Dish-Drawer Performance - Part 1

[washer111]

When I say these things perform, I mean it! Ours is a DD60DCX6 (w/o water softener or prewash). On the previous evening we had made 2 roast chickens with our barbecue. The roasting tray had been soaking the sink for most of yesterday, when I decided to load it into the dish drawer. The photo below shows this:

For this wash, two coffee cups, one toast/cake plate, small cereal bowl plus a plastic cup. I removed the cutlery basket to make loading easier for myself. Since this genuinely was a heavy wash, I added around 2 teaspoons of detergent to the main dispenser, set for a rinse cycle to draw hot water for main wash, and left for 12 mins.
The water during this cycle was practically brown with all sorts of floaty bits in it. Yucko!

 

[washer111]

Part 2

After around 1 minute of draining at the end of my custom made prewash (rinse/hold cycle!) I added 4 teaspoons of detergent to the main dispenser, set the machine to a HEAVY cycle.
This means
• 70ºC/158ºF Main wash, following by a 65º/149º final rinse (there is a first rinse, called "post rinse."
• Because this is a dish drawer, with a magnetic brushless DC inverting pump, the water pressure would be HIGH for this wash. (The pump is the style you find in pond pumps, internal impeller, water bearing and outside the windings).

After 124 minutes of washing (shortened due to 131ºF/55ºC incoming water temp), the dishes come out. You'd never guess for such an old baking tray, but the dishwasher had scraped a ton of old baked on stuff out, so there was a little more scrubbing to do (apparently two rinses aren't enough! Maybe just high pressure). Nevertheless, here is the end result - a fine effort for a dishwasher that supposedly "can't wash."

 

[washer111]

Part 3 - The Next Challenge!

Part of the next challenge was yesterday evening's dinner plates. Complete with pork juices, lettuce, tomato (etc) bits. We also had 3 small toast plates and 2 cereal/dessert bowls. One of the dessert bowls (as visible from the picture), would have been blocking the water flow to one of the smaller plates. As you'll see, this had no impact on the wash performance!

In the load shown, there are 6 dinner plates, 3 toast plates, 2 cereal/dessert bowls, 2 plastic cups (one added after pic), two coffee cups (again, added after), small yogurt bowl, Pyrex thing + red lid, blender's plastic cup and a vegetable/cheese grater. Then, we have the usual array of cutlery, butter/toast knives, meat knives, forks, spatular and various utensils. It's the fullest load in their we've had!

For this wash, a Normal cycle was to be used. We add 2-3 teaspoons of detergent to the main wash cup, and close it (it is open to show the amount used).
In the normal cycle, the following parameters are used:
• 114 minute (in total) cycle, consisting of Main Wash, Post Rinse, Final Rinse, Fan Drying (w/ residual heat only).
• Main Wash temp @ 55ºC/131ºF and a 50ºC/122ºF Final Rinse
• "Normal" wash pressure
Note: After cycle completes, drying fan continues to run for around 1-2 hours until drawer is opened. Otherwise, it will stop by it self.

For any wash cycle, this machine will use 6.7L/1.77 US Gallons of warm/hot water, heated via the sun. I ran the tap in the kitchen hot first, so some extra water was used.

 

[washer111]

Detergent and Rinse Aid

We only use Finish 2x Concentrate Finish Powder and the Blue Finish Rinse Aid.

The Finish powder recommends 25g per wash, but this is too much, except in "heavy" cycles. This Finish powder performs better than the old regular stuff in a cardboard box.

 

[yogitunes]

Nice job......I like mine alot, just takes a little finesse, and you can have great results.....

although I have to pretty much pre-rinse or scrape as much of the bulk off, otherwise the drain hose will clog....even with something simple as mashed potatos.....we just learn to adapt......

 

[washer111]

Scrape plates?

I wouldn't worry too much about scraping plates. I think any dishwasher has those horribly skinny drain hoses anyways. What I'd recommend (and plan on doing myself) is using some sort of Dishwasher cleaner every 3-4 months to help prevent build up in the pipes.

You could also use some baking soda or vinegar by itself on a heavy cycle to really flush things through - run both drawers at once, since they will drain one after the other, and really clear things out.

 

[washer111]

Part 4 - Conclusion

Well, after 114 minutes of washing, rinsing dry etc, the dish drawer finished the cycle. By this time, it was late, and we had gone to bed. This morning, here is the result of the dish drawers effort. I think you'll agree that it washed very well. See if you can spot some items who got cleaned, such as one of the plastic cups (you can faintly see choc milk stains in it).

Once again, a very good result for the machine people say can't wash dishes... Next post will show the drain/recirc filter after the wash. Didn't capture everything, such as lettuce, but still very dirty!

 

[washer111]

Filter after Wash

If you look closely, you'll see all sorts of "nerrr" and fine deposits of food etc. I guess the plastic impeller really pulverises things!

Here it is:

 

[washer111]

Thought I might bump this thread, after all, it is about an automatic washer and it's performance

 

[petek]

It's funny thinking about it now that when I was sort of scrambling to replace our dishwasher last month that these dishdrawers never even came to mind at all. Had they I may have taken a better look because I love the concept a lot but then it seems like most of the reviews I've seen are either very positive or they were quite problematic as even here attests where Yogi says he has to do a lot of scraping and loading them requires more attention to detail.

 

[william637]

I think they are are a nifty concept

I think my favorite thing about them is the magnetic drive. When I was redoing the kitchen I thought about having a set of dishdrawers on side of the sink and a standard full size on the other. Unfortunately, when I took a sampling of my standard dishwasher items to the store, I found out things didn't fit well.

Now that they have been out for a few years, I may pick one up used at some point or another - just to have one in the basement to play with.

 

[yogitunes]

I wouldn't give mine up, in fact I want another on the other side of the sink, it was recommended to have a regular dishwasher, plus this one....... like the idea of pots/pans in one, crystal in another, serving bowls in one, and regular dishes in another, each with their own cycle.......and sized enough for constant use, I don't have to wait for a full load, and then wait for it to finish before loading again.....may not be the best setup for all, but its a big help for this house...

something to keep in mind, I do tend to favor the top unit, its at counter height, no bending over, this works well for my partner who has a bad back, and for my mother because of her age, the bending is not easy.....so a great machine for someone with a disability like this....

 

[washer111]

I too was a little sceptical about the reviews I saw. Most of them seemed to be F1 error codes (flood etc) or people having issues with wash performance.

None of the people that own a dish-drawer that I know of have genuine issues with wash performance. Two of those people are actually using older DD602/3 models from around 10 years ago.
One of them experiences washing difficultly, although that is because they are using 5 year old Finish Tablets/Powder (obviously a silly thing to do) since they have remarried, and the man didn't know how to operate the machine.
They still don't use it, since they believe hand washing is more economical!

 

[easyspindry]

I have never understood . . .

. . . all the negative reports about dish drawers. I have the Fisher & Paykel drawers and love them. They clean very well quietly. Any machine will have its advantages and disadvantages. I have heard of some people cleaning their trash cans in their dishwasher (tall tub), and that obviously would not work in a drawer. I've never run in to that problem because I don't put my trash containers in my dishwasher.

The perfect installation would be a drawer on each side of the sink, both at countertop level so there would be no bending at all.

If anyone is considering re-doing their kitchen, I would tell them to give consideration to the drawers.

Mine are about four years old and have presented no problems.

Jerry Gay

 

[ozzie908]

DD603

I love mine ..

Have learnt a lot about this little gem of a DW also have a box of spares but one thing I have learned is you have to be a little more carefull.
Don't let anything protrude the top
Wipe the lip to prevent scale build up
The biggest problem I have is locating powder as every where seems to want to sell tabs.

Austin

 

[washer111]

Finding powder is getting difficult. I don't understand why people use them. Using Tabs is such a waste, as you can't tailor the detergent amount to the wash, like many manuals suggest.
Whilst they have "oh so much" cleaning power, all that BS really adds up (Enzymes, Salt, Liquid AND Powdered detergent).

Has anyone tried the "Kwik" brand detergent for the dishwasher, or maybe the "Earth Choice" tabs? Be interesting to see the result from that.

But yes, people used to normal dishwashers, like washing rubbish bins (I thought computer keyboards were bad enough) won't have joy with the dish drawer.

Its amazing how many people still think washing by hand is better - yes, you are making pollution from the purchase of any product, but then you will save power and water - especially if you have a Solar hot water heater right above the kithen able to give super hot water straight away (that would save around 150KWh per year on the Normal Eco for our model!)

But yes, dish drawers are great. I'd love to see a video of one of the original models (or one still running) - just to prove that Dish drawers aren't the crap that so many people think they are...

 

[rapunzel]

My pet gripe also, washer111

I don't get tablets. They are too much for a half-wash in a regular dishwasher and unsuitable for dishdrawers. Why do people think that it is so much hard work using the detergent dispensers?

I used to buy the powder detergent in the green bottle (forgot the name) from Aldi, which was white and worked very well. A few months ago they changed the formula and included some blue stuff speckled through the white powder. This blue stuff mucked up the filters and left bits of sticky residue all over the tub. Now I buy the jumbo sized bottles of Finish powder from Costco. It is just plain white powder detergent and doesn't leave residue. I am staying clear of anything with blue bits in it.

 

[washer111]

I'd have to take a look, (which I can't be bothered doing now), but I think we might have the little blue bits in our 2x concentrate 1.5Kg Finish powder bottle. The newer stuff they have is so much easier to use than the old cardboard box, which always made a mess - now we have a lid which can be used to measure the amount (25g) for a wash...

Note that 25g is what you'd use in a heavy wash... So we use around 15-20g and get good results (and definitely less suds if you open it up during the wash).

 

[intuitive]

Dishdrawer Using tablets

I have a DWS 603 for 8+ years. I always used to use powder Kwit or Aldi in a blue bottle. but on a vist to Woolworths I was conned into buying Fairy Platinum gel tabs they are awful, they stink! & they foam heaps. I gave them to my mum, she tried them in her Miele, again they stank & they foamed up....

On my last vist to Costco I got some Cascade Gel packs... in a green box. they are brilliant on a fast wash ... drop one into the cutlery rack and press start.. they just work great... with any other wash... just hang about till thr main wash and drop one in. the machine is on a cold water fill and always heats its own water.