I no longer have dishpan hands, you know! (Bosch SGS43A52GB)

Member Name: Nolly

Product:	Bosch SGS43A52GB
Date:	02/02/04 (681 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: effective, efficient

Disadvantages: I now have to cut the grass, and put out the rubbish, and muck out the guinea pig

You know, my wife and I are a couple of impulsive people. Without fail we always take the plunge and do something reckless and seemingly illogical. Consider this Christmas. We decided, quite out of the blue, to break with the norm and have turkey. Now I am sure you will agree that turkey is the exception rather than the rule, and we certainly do aim to be different from the norm. There was one thing this Christmas that made me so happy to have moved to Herefordshire, and that is what I intend to write about today!

When we moved to our bijou residence in the posh part of town (posh! I should think so! They get of the bath to have a wee here, you know!), we noticed that there were extra pipes sticking out here, there, and everywhere under the sink. The foreman then said 'Aaar' (in a thick Gloucestershire burr that is impossible to transcribe into the written word), 'that'll be the plumbing for them there dishwasher!'. Darlingest and I looked shocked at one another. You see, we had just moved from Lincolnshire, a region so insular and inward looking that they thought they were with it having just discovered fire. As far as Darlingest and I were concerned, I was the dishwasher, and once we worked out what one of these new-fangled thingummybobs was, we resolved to buy one.

Now I am not renowned for profligacy in my family (I once dropped a five pence piece and it hit me on the back of the head as I bent to pick it up), but we knew that we would need a good quality machine from a good quality make. Having consulted with such luminaries of the dishwasher world in my family, namely mum, brother Stu and Auntie Marje, we decided that Bosch was best.

We didn't buy our machine through what you could call normal retail channels. The machine we bought, the SGS 43A52, has a retail price of around £300, but we bought ours, legally and with a one year guarantee, from the Comet Auctions website. Here we could buy machines at reduced
prices because they had cosmetic scratches on them and little dents. We decided that we wanted dents, as they would match the saucepan marks on my head, and we purchased our machine for around the £160 mark, with £15 for delivery from Scotland. Not bad eh? The machine was duly delivered and plumbing in was reasonably simple- connect the hose to the cold pipe and fit the waste pipe very snugly over the waste pipe bit and tighten up with the jubillee clips provided!

The machine is realtively simple to use. I need that in life. There are five buttons on the front. On the left is the main on/off switch. The other four buttons are for the programmes- pre-rinse,35 degree quick wash, 50 degree economy wash, and 65 degree full wash. We tend to use the full wash programme, as we only dop a maximum of 2 washes per day. On Christmas Day, it did 2 before lunch, but then again I was cooking!

The machine is large- well, normal appliance size, and can accommodate 12 place settings. There is also a special cap to place over the spray bit at the back (don't you just love technical jargon!) should you wish to was large items like oven trays and shelves. The blurb says it is quiet. I hear it but it isn't deafening, plus I don't have anything to benchmark it against.

In terms of effectiveness, the full programme gets nearly everything clean. Burnt on scrambled egg takes a few washes, but that's more down to my cooking! The drying is not quite as effective as the washing, but if you leave things to cool, they do eventually dry pretty well.

There are two lights on the machine, that indicate if you are running low on salt or rinse aid, although when the salt LED is on, the Rinse Aid one glows a touch as well!

Overall though, this is a splendid machine (ah yes, noise 54 dB- is that noisy?). It has saved me a great deal of fuss and bother, and has not sharply raised our water bill (the average wash consumption is 14 litres).

Simply wonderful, in fact.

The one major criticism I would have is that the child lock is a little weak- if you forget the machine is on, the lock makes the door stiffer, it doesn't make opening it impossible, which is what I would have hoped.

Specifications
===========

Consumption
(50ºC economy prog.)
Energy: 1.05 kWh
Water: 14 litres
Programme time: 140min

Energy Ratings
============

Wash Performance A
Dry Performance B
Energy Performance A

Dimensions
==========
H 850 x W 600 x D 600 (mm)

Enjoy the machine and take the stress of washing up away (although wooden spoons may need doing in the sink!)



Neil

February 2004

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