[sarahjones]

Our dishwasher is about to give up the ghost and so we are looking around for a replacement. There are some comments on this forum from a couple of years ago regarding F&P dish drawers, but does anyone have any more recent observations they could pass on about them please?

Our friends have a F&P double dish drawer and are not too happy with its cleaning capabilities saying they often have to re-wash plates and dishes where food is stuck and the dish drawer just doesn't shift it. We used one of these when on holiday last summer, but I guess that was more for cups, plates, and glasses rather than cookware.

The flexibility, and appearance, of the double drawer is appealing, but if they don't work too well it might be better to get a normal type dishwasher at a lower cost.

[M&J]

We have one in our rental and it is next to useless on anything too dirty, i.e. dinner plates!!! It is fine on cups and that sort of thing but any cookware gets washed by hand or swilled first.:(

[Jo Jo]

The Consumers' Association found the dishdrawers to be among the least reliable of the dishwashers they tested in their survey. The summary of problems can be found here (http://www.consumer.org.nz/topic.asp?category=Appliances&subcategory=Kitchen%20-%20large&docid=963&topic=Dishwashers&title=DishDrawer%20models&contenttype=general).

[sizzlingbadger]

We've got one, piece of rubbish. Absolutely hate it, can't get my big pans in, ends up going on at least 3 times a day (there's 5 of us in the family), and as the others have said we end up having to run washes at least a couple of times because things don't get cleaned properly.

Hubby thinks it's great but when you end up having to wash things by hand because it doesn't fit it defeats the object of having one.

In our old place we had a normal one and it was much better, got things clean on a fast wash, could get everything in. Stick with the old type :)

[Sam B]

I experienced the same dish drawer as M&J (same rental) and it was hopeless. Don't bother.

[clg]

I have not heard good things about it and know people who have them and h ate them, we had a conventional F&P and did not like it either. We just got a Bosch, much better IMHO!

[kiwidebs]

My parents have a conventional F&P dishwasher - I think just about every part has been replaced over the years. There seems to be constantly something wrong with it.
Friends of ours have a dishdrawer one and love it - but I watched her getting the dishes ready for the dishwasher the other night and she all but washed the dishes completely before putting them in the dishwasher!
We have a Bosch and love it!

[gil]

Our house has a dish drawer and it's not a patch on the Siemens one we had in UK. All the above complaints are ours, too. Gil

[aberdian]

We have FnP dish drawers in the UK and think they're fantastic. For a family of 4 they're great, just the right size and if you've a busy lifestyle then they're great for keeping the kitchen tidy. Haven't had any probs with reliability or anything, the only thing I'd say is that you have to keep the rinse agent and salt topped up or they don't rinse properly.

I give them a big thumbs up!

[sarahjones]

Thank you everyone for your comments. I wonder if older dish drawers had performance issues that have been sorted out, or whether F&P exports are made to a higher quality standard. Anyway it looks like a normal dishwasher is on the cards now.

Once again thanks for your very helpful replies.

[Jo Jo]

Hi Sarah, I've sent you a PM.

[bob_the_engineer]

Our rental has a brand new F&P dishwasher (conventional). I’m so glad I got to use it because now I know not to buy one!

I do go out of my way to buy NZ made, but even so not in this instance.

Bob

[sarahjones]

We purchased a Westinghouse 907 after Retravison offered us $50 off the price, delivered it the same day, installed the new machine and took the old one away.

A bit of a long cycle time, and not whisper quiet, but superb washing performance and a good looking machine for only $950

Thanks to everyone for your comments, a great help.