A New Dishwasher

by FrugalBabe on August 6, 2010

We have not had the best luck with dishwashers over the last few years.  When we remodeled our kitchen at our old house, we got a used dishwasher that we loved, but the motor burned out after a year.  When we moved into this house, the dishwasher was on its last legs, so we got a new one.  It was a relatively low end dishwasher, and we have had problems with it a few times in the last year.  We’ve been able to fix it ourselves, but when it stopped working last month, we discovered that it had been recalled as a fire hazard.

Maytag was offering a rebate on a new dishwasher for people who had the recalled dishwasher.  There were two rebate levels available ($250 or $150) and three or four dishwashers that qualified for each rebate.  I spent a few hours on line comparing dishwasher and then shopping for the best deals.  The dishwashers that qualified for the $250 rebate were a little more expensive, but I was able to find sales on them that eliminated most of the price difference, and we opted for one of those models.  The MSRP was $860 (yikes – that’s an expensive dishwasher!), but I found it at an online retailed for a total of $690 including shipping (no tax).  I found it at local places like Lowes and Sears, but it was about $100 more expensive.  Going with the online appliance store meant that we had to wait about three weeks for our new dishwasher, but to save $100, I was willing to wash dishes by hand for a few weeks.

When all is said and done, we should have an $860 dishwasher for $440, between the sale price and the rebate from Maytag.  And by next week, I won’t have to be washing all of our dishes by hand anymore.

When the dishwasher broke last month and we then found out it was recalled, I was tempted to just not have a dishwasher at all, and wash our dishes by hand forever.  I lived in Africa for two years where not only did I wash dishes by hand, but first I had to go fetch the water to wash them with.  Surely I could wash dishes in my kitchen sink?  But I have to say, after three weeks of hand washing, I’m glad that we opted for a new dishwasher instead.  My husband and I both work from home, and our son is always here with us, so we eat nearly all of our meals at home.  We don’t eat processed, packaged food (the sort that requires no dirty dishes), and I’m a big fan of cooking from scratch and kitchen experimentation.  So we go through a lot of dishes.  I like clean, clear countertops, but for the last few weeks, It has felt like we have a constant pile of dishes drying on the counter beside the sink.  With a dishwasher, we can load the dishes into it after a meal and then wait until it’s full to run it.  But hand washing means that we either have to wash dishes multiple times per day or have a sink/counter full of dirty dishes for a while.

I feel a bit spoiled (especially when I think back on my time in Africa and remind myself that all my friends there are still washing dishes by hand, and still fetching the water before they begin), but I am very glad that I’ll have a dishwasher again next week.  Shelling out the money for a new dishwasher wasn’t easy for me (oh, so many things I would rather do with that money!), but it is nice to know that we’re getting a high end dishwasher this time, for about half price.  Hopefully our luck with dishwashers will turn around now, and this one will still be in our kitchen when our son goes off to college.

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  • Jess

    Wait, your old dishwasher was recalled because it was a fire hazard and all Maytag did for compensation is give you a rebate off of a new dishwasher? That’s insane! Shouldn’t they have also refunded you the purchase price of the original one?

  • FrugalBabe

    Jess,
    The old dishwasher cost just under $300, and the rebate they’re giving us is $250, so they’re just about making up the cost of the old one. It wouldn’t really make sense for them to refund the purchase price in addition to a rebate – one or the other seems fair. The other option they offered was to have someone come out and fix the heating element that was causing the fire hazard. But ours has an additional problem at the moment, and since the dishwasher is no longer under warranty, I’m assuming that they would not have fixed whatever else is wrong. A lot of dishwasher models were recalled for the fire hazard problem, and they ranged in price from $200 to $900. People like us who had the lower end models are basically getting our money back for the defective dishwasher. But people who had bought one of the more expensive models are probably more likely to opt for having someone fix the problem, as a $250 rebate doesn’t go far towards replacing a $900 dishwasher.

  • Ms. K

    There is a third alternative to either having dirty dishes sitting out on the counter or having a dishwasher…you can have a dish bin (a big plastic bin or whatever, under the sink or on to of the refrigerator or in the pantry, whatever) and put dirty dishes in there and then just wash them all once a day.

    This is what many of us who live in areas where dishwashers are not standard appliances do. Much of the older housing stock in the Northeastern US and Canada just doesn’t come with dishwashers, and many people don’t see the point of them.

  • Paul

    I’ve read in several places that you actually use less water washing the dishes in a dishwasher than you do washing them by hand. I’ve seen this touted on many “green” websites and articles. Now, how much water is saved was never stated (and I’m sure its variable depending on your hand washing technique).

    From a frugality stance, the question is how fast can you recoup the cost of a dishwasher from the water (and heated water) savings, if at all?

  • FrugalBabe

    Paul,
    I’ve read that too, although I have no idea how much water the dishwasher saves. The one we got is energy star rated and on the higher end of the efficiency scale. But for me, the biggest savings will be the 45 minutes per day that I’ve been spending washing dishes!

  • http://mollyonmoney.wordpress.com Molly On Money

    Years ago I saved my pennies to get a new dishwasher. When I got it installed it was a huge relief. My husband cooks almost everything from scratch and there is ALWAYS dishes to be done (he cooks and I clean up). After having it about one year I noticed the dishes were getting built up with grim and hard water spots. I spent the next year experimenting with every dish soap I could find and make. Our well water is extremely hard and is why the dishwasher was having a tough time cleaning the dishes. By year three I switched to hand washing (I have a system to use the least bit of water possible) and the dishwasher is the drying rack. Yes, we often have dirty dishes in the sink even IF I am washing dishes every day!

  • http://www.uncommonlybrilliant.blogspot.com Michael

    Dear Frugal Babe:

    I’m an appliance repairman, but I no longer work on dishwashers.

    This is my understanding: The government has mandated that dishwashers use less water (energy efficiency), which of course is the most important element in having clean dishes.

    Also dishwashers are now designed to handle more dishes, making it more difficult to repair, hence, why I no longer want to be bothered.

    The most critical element for dishes coming clean in a dishwasher is the temperature of the water entering the dishwasher, 120D is recommended. Often, by the time the water enters a DW, it is way below the 120D mark. I tell my customers that if God made their DW, it would not wash their dishes if the water is not hot enough.

  • Springleaf

    Hi Frugal babe,
    Have a look at the different prgrams your dishwasher uses too. I use our dishwasher on an eco setting and as long as no really baked on food goes in there it does a perfect job. The eco settting uses less water and a lower temp than the other programs. As you know the amount of time spent washing dishes can add up and is also a “cost” that needs to be considered!

  • Phyllis

    Last time our fav repairman came to work on my washer & dryer – 1986 models – we had an interesting conversation. He said to keep my appliiances as long as possible. Not in his own self-interest, but because newer appliances now have a much shorter life expectancy. It’s purposeful planned obsolescense to boost sales. New appliances, according to this guy, are made to last around 7 years and the insides have mostly plastic rather than metal parts than older models like mine. In light of that, your experiences with your dishwashers seem to confirm his statement. If I pay a premium for an appliance, I expect it to last at least 15 years and preferably 20 or more. I do love the energy star appliances though.

    My dishwasher has a heater on the water intake to ensure that the water is hot enough as we keep our hot water heater on 120 F and it’s a long way from the garage to the kitchen. Dishes washed in a dishwasher are more sterile than hand washing so health concerns are another advantage to using a dishwasher. You can’t get hand washing water hot enough to kill germs. And you need to use a fresh wash rag and drying towel (if not air drying) each time and it’s my experience that most hand- washers don’t do that.

    If you are having trouble with crud build-up on your dishes in a dishwasher, you might need to clean out the filter basket in the bottom. Or the disposer unit/drain is getting clogged or needs repair. Try cleaning the drain basket then put a packet or two of unsweetened lemon flavored Kool-aid in the soap dispenser and run an empty load cycle and see if that helps. Make sure the kool-aid packet mentions citric acid in the ingredient list. This will remove hard water build-up inside the washer.
    One last thing. I recently found out that the funny chemically smell you smell when you open the freshly cleaned dishwasher load is actually a very toxic cocktail of gases. I think it was chloramine gas, but my apologies for not having the time to look it up. Anyway, it’s not good for you at all. Despite my frugal nature, I decided that keeping healthy is important so it was time to switch to a less toxic brand even if it was more expensive.

  • Gina

    The dishwasher is one appliance we keep an extended warranty on. It has a repair about once a year and the cost always exceeds the cost of the warranty. It’s the only time a warranty has mattered.

    I too use the eco wash, air dry settingd and run it during the cheapest utility rate times. Love it!

  • http://radioventriloquist.blogspot.com GC

    I’m wary of dishwashers. We wash our dishes by hand but don’t cook as much from scratch for breakfast and lunch.

    Also, I have a tendency to make things that stick in pots and stick on dishes I guess.

    Are you supposed to rinse off the dishes before putting them in the dishwasher? How good are they at getting off dried on sauces and so on?

  • BigNan

    I have often heard that dishwashers use less water/energy than hand washing. Once I read the comments on this post, I decided to check. I found an interesting article at

    http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/01/built-in-dishwasher-vs-hand-washing-which-greener.php

    that looks at a lot of variables, and concludes that you would really have to work at it to beat the dishwasher.

    I have had seven dishwashers in the past 22 years (moved house seven times). Some were new, some used. All were less expensive models. Older models work well, but I found them to be very noisy.

    I never rinse my dishes (just scrape compost material), and rarely do I have dishes that don’t come clean. Hard water can be a real problem, solved by installing a water softener.

  • karen

    After my hubby and self moved into our new house we quickly learned that the dishwasher that came with the house was the cheapest available! We started hand washing agreeing we would buy a new higher quality dishwasher later on. That was 4 years ago and we are still hand washing not because we have to but because we grew to love the time and conversation we have together. Some of you may not understand this or not have the time but in this crazy time we live in we must grab the special times when we can. Time goes by fast, enjoy it always.

  • Phyllis

    Bosch makes a very quiet dishwasher, which we splurged on as our kitchen is literally in the center of our house. We didn’t buy the top of the linel, but still very happy with it. Visitors have commented that they didn’t realize it was running after trying to open it to load a glass. (Such helpful, courteous friends!) Modern dishwashers don’t require “pre-washing,” even though many friends do that as that is how their mothers tuaght them. Old habits die hard. We scrape any big pieces of food items into a compost bin (we’re vegans so it all goes to compost) and load away. I do have to remember to clean out the drain trap every once in a while, but that’s no big deal. I think it’s supposed to be done weekly, but pfft.

    If you have a “scratch and dent” retailer in your area, that is definitely the way to go. Choose wisely and you can’t even see the damage once the appliance is installed. The savings is significant.

  • Phyllis

    Spelling correction for previous postl: taught, not tuaght.

  • Pippi

    We just bought a dishwasher today off craigslist! We have to have 18″ wide one to fit in our tiny kitchen so it was tough to find. There aren’t many models that small so stores charge more. We’ll probably only be in our current place another year or so (we moved here a year ago) and decided a while back that it was silly to invest in a dishwasher for a place we don’t own and will stay in a relatively short time. After a year of handwashing, though, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I feel like all I do is wash dishes and when I don’t they cover our 1.5 square feet of counter space very quickly. I’m too tired and pregnant to keep up with the washing and it won’t get any better with the new baby. I can’t wait to get it installed. Even if I never recoup my money on it, I will hopefully regain my sanity!

  • Kelly

    I’ve never had a dishwasher. Ever. Always wash dishes by hand. Same thing when my son was an infant. Washed his bottles by hand. He didn’t die from an illness. My parents still don’t have a dishwasher. I wouldn’t know what to do with one!

  • Kim

    We use our dishwasher strictly as a drying rack. Of course it’s just the 2 of us but we do cook and eat at home almost exlusively.

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