We have a Bosch (800 series). I have successful used the ecover tablets in it. My loads are what you describe and I use either the express cycle or the automatic cycle. Both work fine for me. Had it less than a year so no real durability data from me, though no problems in that time.

homey_bird, We are in the bay area and we recently ordered appliances from Pacific Sales in redwood city and so far (appliances not yet delivered) have had a good experience. You can also look at University electric in Santa Clara.

FYI, your waste water doesn't go directly into the bay. It gets treated first, thank goodness. I think waste water used to be dumped in the bay 40 or 50 years ago and it wasn't pretty.

I also got all my appliances (including a Bosch dishwasher) from Pacific Sales in Redwood City - they are all delivered and installed. Their package price was as good or better then anything I could have gotten online.

That said, I use Finish Powerball tabs in the machine (which work great), so I can't answer your specific question about green cleaning products.

I got my Miele from a place in Concord called Standards of Excellence (I can't remember the name, but it wasn't named that at the time). I use Cascade complete and it works really well. It's quiet, and it doesn't use a lot of water either.

It does take a really long time to do dishes compared to my old dishwasher.

Standards of Excellence also is in San Jose.

Thank you all. Just want to clarify - yes it is true that water gets filtered before getting to the bay. However, my concern emerged because I read that Miele has their own detergent that works "optimally" with their appliance, and it costs 5x the price of regular detergent (as per the poster; never validated the fact myself). I just do not want to constrain my choice to a particular detergent to make my dishwasher work.

So, I would definitely like to hear about whether the folks here have used Bosch and/or Miele with Mrs. Meyer's, Method or Seventh Gen or even Trader Joe's environmentally friendly detergent - or any other similar type.

Thanks in advance!

Also, depending on where in the Bay Area you are (hello East Bay!), your wastewater *does* sometimes go directly into the Bay without treatment when it rains and the wastewater facilities overflow (not that we've had this problem in recent months!) This is one reason the EPA sued the East Bay municipalities a few years back; the settlement of that suit is the reason you now have to replace sewer laterals whenever a home in the area is sold. The utility companies are slowly replacing the century-old combined city sewers, but until that's complete and all of the sewer laterals are in compliance, we'll continue to have the challenge of overflow going untreated into the Bay and other water bodies in heavy rains. Not sure how many other Bay Area communities are in similar situations, but I know San Francisco has a huge sewer repair and replacement program underway for the same reason.

Anyway, now that this schpiel is done... ;) We have a three-year-old Miele (bought on closeout right before they switched to their current line) that we've been pretty happy with (caveat: we didn't have a dishwasher before then, so have little basis for comparison!) We ordered it from Universal Appliance and Kitchen Center in Los Angeles--it was the only major purchase we made out of the area, but they had the discontinued model on clearance so it was a $300-$400 cost difference.

We use Ecover dishwasher tabs and have been happy with those. Mixed results with Trader Joe's; I also like the Ecover powder but had problems with overfilling, etc. and just decided that the tabs were a better plan overall. I don't think we've tried Seventh Generation, so that might be fine too. Haven't tried the Miele detergent either so I don't know if it's a lot better, but Ecover seems fine to us. Have never had to service it, but I did ask around before we decided to get one and there are several shops in the Oakland/Berkeley area that service them--I imagine this is also the case in other parts of the region. We opted to install it ourselves and purchased it on a credit card that doubled the warranty, as opposed to having Miele install it, which automatically extends your warranty. Figured that if we did need it serviced, that might simplify things. The install was impressively simple. The other big plus to it was that our city waived the California air gap requirement for it because the manual included documentation of how the dishwasher addresses this internally.

We didn't see a significant change in our water or electric bills post-remodel, which I took as a good sign since we added both the dishwasher and a range hood. It's pretty quiet (again, no basis for comparison, but we have a small house and when it's running it's barely audible in the adjoining rooms except if water is running into it). We put absolutely everything in and mostly just run it on the normal setting, and it does a pretty solid job most of the time. I do use the pots and pans setting for really caked on stuff, and even then it can't always tackle pots that have been sitting for a while--but that seems reasonable! HTH!

We've bought two Bosch dishwashers over the past 3 yrs. We went with simple lower end and relatively small sized units. We just don't see the value in all the bells and whistles. Besides, if something doesn't get cleaned she always has me to square things away. We bought the second in SS, due to the kitchen re-model, and gave the original white one to our daughter. She loves it;) She even let me install it for her. So sweet! Anyway, they are very quiet and we are very pleased with it…them!

Hi all - thank you again for everyone's feedback. Just wanted to post an update. I spoke to another dealer of Miele here in bay area, and were told that Miele works fine with any powdered dishwasher brand, however, where they recommend Miele's own is if you are using pre-measured quantities such as tablets or sacks.
Looks like I will be familiarizing myself with Rinse Aid but that's life for most Energy Star dishwashers anyway, and Seventh Gen. has a product.

I have not yet figured if our water here is so hard that I will need water softener, but I plan to find out.

Overall, received a very strong feedback on Miele around here, and offline. Also, by Jan 31st, they have a complimentary 5 yr warranty, labor and parts covered, and that sealed the deal. Based on it, we decided on Miele Futura Dimension dishwasher.

Thank you again, I will post if I have any interesting experiences with my new dishwasher.

Visited CG Appliance in San Carlos last weekend and George was very knowledgeable about the appliances