I give the Nesco Gardenmaster 5 stars for the 1000 watt performance, it dehydrates great. However, it loses 4 stars because the design has two major flaws.

1) The fan and heating coils are located at the bottom of a concave tray, inside the base. This causes everything that drips or falls into the vents to accumulate in the middle of the base, creating a puddle of goo right where the fan motor and heating coils are. Not a good thing.

2) Since you need to clean out the muck that accumulates in the base, you will discover there is no way to open the base. To get in there, you have to literally pry the top off to clean it (I used a screw driver). Unfortunately, after figuring this out, I also figured out that once you pry it off, it will not fit back on no matter how much pounding and swearing is invovled. Didn't matter though, just trying to clean it, killed the fan, no matter how hard I tried to not get the electrical parts wet.

I also own another... Read more