It takes careful planning to have a best-in-class dishroom. The staff and workflow are a big part of that, but the heart of the operation is a high-performance commercial dishwasher. A dishmachine that has the right technologies and design can also help save you money. Here’s how efficient design on a dishmachine can help save water, energy and chemicals.
Water: There are two main areas of water consumption in the commercial dishwasher, the main wash tank and the final rinse. Additionally, some machines feature a “maintenance fill,” says Jim White, Applications Engineer for Hobart Warewash. The maintenance fill comes on when larger items, such as hotel pans, carry water out of the machine, thus lowering the machine’s water level. In the past few years, there has been a major push to reduce overall water consumption. Legacy machines use 60 to 80 percent more water than the machines today, so there’s a huge potential to save water over time with newer dishmachines.
Energy: Energy is used in the machine’s tank, booster heater and pump, and has a direct correlation to the amount of water used. “The less water you use, the less energy you’re going to use because you don’t have to heat that water,” says White. Newer models with energy recovery systems recycle energy by recapturing the hot, steam-filled air from the machine’s exhaust system to preheat incoming cold water. Some models also use the hot water drained out of the machine to help preheat incoming water.
Chemicals: Detergent, rinse agent and sanitizing agent are dosed automatically for each gallon of water used, so water consumption has a direct effect on chemical usage. Naturally, “the higher the final rinse water consumption of the dishmachine, the higher the chemical costs are going to be,” White says.
Top Performance with Hobart
The full line of Hobart commercial dishwashers features advanced technology to use water, energy and chemicals efficiently to save on operating costs. For example, one of those advanced features is Automatic Soil Removal, or ASR. With ASR, heavy food soils are actively pumped from the wash tank into an external scrap basket during the wash cycle, which keeps the wash water cleaner, longer. On average, an operation using ASR on Hobart’s CLeN44 Advansys dishwasher can reduce wash water changes up to 50 percent per day, resulting in a cost savings of more than $500 each year on water, energy and chemicals.
Hobart’s conveyor models feature Drain Water Energy Recovery (DWeR). By capturing heat energy from the drain water and using it to increase the temperature of the incoming cold water, energy consumption can be reduced by more than 20 percent.
These advanced technologies, along with many others, are just some of the reasons why Hobart dishwashers have received the Best in Class award from Foodservice Equipment & Supplies magazine for 17 consecutive years. To see their complete line of high-temperature and low-temperature dishwashers, visit hobartcorp.com/products/commercial-dishwashers.
Content sponsored by Hobart
