When I purchased my house, I did not care if it had a dishwasher, garbage disposal or trash compacter. My real estate agent told me to care, for negotiating purposes, so of course, I could play the game.
The kitchen in my house is old. I bought the house in 1992, and had to buy a new refrigerator. I had a washing machine and dryer that we had purchased in 1983. There was a built in oven, a stove top and dishwasher. There was also a range hood. I am not sure what year I sold the washer and dryer but they were close to if not 20 years old. In 2004, I changed the kitchen faucet, purchased a new stove top and dishwasher. In 2005, I purchased a new washer and dryer.
The dishwasher is called an apartment sized dishwasher. Well, I have lived in a couple of apartments that had full sized dishwashers, so I am not sure why it has that name, but it does. Very often, one shelf is filled before the other. Sometimes, I can re-position items so I can fit more in, but that is not possible when I have a lot of plastics to wash. They are only top shelf dishwasher safe. So, no matter how full the bottom shelf is, it is time to run the dishwasher when the plastics fill the top shelf. Or wash things by hand. I dislike washing plastic items by hand because I feel like I cannot get the water hot enough to remove the greasy film from the plastic. So, I run the dishwasher.
I do wash a lot of pots, pans, and other large cooking dishes by hand, simply because they take up so much room in the little dishwasher.
Several years ago, I had trouble with food particles being left on the dishes. I tried several things, including increasing the temperature of the water in the hot water heater, scraping and rinsing better before I put things in the dishwasher, changing soaps, and cleaning out the filter, which I had been doing since I had the machine. But, the filter system was put together in a way that I could not get it as clean as I wanted to. And these efforts did not work.
So, finally, I decided to spend the money on an appliance repair call. The repairman showed me how I needed to clean the filters. He took them apart and showed me how to put them back together. He also told me about a product called "Lemi Shine" http://www.lemishine.com/ and told me to use the product with each wash. It keeps the limescale from building up on the filter and preventing the water from passing through. He told me to scrub the small pore filter, also. From time to time, I soak the filter in CLR http://www.jelmar.com/CLRbasic.htm. The reason for that is the water in Lubbock is so hard, and filled with depositable minerals, that the limescale closes the pores on the filter, and water cannot pass through, and it prevents the food grinder from working properly.
I understand this. Before I started maintaining the dishwasher properly, food grunge built up inside the dishwasher. It was like having undigested food particles on the inside of the dishwasher. It smelled and looked bad. I cleaned it out regularly, but it was nasty.
A co-worker told me to use vinegar instead of Lemi Shine. I tried that for a while, but it was not as effective as Lemi Shine. So, the expense is worth it.
What really amazes me the most, when I clean the dishwasher filter, is the amount of Sake fur that is caught up in the filter. Sake fur flies everywhere in my house: the ceiling fan blades, the wall hangings, the TV screens, the refrigerator. Well, so keeping the filters clean of Sake fur is important.
So, I think having an apartment sized dishwasher is not as efficient as having a full sized dishwasher, but not matter, I use it. I was in an apartment once, and did not use the dishwasher regularly, and the seals dried up and cracked, so when I did use it, it leaked.
Besides, I have better things to do than wash dishes every day.
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