Hey guys,

Last night on the Discovery Channel I saw a segment on dishwashers in a program titled " How It's Made".
They took you through assembling a diswasher. One of the things they touched on was a internal grinder that ground up the food so that larger chunks wouldn't hang up in the discharge hose.
Can any body shed some light on this? Is it a feature on newer washers or is it a standard on older ones as well. Any information on this would be welcome. Thanks, Tom aka speedball1

I looked through the manual of my new dishwasher and nothing showed up about a grinder. They still say to wipe/rinse leftover food off dishes before hand so as top clog up discharge.

I remember reading about this on some of our older dishwashers. I seem to recall it was nothing special - it was just that the pump basically did the grinding for you.

Tom, mid and upper end dishwashers have a grinder that chews food up and the lower priced ones only have a drain. Consequently, one must rinse food off items on the cheaper ones or risk having the d/w stop up. If the d/w has this grinder feature, it truly works, at least on my Kenmore Ultrawash that's about 7 or 8 yrs old. I used to sell them also.

Thanks guys,

I'm attempting to resolve a air-gap problem over on the plumbing page. Thanks again, Tom