# Nesco/American Harvest, Gardenmaster Dehydrator FD1018P



## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

In about August of 2011 I decided that my old Oster dehydrators(3) were not sufficient for my dehydrating needs and decided to find and buy a new one. My garden produces quite a large amount of vegetables and it took "Hundreds" of jars to can it all.

I decided to dehydrate instead of freezing, I had a chest freezer but it was not large enough to handle the load. Dehydrating seemed the most reasonable solution.

I decided on the "Nesco/American Harvest, Gardenmaster Dehydrator FD1018P".

http://www.pleasanthillgrain.com/dehydrators.aspx

Pleasant Hill Grain was only the Vendor, I still give them High Marks.

The dehydrator was expandable to 30 trays, I ordered 24 for a total of 24 square feet of drying space, it came with 6 mesh "Jerky" and 6 "Fruit Leather" sheets and it had a "1 YEAR MANUFACTURERS WARRANTY".

It arrived within a few days and I immediately put it to use and was amazed at how fast and evenly it dried food. It is advertised that the top tray will dry at the same speed as the bottom one which is closest to the heat source and that their was no need to "rotate" the trays. This was not "completely" true, when all of my 24 trays were loaded, it was sometimes necessary to rotate them about 1/2 way through the drying cycle. I was satisfied that the claim they made about not needing to rotate was pretty accurate though and was very satisfied with that performance.

The air flow was excellent and fast which dried most foods very quickly, no problems with that, I was very impressed.

The only aspect of its performance that I had an issue with was the amount of heat it generated inside the house in the middle of the hottest summer that anyone could remember. My solution was to move it to my covered front porch. I ran it side by side with my 3 old "Oster" models while I was catching up on the backlog of food to be dried.

I was very happy with its performance and realized that it had an excellent design and was satisfied that it did what it was advertised to do.

NOW THE PROBLEMS.
After about 3 months of heavy use, I noticed that some of the foods were being "Cooked" instead of "Dehydrated" and on 1 occasion the dehydrator got so hot that it warped several trays. I assumed that the thermostat was malfunctioning because at that time I had the temp set to about 120 degrees and was drying Bananas(which came out glazed and caramelized).

I sent off an email to "Nesco" to ask advice and was it was suggested that I purchase a new dehydrator base, so much for the warranty. I decided to continue to use it and keep the temp set to lower levels, closely supervise its drying cycles and manually turn it on and off if/when it started to heat up.

Well it finally got so hot on one round of dehydrating that the bottom tray melted to the metal base and most of the rest of the trays warped and were completely unusable. This was not that much of an issue as the base also stopped working, the ON/OFF rocker switch would light up but no heat, no fan. The entire dehydrator was dead.

I sent off an email to Nesco asking for return instructions, I no longer wanted anything to do with the dehydrator or with them and wanted to send it back to where it came from, wanted it out of my house. It could easily have started a fire and burnt my home to the ground.

After exchanging several emails and receiving an RMA number, I sent it in for repair and to have the damaged trays replaced. Took about 2 1/2 weeks and it arrived back and appeared to be in working order. It came on and blew hot air but the fan motor sounded like the bearings/bushings were going out for a few seconds each time it was turned on but the "racket" went away and sounded OK until the next time I turned it off and back on. Decided that I would live with that and went out to the garden and dug the 60 or so pounds of winter onions to dry so I could replant that row in the garden.

When I got the trays loaded, sat them upon the base and turned it on, it made a continuous noise like an object being stuck into a house fan. I found that the base had been put back together improperly and that 2 philips head screws that secured the base together were partially unscrewed.

I wound up taking the base apart and fixing it myself, wasn't going to pay to ship it back again and loose the onions on top of that. By this time, I was so "PI$$ed Off" that I sent an email back to Nesco and told them exactly what I did and that I would no longer be a customer or purchase anything else from them.

Conclusion
The "Nesco/American Harvest, Gardenmaster Dehydrator FD1018P" design is very impressive - I love it still and believe it has alot of merit. Its expandability is great, you can run it with small loads(4 trays minimum recommended) or up to 30 trays, enough space to dry about 60+ pounds of bananas(unpeeled weight) or up to about 20 pounds of potatoes per cycle.

The dependability of the dehydrator is questionable, I used it quite heavily at times but I expected it to last more than about 3 months before it started failing.

The service department suggested that I buy a new base instead of sending it in for repair under warranty.

The dehydrator apparently did not have a high temperature shut off to prevent damage to the unit or to prevent possible fires caused by overheating. Correspondence with Nesco stated that this model does have a shut off, if it did/does, that failed also.

When I returned the unit for repair, the damaged trays were replaced but the repair was not satisfactorily performed or even completed.

It was told that the inside of the base had excessive dirt and debris in it which caused the failure. I ran it side by side with the 3 "Oster" units that I own and I only need to clean them at the beginning of each garden season. If the unit base did have debris junk inside(I question that), maybe it needs a cleanable filter since the "Lower Quality" dehydrators I own seem to only need a light cleaning once a year.

I am going to continue to use this dehydrator until it fails again then pitch it and buy a more dependable machine.

The "Customer Service" was a tad "Uppity" and the repair was shoddy at best.


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## JoKing (Mar 11, 2012)

What a mess. A while back on "Good Eats", Alton Brown sandwiched meat strips between layers of paper furnace filters and bungee'd it to a box fan. Said you could put it in a window to keep the aroma down in the house. I wouldn't know how it would affect the time for skin on vegetables, but you can stack as high as you want(within airflow limits) and reuse the filters.


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## Listmaker (Feb 24, 2012)

I'm so sorry that you're having such problems with yours. That's the kind that I have and so far so good. But, I don't use mine as much as you do. I'll have to wait and see how it goes with more use when the garden comes in this year. I do have to say that the possibility of a fire scares me. I do sometimes leave it on while I run quick errands. Sure dont want to come home to a burned house! Think I'll stick close to home when its on.


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## Davarm (Oct 22, 2011)

Listmaker said:


> I'm so sorry that you're having such problems with yours. That's the kind that I have and so far so good. But, I don't use mine as much as you do. I'll have to wait and see how it goes with more use when the garden comes in this year. I do have to say that the possibility of a fire scares me. I do sometimes leave it on while I run quick errands. Sure dont want to come home to a burned house! Think I'll stick close to home when its on.


I was assured by Nesco that they did in fact have high temp shut off's, but the melted trays I had kinda said otherwise.

When mine worked, It was great, fast, dried evenly and held a "LOT" of produce. The problem I had with it was the dependability. I used it almost round the clock for the first month or six weeks getting caught up on everything. I WOULD let it cool down to room temperature between loads though(to rest it).

I think that the "debris" they mentioned it having in it "may" have been due to the high volume of air that it moved through during the drying cycle. If that was so, the dehydrator definately needs a removable and cleanable filter.

I guess the big problem I had was not with the Nesco product itself, it was with the customer service and repair side of the house.


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