Finding out which dishwasher has the shortest cycle time to make your life easier.
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Speed is everything when your to-do list is always getting longer. You've got to get dishes done, but it's one of the worst jobs ever, and you want dinner to be on the table by... when? And of course you need dishes in order to make and serve the food. So the dishwasher is one of the workhorses in your kitchen, even if you hate having to load it and get everything clean.
Fortunately, speed is one of the things that dishwasher makers have been focusing on of late, so let's take a look at where we're at.
An important note before we go on, all our research has been gathered together from a third party doing extensive testing and research. All dishwashers were tested when set to their basic settings for a normal wash.
The Heavyweight Dishwashers
These are the longest cycles on our list today. Don't let that dissuade you though, as they are also some of our best rated machines as well. Out of 100 possible points, testing for washing, drying, noise level and energy usage, all three of these scored 70 or higher. (It doesn't sound great, but many machines don't score over 70, and very few score over 90.) Out of these three, the Thermador did the best, with a solid 84 points.
How well these are rated though, is only one part of why you're here though. You're wondering why you should bother trading off speed for one of these. That is where the points come into it. Although each of these takes roughly 2.5 hours to run a load of dishes, they all do very well at making sure the dishes really get clean. Whether you're dealing with baked on foods, dishes that have been sitting in the sink all week, or that coffee cup you forgot was in your office, all of these are great for tackling built up food. That's where the trade off often comes in, of speed versus depth of cleaning.
The Thermador dishwasher did the best at getting baked on food cleaned off, as well as being energy efficient. We also loved just how much you could fit into it at one time and that it displayed the remaining amount of time left in the cycle.
Cafe CDT805P2NS1 - $983 - 155 min
The Mid-Tier Dishwashers
Let's move on to the mid tier selection. Here we've shaved off ten minutes on the standard time for the cycle length. Both the LG and the Kenmore are 24 inch counter depth dishwashers. The LG would have actually scored higher than the Kenmore if it wasn't for the known issues over time that many owners cite with LG products in general. We love the True Steam function as well as the adjustable racks and we're especially pleased by the Energy Star certification.
The Light weights
Next up, we have some of the fastest dishwashers on the market as of right now. If you notice, all of them are just over 2 hours and all of them are under $1000. The question that we have to ask, which is the best of the four? After looking all of them over closely, the Ikea Essentiell is surprisingly the best. It does the best at both washing and drying the dishes, as well as being very efficient with energy. The biggest issues for us were that it was noisy and the interior coating is plastic. As we've mentioned in the past, having a plastic coating can be problematic over the life of the dishwasher. This is a fantastic dishwasher if you're looking to outfit an apartment or rental property as it's cheap, energy efficient and very good at getting things clean.
KitchenAid KDFE104HPS - $854 - 135 min
Ikea Essentiell (80.655.85) - $580 - 135 min
And the Best of the Best
Bosch Ascenta - 595 - Cycle length 95 min
Drumroll please, here we have the best of the best, the fastest dishwasher available on the market right now. We've got the Bosch Ascenta at a cycle length of 95 minutes. That's an hour and 35 minutes. You can get everything washed in the time it takes you to make a good meal. It also scores the best out of all of the dishwashers on the list of 88 points. It scored the best on washing, drying, noise level and customer satisfaction. This is Bosch after all, and as we've seen in the past, they make very reliable appliances.
What we wanted to know was, "what makes a dishwasher fast? What are they giving up by being faster?"
Most fast dishwashers give you adjustable settings so you can choose a shorter cycle at the expense of a through cleaning. But the research shows that that's not the case with the Bosch Ascenta. As we said earlier, all of the dishwashers are tested on a standard cycle for their speed, washing and drying capabilities. And after digging around and finding nothing, we have to assume that the information for what makes a dishwasher fast is proprietary. It might have something to do with the speed of the internal water jets, or the temperatures that the water is heated to. Let us know what you think it might be, or if you have any insight!
With all of this in mind, let us know which one are you most interested in? Do you value speed or strength when it comes to your dishwasher? Let us know in the comments below or over on our Facebook page. We'd love to hear from you!
If your dishwasher is giving fits but you're not interested in buying a new one, we can help! Give us a call at ((214) 599-0055) or head over to our contact page to set up an appointment that works for you. Wherever you are in the Dallas area we can help get your home running smoothly again.
Important note: We have heard about the Thermador Star Series. We didn't include that one on our list because these are the base speeds for the dishwashers, not specialized settings. We will have to do a review of the Thermador at some point in the future.
Additional Reading
Dishwasher Deep Dive
What Can vs Can’t go into a dishwasher
Help I melted plastic in my dishwasher(!)