What's a dumbwaiter?

[laughinplace1]

 

[Jennasis]

One who screws up my order!

No seriously, it is a small service elevator generally used by the kitchen staff (usually downstairs) to send food up to the dining room or "master's bedroom". Very old fashioned. They are usually about the size of a kitchen cabinet or smaller. Only food goes in it...not people.

 

[mommytutu]

Isn't it a small elevator type thing in houses with more then one story? It can be used for things like sending laundry to another floor with carrying it up and down stairs. You just put it in the little elevator thing (dumbwaiter) and send it to the floor you want. I had a friend who had one that went to the laundry room and that's what he called it .

 

[tmli]

A person who waits in the wrong spot?

 

[LisaZoe]

Isn't it a small elevator type thing in houses with more then one story? It can be used for things like sending laundry to another floor with carrying it up and down stairs. You just put it in the little elevator thing (dumbwaiter) and send it to the floor you want. I had a friend who had one that went to the laundry room and that's what he called it .

These aren't just limited to houses, though. I've seen them in hotels and restaurants used to bring food up from a basement level kitchen.

Kind of OT - I've seen these used to great effect in horror movies. The potential victims try to get into one of these small elevators to hide from the killer. Sometimes it works, other times the cable breaks sending the person plummeting to his/her death (out of the frying pan, into the fire, so to speak ) or the door won't close, they can't get the elevator to go up because the weight is too much, etc.

 

[laurie31]

We have them in the hospital where I work. They are used to transport larger items that won't fit in the pneumatic tube system - the air tube thing like they have at the bank - such as IV pumps, foam mattresses, etc. from Central Supply down in the basement up to the patient floors.

I also know of older large houses that have them for laundry.

They had one in the episode of Cheers where Woody gets married. I still laugh when I see that!

Laurie

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

When my bosses were looking for a house they were looking at a website where you could "click" on the different items to put together the criteria for your dream house. "Dumbwaiter" was one of the choices! My boss asked me what it was because she had never heard of it. (She didn't grow up in the US.) Luckily I knew what it was but that wasn't something they really wanted in their house!

 

[Micca]

Who came up with that name? They should have called it an "elewaiter"