As I have said before, getting shot of old kitchen equipment is like a murderer trying to dispose of a dead body, a furtive lumbering act that involves a lot of dragging and jarred fingers as the deadweight is dumped in a ditch somewhere in the still of the night to avoid suspicion and the tipping cost for heavy white goods. Under all these new environmental laws you are charged proper money to get rid of busted fridges and dishwashers and so lots of them end up fly-tipped, costing yet more money to the council. Surely if you could get rid of stuff like fridges and dishwashers for free then it would cost the council less in the long term? In fact why not offer deals with the company that delivers your new one to get rid of the old one so to encourage responsible waste disposal? We have a graveyard of the stuff up the top of our garden, rusting fridges standing like headstones to that unloved domestic waste, still polluting the atmosphere wherever they may lie.

The dishwasher is the most expensive piece of kitchen decadence in the west, apart from those automatic utensils the middle-class love to buy and never use - like the automatic apple peeler and the yoghurt maker, for example. It's not easy to teach the help how to use those things you know. Well, they don't speak English do they? Anyhow, the Indesit IDS105 got the nod in the Ellis household and was employed as the house dishwasher for the foreseeable future. £400 was the budget and that would only have got us an illegal Pilipino housemaid for two months and so we went with this slim line instead, coming in just under the four hundred at £272 from Comet. Once it was waddled into place by the delivery guys (ironic, as they waddle too) and the lino was ripped yet again by the same delivery guys we set about stuffing everything in it and pressing some buttons.
The volume inside caters for around twenty plates on one side on the bottom layer and various size casserole dishes on the other half with wider stands, plus the cutlery tray, which is a oblong like perforated plastic thing that drains the water out through the holes....in theory. You must check the tallest plates don't catch the spinning plastic blade atop their tips that distributes the water and cleaning stuff. The above tray caters for cups and glasses and your small sweet dishes and odds and ends. You then need something called a female to empty it. They don't just empty by themselves you know! In fact it may be useful to get the female to fill the dishwasher too so to save time.

There's a couple of basic programs to use although the little draw to put in the dishwasher powder and washing up liquid must be done eatly, making it hard to close the little plastic seal. The program for a big wash takes about an hour and the stuff fairly clean and dry when you get them out. You have to get the mix of powders just right to get the perfect wash and that comes with experience. The cutlery thing tends not to allow the knives and forks to be washed correctly and so have the tea towel handy to pick of any missed bits.
Maintenance wise you must clean the filters out. All that food you didn't scrape off the plates has to go somewhere and it can easily bung up the escape pipes. If you dishwasher is leaking from underneath it's probably because you have congealed food goo rotting up your pipe guys. That salt also encrusts in the various in and outlets and it saves you a big bill if you stay on top of that. It's a yucky job so when the misses has watched Eastenders then get the marigolds out and away she goes. We did actually have a problem where the water wasn't running in and the dishwasher was running and so ready to burn the motor out. Unblock it! You don't want some fat repair guy pulling your unit out and ripping yet more lino and then charging you another fifty quid.

At £272 it's probably top end cheap but so far we haven't had to call out the repair man. The guarantee looks solid although I wouldn't waste your money on a warranty as that's really all about the commission for the salesperson. All white goods are designed to fail anyway, a collective cartel insuring consumers are forever buying more stuff instead of paying to fix the old stuff, these thing priced around making a profit from the warranties and the fact the repair is so expensive so you buy again. Most smart dooyoo girls out there will have married a DIY guy who can fix things.