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Comment by exmadscientist | Hacker News Reader

Just buy a Miele dishwasher. They actually work and they work well. No need to bother with black-market or "vintage" or commercial stuff. Just pay the high price (ok, it's all relative) and enjoy never having to care about this crap again.

Source: owned too many dishwashers over the last decade. Paid money to make problem go away and to my surprise it actually did.

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We have a Miele dishwasher (and washing machine).

It works really well, but it's not magic.

Eg it still benefits from adding a bit of powder in the special compartment that opens immediately (or alternatively, directly in the body of the dishwasher).

You also have to clean the Miele's dirt trap every once in a while. I'm informed American dishwashers have different arrangements that don't need cleaning?

It has a filter with a spinning blade slightly in front of it - a macerator - that chops up pieces of food until they are small enough to fit through the holes.

https://photos.smugmug.com/Appliantology/Kitchenaid-Dishwash...

In the US, the dishwasher discharge hose is often piped into the garbage disposal unit under the sink.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_disposal_unit

Looks like those units are really uncommon in Europe.

These are actually banned in most countries of Europe by laws and regulations because fatty foods lead to the buildup of fatbergs in pipes and anything that's not water and feces is prime rat food.

I don't get why the USA don't ban these, but then complain about rat infestations at the same time. JFC.

There aren't huge rat problems in the US, and having to clean out the sink drain filter multiple times per day is a disgusting waste of time.

I split my time between Germany and the US and the lack of a garbage disposal in the kitchen sink is a constant annoyance. (It's nothing to do with fatty foods; the reasoning provided seems like a red herring.)

> There aren't huge rat problems in the US

New York's rat problem is world-(in)famous, as is San Francisco's.

> and having to clean out the sink drain filter multiple times per day is a disgusting waste of time.

Yeah, if you're peeling onions and potatoes over the sink instead of a bio-waste container. Do it like Germans do (in fact, if you look up your community's Abfallsatzung you may be required to) and you won't need to clean that thing more often than once every few months.

The hundreds of millions of homes in the US not in NYC and SF also ~all have garbage disposals and no major rat problems. (NYC banned garbage disposals until the '90s when it was lifted, and its rat population predates that by over a century.).

I don't ever peel anything over the sink, it's just the small particles of stuff from washing that fills up the filter. This isn't a "you're holding it wrong".

I get the impression it's a similar objection to air conditioning: it's regarded as foreign, atypical, and unnecessary luxury, so plausible justifications about why it's bad are trotted out.

One of my favorite parts of visiting asia is discovering what fun new things have been electrified and automated. It seems europeans tend to have the opposite culture, and regard using electricity as vaguely sinful.

> I don't ever peel anything over the sink, it's just the small particles of stuff from washing that fills up the filter.

That's still weird. Standard German kitchen sinks have a very coarse filter [1], it's almost impossible to clog these up with anything but potato and onion peel segments.

[1] https://www.obi.de/edelstahlspuelen/pyramis-einbauspuele-ca-...

Here in Singapore those sink garbage macerator are not common, and I haven't seen them elsewhere in Asia so far.

(I'm considering whether it would make sense for us to install one.)

But in no country that I visited without those macerators do people clean their sinks multiple times a day. Are you sure you aren't 'holding it wrong'?

In EU we typically have separate waste bin for food leftovers that I expect would go to this garbage disposal in kitchen sink. So if you put the food leftovers to separate garbage bin, there's pretty much nothing that will end up in drain filter to be cleared. It's just different routine. I think you also misread the response about the fatty foods. I don't feel it was related to fatty food in USA, it was more in a sense that if you shred fat leftovers, it will eventually clog some pipe down the line.

I went jogging in Brooklyn (Williamsburg) and stepped on a huge rat. Poor dude was just having breakfast in one of the garbage heaps on the sidewalk. Never experienced that in Europe before.

In Utrecht The Netherlands it's common for bars and restaurants in the old town to have cats that stay with the location. Locations would change hands, and the cats stayed at that location.

I used to live there and the rodent problem is real. There was a great book about it a few years back where they wrote up a little piece on each cat at each location. And yes, I had a cat in my house because without a cat you get mice.

Paris is also notorious for its rat problem. To say that Europe doesn't have rats is just silly.

> ... and having to clean out the sink drain filter multiple times per day is a disgusting waste of time.

What are you doing to your sink?

Also uncommon in Asia and Australia.

Heh. When reading that Wikipedia article, they only referenced European (and UK) countries in their "Adoption and Bans" section. That kinda made me view the entire world as "The US or EU/UK", and—with that anchoring—I assumed you must live "in the other one".

So, yeah. I guess those things are a quirk of the US only.

Quite a lot of online commentary is framed as "US or EU", or sometimes "US, EU and Asia". There are tens of other countries out there with hundreds of millions of people.

I don't think Miele has any special loophole that will allow them to bypass the new 2023 energy/water requirements for dishwashers sold in the US.

Perhaps I will ship a German SKU Miele from Germany, and figure out how to get 230V/50Hz to it. I wonder which 60Hz market has the highest power/water limit Miele SKUs.

No, but they are better designed in ways that allow them to clean well with lower power consumption. The tub is better insulated for example and they don’t waste energy on a heated dry cycle. That energy allowance can be better utilized in the main cleaning cycle.

We had drying issues with our Miele that was addressed by using the rinse agent. Now generally dry results.

Are there new 2023 requirements? In the past, the only thing that DOE requirements applied to was the "Normal" cycle. All others can use as much water as they want since DOE regs don't apply.

It should work fine at 240V, 60Hz without issues.

AC motors are famously sensitive to power frequency. It's not the same as resistive loads. I'll definitely do some research, however.

I imagine there are some Japanese ones from the 60Hz half of Japan (you read that right, yes) that might fit the bill, too.

Second this. Just bought a Miele dishwasher in our renovation and it’s by far the best dishwasher we’ve owned. Well worth the extra $$$.

Also make sure you check the traps and clean the rotating heads - that was an issue with our older Bosch after a while.

I have a Miele dishwasher and it does a great job of washing ceramic and glass dishes. But reusable plastic food containers (Gladware, etc.) always come out sopping wet and I have to hand-dry them.

The Miele is nice and quiet, but sometimes I miss my old loud energy-hogging dishwasher that had a real "dry" cycle with a fan.

> But reusable plastic food containers (Gladware, etc.) always come out sopping wet and I have to hand-dry them.

ime this is because plastics have lower thermal mass and hence cool out faster than the ceramic/glass/metal things. while the water evaporates from warm objects it then condenses at lower temperature surfaces.

I have a Miele dishwasher in the US. It works great, but normal clean cycle is 2h37m :( it takes forever. Comes out clean though!

I run it on sanitize (baby bottles) with just pods (and rinse aid, it helps getting the water off/dry) and everything comes out squeaky clean. No matter the gunk on it.

Had a Bosch when I lived in Germany. 1h14min for a normal cycle, pods. Came out squeaky clean too. I miss that machine. The extra time the Miele in the US takes is really annoying

I’ve learned you don’t actually need to sanitize baby bottles in the dishwasher, you can just hand wash them normally, and you don’t get as many leaks. Also watch the rinse aid in a baby bottle - it can cause leaky gut: https://lastinghealth.com/news/rinse-aid-affects-immune-and-....

Modern Bosch machines these days all take ~3:30 by default on the eco mode, and ~2:45 on the normal/auto mode.

Modern Bosch machines also have a "fast" mode that is done in just 1h:9m. Of course it uses more water and energy, but I'm fine with that. Dishes come out squeaky clean and mostly dry.

I bought an AEG dishwasher two years ago specifically because it has a 1h "quick" and a 1h30m "normal" cycle (both extend by 15m if you enable the GlassCare option).

We need a new washing machine and top of the line Miele's program takes 3 hours. Ridiculous. I don't care about power or water, I want it fast.

On my Miele at least, there is a 65° power wash setting which takes less than one hour

We bought a Miele because I was sick and tired of replacing our machine every 3 years (or less in the case of the last one.)

The quality of the unit is substantially better than any other DW I've experienced. Jury is out on how long it's going to last, but by reputation, There's Miele, Bosch, and everybody else.

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