Does anyone have any experience with 18" wide built in dishwashers?
We are designing a compact kitchen, and we would love to be able to put in a small dishwasher. We’ve seen a number of 18" dishwashersadvertised, but we haven’t been able to find one in a store.
This will be a kitchen used mostly by my parents. They don’t currently have a dishwasher, and it’s usually just the 2 of them, so small might actually be better then a large dishwasher (it might be small enough to run every day or 2 and still be full). But are the 18" wide dishwashers big enough to be worth it at all?
I have an 18" dishwasher, but it’s not built in, it’s on wheels. Though I rarely have occasion to move it, really only when I wash the floor. It was here when we bought the house 8-9 yrs ago, and the small kitchen was clearly designed around it. Should it break we will have to get another or refit the entire kitchen. But I priced them recently and they are not any more money than a full size model.
I love it. In fact, I would never even consider going back to a full size model. I can count, on one hand, the number of times I’ve had to run it more than once in a day.
I’ve been cranking dishes through it for a long time and am nothing but impressed.
My apartment has an ancient 18" dishwasher. I cook a lot so its rather annoyingly small and loud, but worth having the extra cabinet space in my small kitchen.
It’s definitely worth it versus no dishwasher; a day or two’s worth of dishes can fit in easily, while I wash pots/pans by hand. Just turn it on before you head out for the day, and unload once you get back.
I had 18" dishwashers for several years in two apartments. You can find them in appliance stores near urban areas (or ones catering more to apartments). NYC has them everywhere for instance, Seattle I found two places.
They work fine and do the job with three caveats:
they are much cheaper built (totally plastic) with cheaper motor.
No replacement parts- have to replace the whole thing. Even finding a replacement belt was difficult.
They are loud and some don’t have built in water heating.
Take a large plate and cutting board and collander with you to see how well they fit.
I have one, we wanted more elbow room in our step saver kitchen so we scaled down a countertop and relocated the DW and downsized it to make it fit.
It is amazing how many dishes I can fit, but my soup bowls are very deep and don’t fit so well, otoh the big square plates fit fine. We do experience the sink and counter filling up with dirty dishes because the dw is full or pending a wash and someone is just waiting ffor that right dish to fill it up before running it. Forget about platters, pots pans or beer steins fitting in it.
Overall it was worth the trade off, to create a bigger floor space in the kitchen. And these days when I do catch a glimps of a full size dw, I find them cavernous, and quite huge.
I have one. I don’t know if it’s on wheels or not because it’s installed like a regular dishwasher. During the week, I probably only run it twice. It’s definitely big enough if only two people are using it.
Mine is a very old Frigidaire and is self-heating.
We have one that is by GE; I believe it is marketed as a model for houseboats.
Our landlord claims she spent a year researching to find one with maximum energy efficiency, lowest noise, etc. We always joke that it’s a pity she forgot to consider cleaning efficacy in her search.
I had one in my two bedroom apartment in college. It worked better than any other dishwasher I’ve ever had. Too bad I can’t remember what brand it was, maybe a kenmore. In answer to the question though, with two people it was a great size. I would say we ran it 2 or 3 times a week and washed the large pots and pans by hand.
My parents have one that’s even smaller than the ones in the OP and it works perfectly for them. It’s just two people in the house so that size is perfect.