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Author: SB-B
Rating: 5
Review: Dishwashers, the appliance that tends to be considered as either the best things since sliced bread, or the worst example of frivolous purchasing known to man. We are firmly the former camp. I run my own business, I'm a student and I have young children at home. My wife holds down a 70 hour a week job too, so any item that draws more responsibility from us and gives us more time with the kids or relaxing together is fine by me. However, we have had some rather poor experiences with new dishwashers recently. A Blomberg which, despite earning a Which Best Buy award would leave things greasy and soaking wet constantly, a very expensive Miele that was dead on arrival and required an manufacturer engineer visit before they would even entertain allowing a return and a Zanussi that lasted 3 months before it started belching smoke and left us quite concerned the house would go up like a tinder box. It was also covered in little dents and scratches on delivery, despite the packaging being undamaged which were were given a discount for. In utter exasperation, I went on the hunt for another one. This is where this little beauty came in. It wasn't cheap at just a few pennies shy of £700, but with a promotional 5 year warranty and very good reviews behind it, it seemed like the right bet. Don't get me wrong, I don't like to spend money just for the sake of it, and I'm sure there are plenty of cheaper ones that would work, but time and reliability are the keys here, saving a few hundred pounds won't make you feel any better when it's broken down repeatedly and you have to change your plans sit at home all day waiting for an engineer or the cost is high when the warranty runs out. First impressions and installation: We brought it through Hughes on Amazon, which were efficient, delivering earlier than their agreed date and in perfect condition. Set up was painless and the install took me around 15 mins from slitting the package open and putting it on for an initial quick wash before use. One thing straight away that surprised me was the build quality. There is no flex on the body when pressed, the door springs are silent (unlike the Miele) and all of the baskets are solid and feel durable. Cleaning: I love to cook and I make plenty of work for the dishwasher. Just for an example, tonight I made beef, broccoli & pak choi in a sticky hoisin sauce. This was pretty much nuked onto the pan when it had cooled enough to load. There was a baking tray that had lamb roasted within and a bread tin which was quite a lot of burned flour and crusty bits welded on after use. Plus bowls that were lined with very heavily dried residue from the kids ready brek this morning. No matter, no pre rinse and in they all went. Not using a particularly spectacular detergent (Astonish tablets in this case), a 50c Eco cycle was set and it was left to do it's buisness. The eco cycles tend to be the least effective in terms of cleaning overall and are a good acid test for a dishwasher. How happy do you think I was when everything came out gleaming with not even a crumb left behind? Very! Drying: Some of the Serie 6 and 8 dishwashers such as this one, use a interesting method of drying called Zeolith. Most dishwashers use either inherent heat (heat absorbed and trapped from the final hot rinse) or fans that blow heated air around the interior to dry the contents. The inherent heat tends to be a bit rubbish at times, and the heated air fans add onto the running costs by a lot over a year. In this case, this machine uses Zeolith. Under the tub is a chamber of specially treated zeolite granules, which are a natural mineral. When zeolite is wetted, it heats up to a really good degree. So the machine wets them during the final rinse, and uses a none heated fan to blow the naturally heated air around the interior during the drying phase. This is far more energy efficient and also makes sure things really do dry within. It can even dry plastics with ease, which a lot of dishwashers struggle with. The zeolite is designed to last well beyond the life of the machine and barely loses any efficiency over a decade, so they will not need replacing either. Programs and extra functions: This machine comes with these programmes: Intensive, Eco 50c, Auto 45-65c, silence, express of two different lengths, machine care, pre-rinse and glass. The extra functions include speed perfect, which reduces the wash time, intensive zone, which increases water pressure in the bottom basket for very soiled items and extra dry. It will also allow you to save your favourite program and options so that you can just press favourite, and you're good to go. You can also start and pause manually as well as change the washing options using the mobile app, useful if you forgot to turn it in as you left the house, which is me all over! Inside the machine is an adjustable top basket for cutlery, utensils and other items like that. The middle basket is height adjustable and has additional sprayers in addition to the arms to improve cleaning. The lower basket has foldable prongs and removable cutlery basket. None of the cycles have let us down and providing you don't put super grubby items in a quick wash, 99.9% of the time, everything comes out perfect. Noise: In a word, quiet. Even on a normal load, it never gets louder than a whisper in the background. The silence mode takes it even lower. It's likely not to intrude in your day to day life. Overall: I'm really glad we went for it. It's handled everything we have thrown at it so far, the warranty is a bonus (but do check the promotion is still on at time of reading, if that's a key in your decision) and it's a considerable improvement over the last 3 machines. I'd recommend it as it's flexible, capable and eco friendly. Thank you for reading, I hope I have helped, take care all.
