Product review (5 stars): Rinse-Aid + Mini-Party Setting
Just the right size for a single person or a couple and takes up much less space than a conventional dishwasher. Frankly in our house we barely run this everyday. A full size washer would take a week to fill and by then the food would be dried and caked on. This leads to still dirty dishes after the machine has run. I know this from experience in my childhood house.
Unlike my parents dishwasher this little guy does seem to need rinse-aid. I had never used it before but I kept getting spots in this dishwasher. Little rinse-aid combined with not filling the detergent cup all the way took the spots down to nothing.
I do use powder in this puppy since it takes so little detergent that I'm afraid I wouldn't be able to break tablets small enough for the load size accurately.
Barely noticed the small spike in the energy bill and it also uses very little water on the "mini-party" setting we set it on. If you run it nearly everyday that setting will probably do you just fine. There is also a "normal" use setting but that has been overkill for us.
The only strange thing is some people say the timer is inaccurate and I think I know part of why this is. If you run it with hot water from the tap the timer is almost right. If you run it with cold tap water then it takes a very long time for it to heat the water but the timer doesn't account for this. The accuracy of the timer makes very little difference to me personally. Hence no loss of star.
Since I have an electric hot water heater and half the time I'm showering while it runs I just run it on cold and let it go longer. The hot water is going to be heated by electricity either way. Not sure one way is really anymore cost effective than the other. If you have a gas hot water heater then you will probably want to use hot water from the tap to save you money.
I did get this as a warehouse deal which was perfect. I saved some money and still had the option to return it. But it had one scratch on the side I don't see and it worked perfectly. So you would have to pry it from my dead hands. If you buy it new you may want to shop around, particularly at the bulk stores, they will probably have this for a lower price new. When its stock.