installing the dishwasher

This spring break was dedicated to home improvement projects. Today's objective was to install the dishwasher. Last week we went and picked one out. Based on what was available, and what we were willing to spend, we ended up getting the LG 4821.

I noticed that there's a lot of negative reviews online, but most of them are about another model (the 6810) or detail scenarios that don't apply to me (we don't have hard water). I chose this one based on the fact that it was around $600 (we were looking for a mid-range price).

We wanted a stainless steel dishwasher because our other appliances are all stainless steel so that ruled out any of the cheaper brands (this one had a stainless exterior AND interior--a lot of the other stainless steel dishwashers in this price range had plastic interiors, which I wasn't too wild about). Besides having a stainless steel interior, this dishwasher also has a much more functional and roomy interior than most of the ones we looked at (my criterion is that it had to hold more dishes than the portable I have been using, and sadly most of the other brands we looked at had less capacity than my ancient portable!) I wanted a fairly roomy tub so I won't have to run it all the time--it takes us nearly a week to fill up a dishwasher. Also, the racks on this one seemed more sturdy and far less flimsy than many of the others we looked at...which matters to me because I tend to overload dishwashers. Oh, and let's not forget that with all the extra space, I finally have a dishwasher that is tall enough for my stemware and thermoses! Yes!

I haven't had a dishwasher that was less than 10 years old, so I was amazed by all the high tech features that appliances seem to have nowadays (the glasstop stoves nearby all looked like their controls were modeled off of an iPod). This dishwasher control display looks more like a stereo! I'm glad that someone else shares my timer fetish--most of the new dishwashers had a timer/countdown feature so you can tell how long it will be running. It even has a little chime at the end to let you know it's done...which is helpful because it's so quiet that unless you're in the same room, you probably wouldn't realize the machine had stopped running.

This dishwasher is VERY quiet. They weren't kidding about that. Most of the dishwashers I've ever had were loud enough to hear a block away and ran for hours on end. This one is SO quiet. All you hear when it's on is the quiet sloshing of water, and a bit of draining now and then. No loud churning motor! I probably make more noise when I'm handwashing dishes. It's energy efficient (a new Energy Star–qualified dishwasher can save you more than $30 a year on power and almost 500 gallons of water). It doesn't use a heating element, so that probably accounts for the "wet dishes" you hear people complaining about online. Personally that's not a concern for me, because normally air dry the dishes to save money and energy...I just prop the door open when it's done, and let the steam escape into the house (we don't live in a humid climate) and I them air dry.

This was not an easy installation, and I knew it wouldn't be just based on the logistics of where it was going. It took us an entire day to do the installation, which included demolition time, several trips to the hardware and plumbing supply store, and so on.

This was a completely new installation into a space where a dishwasher had never been. What we had before this was a portable dishwasher (a dishwasher on wheels with a butcher block top that you wheel over to the sink and attach to the faucet. But I figure, A: I'm tired of hauling the beast out every time I want to run a load of dishes (it's heavy/cumbersome/and in the way big time), and B: It will dramatically increase the desire of someone to buy this house if it has a permanent dishwasher. The house--by the way--was built in 1910, so there were not considerations at the time the kitchen was designed for our modern fancies for large labor-saving appliances. The fact that nobody had attempted it before during any of the previous remodels is a testament to the pain-in-the-butt factor that we were facing. When you buy new appliances, of course you can pay to have them installed, but I doubt anyone will come in and bust out your cabinets, install an electrical hookup, and redo all of your plumbing. In a situation like this, you might as well do as much of it yourself as possible--because ultimately you'd have to hire a whole string of people to do a job like this. In order to install a a "built in" dishwasher, we had to take out one of the floor cabinets to make a space for the diswasher.

There was no provisions for this mechanical beast at the site where the dishwasher was going, so we had to call an electrician out (a tale unto itself), and revise the sink plumbing to accommodate the addition of a dishwasher (It had to go next to the sink because otherwise, according to the plumbing code, a separate hot water and drainage connection must be provided for the dishwasher--which is way more work than simply tapping into the sink). That means we had to gut the most functional piece of cabinetry in the whole kitchen--the drawers, which unfortunately happened to be in the only place where you could reasonably put a dishwasher. (This was a hard choice for me because I don't know how I feel about having to live without drawers for awhile.)

The dishwasher, the salesman warned us, is slightly larger than the standard size (24"). It's about an inch larger. Well fortunately it fit perfectly into the cabinet (once we removed all the drawers), and only protrudes slightly in the front. Gutting the cabinets was quite a chore. This was not easy, and it was impossible to do it without causing some damage to the adjacent cabinets and the counter top.

The counter top, I wasn't as concerned about--It's some sort of cheap vinyl and really old and not in the best shape anyway. I'd love an excuse to replace it anyway. The vinyl floors are also not something I'm too attached to, and they already have plenty of dings and scratches from when we moved the refrigerator and range in. I didn't want to damage the floor cabinets, however because I know these are far more expensive to replace.

Each cabinets was screwed to the wall, the neighboring cabinet, and the counter top.
Even after we located and removed all the screws (they were installed with some crazy hex screws--why they didn't just use wood screws, I'll never know), things were glued and stapled and nailed in to survive the apocalypse or a nuclear detonation. Getting all of that to come out was just FUN. That took up a good 2-3 hours all by itself, but fortunately when we were done, the dishwasher DID fit in the hole! (This was a concern!)

Then we had to drill the holes into the sink cabinet for the water and electrical supply lines to run them over to the sink. That was a bit tricky because the plywood under the sink was so thick.

Then the plumbing under the sink had to be revised. Complicating matters was the fact that we have a double sink (most of the dishwasher installation instructions out there cover the simpler continuous waste kit (center drain). We had an end waste kit that we had to tap into, but fortunately it wasn't all that hard once we found better information. It wouldn't have taken that long except the guy at George Morlan led us astray. Moral of the story--don't assume that because someone works at a plumbing supply store that they know anything about plumbing. The really nerve-wracking part was putting it all back together and hoping that nothing was going to leak.

The electrical hookup was also tricky because the supplied appliance cord (unlike the dishwasher panel) didn't have ANY colors on the wire sheathing to indicate any different between the neutral and hot wires. It would have been so easy if it WAS color coded. Electricity is NOT my area of expertise, so I had to spend a lot of time on the internet to ascertain which wire was neutral and which was hot (the ground wire was more obvious), so I wouldn't have a huge electrical safety hazard on my hands. I knew somewhere I had seen information about how to identify wiring when it's not color coded (coded for polarity), but for the life of me, I couldn't remember where and when I had heard this.

The Complete Guide to Home Wiring was a bit vague but I did see a reference to ridged-vs-smooth. I consulted Your Old Wiring which confirmed it.

The ridged/ribbed sheathing denotes the neutral conductor.
(often connects to white)

The smooth (non-ribbed) sheathing is the hot conductor.
(often connects to black)

This matters for the obvious reasons--if you do it backwards, the polarized appliance will be "hot" (not safe).

Once we figured that out, we were ready to hook up the lines, and get her running.
I gleefully tossed all my dirty dishes in, shut the door, and pressed start!

We sat on the kitchen floor, covered with bits of sawdust and surrounded by scattered tools, and watched like giddy children with both fascination and fear as the machine started up. I of course was expecting a biblical flood, but thankfully nothing of the sort ensued. It was rather anti climatic--all we could hear was the quiet swishing of water (that stayed where it was supposed to), and the slight gurgling of water draining out the hose into the sink trap (also not leaking!). All we could see was the timer counting down--no epic floods resulted. So after about five minutes, we wearily got up off the floor and went bravely in to watch a movie.

How does it work? The dishwasher finished before the movie (much shorter run-time). Apparently my biodegradable Trader Joe's earth-friendly-detergent works just fine in this new machine. I did NOT use a rinse aid as recommended. Everything came out clean--in fact the silverware looked much better than it ever did before. I didn't pre-soak a lot of the things I usually do, and they looked just fine. The glasses looked great-not streaky at all. Everything looked clean and happy, so no complaints from me. Yes, things were still damp when I opened the door, but like I said, that's not something that bothers me because I always let the dishes air dry with the door open.

Useful links for DIY Dishwasher Installations

This Old House

Plumbing and Dishwashers from Plumbing.net