This drawer does the dishes!
Written: Mar 10 '01
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Pros: Very convenient, saves splashed clothing, guilt-free small loads
Cons: Not for houses with small children, things can go wrong, Requires a TRAINED installer!
The Bottom Line: Unmatched style/convenience, but keep your warranty --- things CAN go wrong with this new technology! Not for houses with small children.
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| Ledermann's Full Review: Fisher and Paykel DD-602 Built-in Dishwasher |
I figure people in the market for a higher-end dishwasher will be evaluating Bosch, Miele, Asko, and Fisher-Paykel. The F&P is the most expensive of the three, by a bit, but worth every single penny!
To begin, this is not a dishwasher in the conventional sense. We're all used to the cabinet with a front door that opens down to reveal racks (usually 2, sometimes 3) that pull out. F&P turned that on its ear, by creating a dish DRAWER -- the entire drawer pulls out, and the dishes are loaded in from the top! (I'm old enough to remember my parents' first GE dishwasher, which was also a top-loading model. Interesting that they're returning to that idea now...)
Fisher & Paykel is a New Zealand company that's very highly thought of there, but just making inroads in the U.S. Because of that, they're offering substantial rebates on the DishDrawer, which brings the price down around Miele, Asko, or Bosch territory. You may also get a rebate from your local utility for EnergyStar appliances.
ADVANTAGES OF THE DISHDRAWER
The advantages of this way of thinking are almost too numerous to know where to start. Loading and unloading are a dream; I find myself much more willing to unload the dishwasher when it's so much easier to do.
More than once, I've been surprised by a leftover half-full coffee mug. In a conventional dishwasher, this means that when you put it in, it splashes all over the nice clean clothes you just paid a fortune to have dry cleaned. In the DishDrawer, it simply means that it might run into the bottom of the drawer. Because it is a drawer, there's nowhere else for it to go, so it doesn't splash all over you. Likewise, if measuring cup flips over and fills during the wash, bumping it or turning it over won't splash all over the dishes on the lower rack because there is no lower rack!
Instead, the bottom of the DishDrawer is taken up by the spray arm --- that's right, singular. There's only one because that's all you need in a single drawer. The water is sprayed upward, and cascades back down from the "roof" of the drawer, thereby washing top surface too.
The DishDrawer is available as a single model, ideal for home bars, or as a double model, one above the other. I got the double model, which allows me to wash the stoneware and stemware in the upper drawer on a "Normal" cycle, and put the pots and pans down below, on a "Sandblast" cycle (yes, I'm kidding --- of course there's no cycle called Sandblast). The drawers are completely independent, so the cycle on one doesn't interfere with the cycle on the other.
Ever done a less-than-full load because it contained stuff you really needed? Now you can do a guilt-free small load. Because the drawers are independent, each one uses only half the water and half the energy of a conventional dishwasher.
THE RACKS AND DISPENSERS
The racks in each drawer are amazingly configurable. The entire drawer contains a basic rack to keep dishes above the spray arm. However, this comes out if necessary to access the spray arm and/or motor (which, incidentally, is about the size of your thumb, and easily replaceable if needed --- most local dealers also carry the motor). This large rack also contains a handy door right below the cutlery basket, for easy access to the filter (which is contoured to fit the hand, so it pops out for quick and easy cleaning).
Into this basic rack, you can insert the plate rack and/or the "Mega Rack" (their name, not mine :-} ). They each fit on either side, but keeping the MegaRack on the left enables you to fit up to six pieces of stemware on the side, with cups or glasses behind and below, and small items nestled on the fold-down racks slightly above. The plates then go on the other side, from the back up to the front, until they meet the cutlery basket. This side also has fold-down racks on the side, so if the plates are small, you can use these rack for additional space to hold cups or lightweight items. All of these racks are removable to make room for big bowls, pots, or pans. You'd be surprised at how much will fit in a single drawer; by the time you get both of 'em going, you can hold AT LEAST as much as a conventional dishwasher.
The soap dish is also somewhat unusual. I still have trouble believing I could get dishes so clean with so little soap. It usually takes only about a teaspoon or so to clean one drawer's worth of dishes. The soap dish features a flow-through mechanism so the detergent is completely dissolved and mixed before it's introduced into the washing chamber. This means no detergent burn on your dishes! The arrangement is a bit awkward (one of my very few gripes), especially since it's coupled with the rinse-agent dispenser on the inside front of the drawer. I recommend using a baby spoon or similar to put the detergent into the cups.
THE CONTROLS
Somebody was thinking here! The more detailed controls for selecting cycles are located on the inside top of each drawer. There are controls for Rinse-only, Heavy, Normal, Quick, or China and an "Eco" version of each cycle that uses cooler water, a slightly shorter time, and a no-heat dry. Then, the everyday controls are placed on the outside of the drawer for easy access. These include the Power button, the Start/Pause button, and the Lock button (to prevent young children from accidentally hurting themselves or the appliance).
Once you've started the cycle, the oval display area on the front indicates what's going on. Normally, the back light is green, there is a tiny "smiley face" that blinks to indicate that everything is fine, and the display shows the number of minutes remaining in the cycle. Just like a traffic light, if you choose a delayed start, the back light turns amber/orange (as in "wait at an amber light") and the display shows how many hours until the cycle starts. Finally, if something does go wrong, the backlight turns red and the display shows an error code to let you know exactly what's wrong. Easy and almost intuitive.
The cabinet-match custom models feature a very small "badge" area on the front that features the same funtionality but blends into the surrounding cabinetry a bit better.
THE RESULTS
I'd forgotten dishes could be so clean! After my "Annus Horribilis" with the Asko 1805 (see my review of it for details), I'd grown used to filmy glasses, and cutlery with tiny grains of stuck-on stuff. Two days ago, I came out with a couple of less-than-clean dishes from my F&P. I was all prepared to be righteously indignant, until I discovered I had loaded a dish so that it prevented the spray arm from turning. Suddenly my whole perspective was turned upside down: "You mean this thing got 90% of the load sparkling clean when the arm couldn't even turn? WOW!!!" As soon as I loaded things correctly, the problem went away.
I have not encountered any of the drying problems others have spoken of with plastic items. They come out just as dry as in any other dishwasher; if there are dimples or depressions, they'll collect water, of course (as in any dishwasher), but otherwise they do just fine. The glassware comes out both dry and spotless, something that's never happened in any other dishwasher I've owned!
THE CONCLUSION
Yes, your spouse/partner will have a fit when you tell him/her you just spent upwards of $1500 on a dishwasher. Then the utility savings will start to show, the clean dishes will start to show, the clothes spared splashed coffee will start to show, and the guilt-free small loads will start to show. Suddenly, (s)he will start to think you're a genius for finding such an innovative appliance that really does what it claims to do!
You do notice it's there, in terms of the sounds it makes. The wash itself is extremely quiet, but it has to inflate a rubber seal around the drawer to keep it watertight. So there's a bit of a whir until it gets going, but this is typically a minute or less. It also makes a difference whether it's full or not --- for example, if you have a few bulky items in there but a fair amount of empty space, too, it will make a bit more noise than if you fill every inch with the china, stemware, and coffee cups from your dinner party. In the latter case, it's nearly silent.
***********UPDATE AS OF 10 MARCH 2001*************
Well, I'm not quite as enchanted as I was last October, when I wrote the original review. The bottom drawer has developed a severe leak, which has rendered it unusable until replacement parts arrive from back order. In all fairness, the hoses appear almost to have been severed; they don't look at all "frayed" or "worn", but instead have very clean slices that look like the work of a blade of some kind. The repair person tells me he has never before seen this kind of thing on F&P, and he is also suspicious that it could have resulted from normal use. The most likely guess is that something fishy happened during installation.
Does this change my overall opinion? Not really, because it truly does a great job when it works, and this does not appear to be F&P's fault. On the other hand, replacement parts (except the motor itself, which is usually stocked at dealers) can take a surprisingly long time to arrive, considering the company's North American HQ is right here in California.
WHERE TO CHECK IT OUT
Try either http://www.fp.co.nz or http://usa.fisherpaykel.com
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 1399
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Epinions.com ID:
Ledermann
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Location: Aptos, CA
Reviews written: 53
Trusted by: 12 members
About Me:
Silicon Valley guy reviews appliances, movies, & music -- film at 11!
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