:41 (4,665 days old) by joe_in_philly (Philadelphia, PA, USA) |
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Interesting, Ivan. I think the duties of a good wife and mother were reflected here too, but the appliance manufacturers certainly put it in such a way that time-saving appliances would allow you to do more things for your family.
A whole house water softener, as you can see at the models sold at Sears, cost about $400-$600. Not that much. They are fairly easy to install if you have one already, although you would probably need a plumber if the house wasn't designed with one in mind.
My understanding is that the amount of sodium imparted into the water depends on the hardness of the water. The homes we had water softeners in had both the hot and cold water supply softened, with the cold water supply going to the kitchen sink bypassing the softener. You would be drinking and cooking with unsoftened water. So really, only the water you drank from a bathroom sink would be soft water.
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