Dishwasher: Choose Clean Over Beauty and Longevity

I have this dream that someday, someone is going to set out to build the perfect dishwasher and they’ll send letters and notices to every town and village, and they’ll nail a poster to the front door of town hall saying, “wanted …citizens to volunteer to help build the greatest dishwasher ever built” and crowds will gather and read it, a murmur will begin among the gathered crowds, and I’ll push by everyone, demanding to see what the ruckus is about, My eyes will open wide and my jaw will drop and a small child in the crowd will point at me and exclaim, “Him!  He can do it.” For in this village, it is known to all, that I have been busy in my workshop scribbling ideas and designs for a dishwasher that will clean everything every time and will last for decades. A dishwasher that a proud man can leave to his children in his will, and they to their children. I’d rip the flyer from the bulletin board and run home, throw open the door to my home and say to my family, “I must go. My nation needs me. I will help end this vicious cycle of good-enough dishwashers designed to only last for so long and none designed to actually clean dishes,” and my wife will cry, knowing I’m going away, and my kids will beam with pride because their Dad is going to make a difference in the world. And off I would go.

I applaud a quality product brought to market by someone passionate about what a product should do. Thing is, I don’t know if that applies to dishwashers. Most are just another appliance in a big world of appliances by big companies, all mostly owned by Whirpool. Samsung does their thing. LG does their thing. And if you want to pay $1,500+ for a dishwasher you *might* get a dishwasher that lasts 10 years. 

I just spent the last 6 years with the crappiest dishwasher possible. In six years, I had someone out to repair it three times. The heating coil died once. The spinner/sprayer stopped another time. Then it wouldn’t drain. And finally, this time, the top-rack broke (could only be used in the lowest position) and the upper sprayer stopped spinning and the heating coil died, again. All of this in 6 years. 

We blew it. We remodeled our kitchen and bought appliances for how they looked, figuring, hey, everything is built like crap and everything breaks, so let’s just get something that looks really cool. I won’t disparage the brand by name, but the fridge needed 2 repairs, the dishwasher 3 repairs and then full replacement, and the range needed an expensive repair (heating coil snapped in half and it was out of warranty). 

So now I own the LG LG4542 dishwasher and I hope I’m not writing a scathing follow-up anytime soon. 

This time, it was less about “good looking” and more about “cleans all my dishes” and this LG promises to do it.  Two weeks into ownership, I’m in love. LG makes some good stuff. 

If there’s ever a dishwasher manufacturing company that needs a focus group, I hope they fly me to their headquarters and make me part of this think-tank. My LG washing machine (3 years) has been flawless. Our LG range (1 year) has been great. And now this dishwasher, at first blush, seems like it was designed by someone who cares about what a dishwasher can (and should) do. 

It cleans dishes!  All of them. Everywhere. End to end. Top to bottom. Watch the video below. What they got right is their multi-angle sprayers. It helps if you know how to properly load a dishwasher….

• All dishes in line-of-sight of spray mechanisms and arms
• Dishes wiped mostly free of food and liquids and brushed if there’s something like cheese on them
• NOT overloaded and dishes blocking other dishes

…but this one even cleans dishes that aren’t perfectly positioned to get the high-pressure spray. It has a top-top spray for the top-top rack. It has a middle sprayer that helps the other spray arm, and then there’s the bottom sprayer.

I dreamed of having a dishwasher that would clean dishes even when loaded like in my pictures below.

So far, doing a load daily, it’s better than any dishwasher I’ve ever owned (this is my fourth dishwasher of my adult life …I wasn’t allowed to use or mess with the family dishwasher as a kid, so I don’t know if 70s/80s dishwashers were better or not). Glasses are clear and brilliant and the silverware looks brand new every time.

Plus, I’m going to commit to the monthly maintenance and citric acid loads and regular cleaning of the filter. 

Maybe a 5-6 year lifespan is just what I should expect and that most appliances are like rentals. This thing cost me $700 to install and if it makes it 6 years, at about 325 washes per year, I just have to look at it like I rent a dishwasher for about $115 per year or about .36-cents per load. 

This dishwasher aligns with my protect-the-planet and save-money-save-water obsession. It uses a mere 5-gallons of water each time. Wow! I recently learned that handwashing dishes can use, on average, 27 gallons of water each time and we use about 15-gallons when we’re just running the water and rinsing things. So even if I run a load only with pots and pans instead of scrubbing them, and then running a second load with plates, bowls, and silverware …I’m doing good by my wallet and the Earth. 

By now, if you’re still reading, you’re wondering what is the point?

Many things will and can disappoint us. But take delight for as long as things are delightful and wonderful. Apply Stoicism to “things”. I can’t control how long this dishwasher will last and keep performing brilliantly, but this time, rather than picking my dishwasher based solely on its beauty, I did some research on which dishwasher cleans the best. I read articles. I watched videos. I was determined to be happy, this time, even if short lived. Because previously, I had buyer’s remorse from day-1 and I was drying my dishes after the dishwasher was done and, on average, about 3-6 items needed to be washed again or washed by hand after the cycle was done. 

Part product review. Part lessons on learning how to load a dishwasher. Part a lesson on buying something that works.