Glass Washers Non Recirculating

What are they ?

Non recirculating machines also know as Rinse machines, such as Eswood IW3, Norris E17 and older Washtech GE spray hot water up under the rack, cleaning inside the glasses, most just have a cold rinse delivered to a top rinse arm which cleans the outside of the glass and helps cool down the glasses.

Limitations of these machines are they waste a lot of water which goes straight down the drain.They use around 10 litres per cycle and none of it is recycled. Also the glasses need to bottle brushed or ' Hedgehoged ' before they are put in the machine. Chemicals used to help give a better result have to be very weak as they can be left on the glassware and the glasses tend to build up a film which requires a weekly bleach and soak to get off. The older versions of these machines never met any health regulations as it was near impossible for a 15 amp supply to heat 10 litres of water in little over a minute.

Norris machines came out with a test switch which allowed the machine to work regardless of the water temperature, initially the switch was on the outside so the user could flick it and was marked as a test switch before they were forced to put the switch inside with the controls. Every machine I have serviced has the switch on. A different approach was taken with the Washtech GE glass washer and later the Washtech GA. Instead of heating up 10 litres of water to 82 C and dumping it Des and Gary Brent founders of Washtech split the cycle into 1 minute for the Washtech GE built the first glass washer of its type without any pumps. Using the water pressure already provided free of charge by the water board.

The first 30 seconds they called the wash cycle where an unique washtech sourced solenoid opened ( effectively an electric controlled tap ) and sprayed the water straight from the hot water supply, it also sucked up chemicals (if connected to the washtech chemical suction valve) and sprayed the glasses. It didn’t matter what temperature the water was and after 30 seconds of this wash it then went into the guaranteed sanitising rinse. For 15 seconds another solenoid would open and force hot water through a copper 10 litre tank which contained rinse that was a minimum 82 c. This rinse water was and still is on all washtech dishwashers and glasswashers limited to 2.5 litres per cycle and the machine will not cycle unless it is at 82 c or above. The tank is heated to 92 c which gives it inherent latency storage. The last 15 second is set aside for the cold rinse and again another solenoid is used to open up a cold water supply which diverts to the top and bottom arms. The cold rinse is optional and can be switched on or off mainly as many restaurants like to polish glasses hot.

Non recirculating machines are still popular because of their low price point and low maintenance but when water usage and water heating costs are taken into consideration, a non recirculating machine can cost as much as $3000.00 per year extra to run, so a few bucks saved can actually cost you thousands over the years depending on usage .