The 18" DW is made for bar area/butler's pantry dishwasher useage and for tiny apartments.

The best is Miele Futura Dimension Slimline Series G4500. It has a built-in water softner to manipulate water hardness of your water throughout the cycle so fine stemware and crystal come out perfect.Miele is the only dishwasher approved by Riedel. Works well on standard dishes too.

A cheaper option would be the Bosch SPX5ES55UCx. It also has a built-water softner that softens water but does not manipulate it throughout the cycle like Miele.

I would avoid the GE models.

Economies of scale do work against the 18" models.

Miele has load and turbidity sensors on some 24" models.

Bosch has a half-load option and turbidity sensors on some 24" models.

So I don't think the 18" models are more efficient in any significant way.It is a space savor for smaller areas.

Yes, a 24" seems a better solution and we have the room for it. Right now the Bosch 800 series seems to be the best fir for our wine glasses. The upper rack holders seem to have the best fit for our glasses.

A single fisher paykel dish drawer would be an excellent choice to wash bar ware.

We got the Bosch 800 series for our wet bar. It has a nice fit for tall wine glasses (which we have and will be the primary barware cleaned!) It has the option for quick wash and it's quiet enough to be near our dining room (the wetbar is next to the dining room.)

Our other choice was the Fisher Paykel dish drawer and they were good for plates but not for our wine glasses (we could fit 6 red wine or 8 white wine!) Not a great choice for us at all!

Good luck!

good gosh corky - how big are your wine glasses ???

What "manipulate water hardness of your water throughout the cycle" in regards to the Miele mean?

I considered both the Bosch and the Miele and went with the Bosch due to the price difference, just ordered them from AJ Madison for a great deal - even better if you have to buy more than one Bosch appliance. (I'm so impressed with the deal that I must have mentioned it on 5 threads this week) ha

Ours are big wine glasses, I actually took one to the stores around here to compare how the racks would handle them. The top rack on the Bosch 800 series did better than most others. There were some LG units that were close but i'm not sure I'm prepared to go with that brand.

Thanks for the noise observation on the 800, ours is likewise going on a bar wall opposite the dining room, and we've got all wood floors. So noise is definitely a concern. Not enough to spend crazy for it, but certainly a factor.

Ha, xedos, not sure if you mean me but they are really tall and then the red wine glass have a fairly large bowl. To anyone out there, I ABSOLUTELY recommend doing what you did - taking your actual wine glasses/barware to the store and try them in the dishwashers.

We quickly discovered a) we couldn't get the drawers, b) we wanted a full-size, c) we didn't want the cutlery rack on the top b/c our glasses were too tall (even in the regular kitchen!)

The noise situation on the 800 is fantastic and we have all hardwood floors here too (our home in a 1917 colonial.)

The ONLY key to using a bosch is really letting it go all the way through the cycle - it will seem like it's finished b/c it's so quiet but it would still be in the dry stage. If you open it, it's not going to dry at all b/c you've let the energy out. :-)

We're getting a second dishwasher in our kitchen and I'm looking at the Electrolux line (b/c of the fridge/freezer and ovens,) and I'm a little torn. It's a European dishwasher in mode but not a Bosch so I'm not completely convinced. I need either a professional handle though (to go with Electrolux Icon all fridge/freezer) or no handle at all. :)

akcorcoran - if you like your Bosch, why don't you get a panel ready one?

I'm considering it, for sure. I was kind of looking at the Electrolux together b/c the store offered me better pricing (although that's often a sign that *something* in there isn't top rate.) I actually need it in stainless so the panel ready isn't an issue.

It's that I'm still torn in the whole heated dry w/disposal vs European no disposal/not heated dry debate. For the wet bar, we are really ONLY putting china and wine glasses in the dishwasher, pure entertaining materials. But, in our kitchen, I want a workhorse - and we use a lot of non-glass materials - my girls have to bring a trash-free lunch, so that's a lot of tupperware. We drink from Tervis Tumblers so that's not glass either. I had heard a heated dry was better for those types of materials. Any opinions there?

A

I share the no dry/no disposal opinion, it just seems unnecessary given how we use it. But I won't argue against having the features; just that we don't have much use for them.