Folks, after over 30 loads in the dishwasher and now that the guests are gone (only two left, leaving tomorrow morning) I can calm down a little bit and write about the Kenmore 24 inch Portable dishwasher.
It doesn't have any bells and whistles, 2 racks, 2 spray arms, a manual cleaning filter 3 cycles (pots and pans, normal and 1 hour) and 2 options (high temp and heated dry)
The 1 hour cycle doesn't allow high temp or heated dry.
It was technically the only dishwasher I could fit in my tiny kitchen. Ok, i could have one of those countertop ones that wouldn't help much when i have mountains of dishes to wash like i had the last two weeks or tons of pots and pans, mixer bolws, etc.
I also tend to use much more plates and trays, even when I'm cooking just for Darryl and I. I like to serve "cuisine", so serving straight from the pot is very rare. It means much more to wash.
I can say I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this dishwasher. The racks are not the best in the world, of course, but they are far from being bad.
I don't pre-rinse, except one or other item that is REALLY hasty, like baking trays with burnt on food. I also don't scrape OCD levels.
This dishwasher does what a dishwasher must do. You load it with dirty dishes (very dirty by the way) and after the 1 hour cycle everything is perfectly clean and dry, with one or other water drops.
No food residues, no hard water film, no nothing. This is also the cheapest 24 inch portable dishwasher we could find.
The pots and pans cycle I used only once. it took forever and the result was acceptable but not perfect.
The normal cycle is also super long, it perfromes very well (better than pots and pans maybe?)
The 1 hour cycle is "the" cycle. It's just perfect and only 1 hour.
Noise levels... well we can hear the water, but i ran the dishwasher every day near 1 am with guests sleeping in the living room right next to the kitchen and the dishwasher didn't disturb them. The loudest noise is the water falling in the sink during the drains and the "spray" noise when it's filling. other than that, just that you can barely notice it is running.
And when you remove the top rack, it doesn't "leak" water through the upper spray arm pipe. I still didn't pay much attention to figure out how it "understands" the rack isn't there and closes the pipe, but i can notice much more power on the bottom spray arm.
Oh, and it uses BOTH spray arms at the same time.
