Perfect regardless of family size
Written: Apr 14 '02 (Updated Apr 29 '02)
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Pros: Advanced Technology cleans dishes with 4 gallons of water.
Cons: There is a right way and a wrong way to load this dishwasher.
The Bottom Line: Perfect for dinner parties of one or 10. Even more sanitary than a Kitchenaid once you learn how to take the four pieces out.
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| r_finley's Full Review: Fisher and Paykel DD-602 24 in. Built-in Dishwashe... |
Some expect a dishwasher to wash all traces of an entire birthday cake down to clog their plumbing no matter how drunk they were while loading it. Those units consume about 14 gallons of water per cycle on average. Its in your owners manual.
If you want to run a potscrubber cycle for half of your dishes but don't want to etch the stemware at the same time, this unit deserves a closer study.
To pull clean dishes out of a Dishdrawer, you need to scrape them, pay attention to place a spatula towards the left side so it won't fall down and block the wash arm, add dinner plates so the face is towards the back of the unit, and don't overfill the soap dispenser (excess suds).
Sorry, Dishdrawers won't guzzle 10 extra gallons of your hot water just to grind up your food bits.
F&P Dishdrawers do not have a sanitary problem if you regularly remove the brilliantly designed silverware holder and pull out the filter cup for cleaning. The slots on one side of the silverware holder are designed to hold spoons separate so they won't nest to ensure cleaning every time.
Like it or not, all dishwashers have a water holding (sump) area surrounding the pump. The design of the Dishdrawer just makes it easier to see.
Traditional dishwashers hide the sump area with a plastic sieve cover so you can't see boogers floating in it. Like all water-saving European dishwashers, scraping is important as all remaining boogers will be trapped in a removeable cup underneath the silverware holder.
Fisher-Paykel doesn't give you a "sani-cycle" option nor does it guzzle detergent for each load. It just goes ahead and heats water to 160 degrees as long as you didn't choose the power-saver cycle option (green instead of red). Since each cycle uses a quart of water, it won't aggravate your California utility bill(the time display shows "HE").
The reduced amount of fill water allows FisherPaykell to replace the water with fresh more often and still consume 4 gallons on a heavy load.
No other dishwasher on the market disassembles for cleaning like the Dishdrawer.
Open the drawer, take out the bottom basket and the wash arm. Turn the blue collar at the center of the stainless plate at the bottom and remove it.
At this point, you see everything but the interior of the drain pump. Wipe out the bit of water all dishwashers including this have at the bottom of the sump. Drop in some calcium and lime remover in and scrub around the interior with a brush. Press "start" to operate the drain pump. Interrupt the cycle when the pump runs out of soapy water to remove and put all four parts back in. Run a rinse cycle or two to clear out the lime scale remover. You have just restored your Dishdrawer without a screwdriver or a service call.
Another cool feature I noticed is the pump will operate at different power levels depending on what cycle is set or different times on a cycle.
Reliability: haven't had any service calls with mine after two and a half years. The separate drain hoses from the stacked unit motivated a trip to Home depot for a brass fitting to replace the cheap rubber "Y". A friend caused a service call in his when he put a sharp knife standing up in the silverware basket that cut the inflatable seal as he closed the drawer.
In closing, an experienced installer really helps. Install documentation is very good. Important to get the four height adjustments to match before sliding it under the counter. There are no side-flanges on this one to help stabilize it as the drawers themselves will block tool access to them anyway. Plan on bracing the top of the box to a 2" block across the top of the undercounter opening or it will rock.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1500
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Epinions.com ID:
r_finley
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Reviews written: 7
Trusted by: 2 members
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