If your place is a one bedroom, studio, or small loft I don't think it will effect resale value.

If your place can comfortable fit a family of four then it will be a small negative when it comes time to sell.

Some dishwashers have a 1/2 load feature or go as far as to detect how soiled the load is and adjusts the cycle accordingly. You may want to look into that before putting in a smaller dishwasher.

You could consider one DW drawer. It would suffice for your needs, and it would use 24" of you linear space for a standard DW.

I think the dish drawer is seen as "cool," and might be better for resale. Might also cost more, too. Functionally, I think I'd rather have the 18" full-height dishwasher. I wonder which would hold more? Probably the 18".

My DW has a "top rack only" feature. We use it when our sons are away at college; when they are home, we use the whole thing.

It's nice to have the choice.

Our DW also have a "top rack only" option. Personally, in all but the very smallest of houses, I wouldn't opt for an 18" model. Your options for those are typically much more limited and you may not be able to get the best DW along with it being more difficult later if you need to replace it.

I know it's hard to give up that 6" of storage in a small kitchen, but it's likely that with a smart redesign, you will get more efficient storage than what you had in the original layout - for instance, drawers instead of doors = typically better storage for what you need. Full extension drawers = you can better utilize the back area of a drawer. Consider going with frameless rather than framed cabinetry - you'll gain storage space there. Will you have uppers? Are they going to be full height rather than shorter cabinets?

Our brand new Bosch 500 series has a half load option. It also is Energy Star, with a water saver option (has a sensor to determine how full & dirty the load is and wash accordingly.) I believe Bosch also sells an 18" model.

Gosh, thank you all for your responses. This is a townhouse where four can live and it is a 10 by 12 kitchen where the cabinets are in an L-shaped arrangement. I intend to go with frameless cabinets and a lazy Susan in the corner cabinets where presently there is unusable space. Can't go further up and I'm short, anyway. I'm intrigued by the dishwasher drawers or a dishwasher where just the top is used. Can a person use the bottom for storage -- until company comes?

My sister moved into a house with a renovated kitchen equipped with 2 DW drawers. She and her DH generally just fill the one. She loves it!

Whose is the most likely target buyer and how affluent a neighbourhood is it? Dish drawers are more expensive and you may need a more customizable cabinetry line to accommodate just one ( two won't save you much if any space for more storage). I live in a one bedroom condo and have opted to go to an 18" because I could go with a model that was cheaper than a drawer and in my footprint I needed that 6" to get a decent size (30") drawer stack in. I think to family buyers an 18" would be a negative and will call attention to the fact that there isn't a lot of storage even though getting more storage is why you put it in (ironies). My guess is you will be a lot happier with the extra storage until you have to sell though.

If you buy a single drawer you have a specialty cutout like an 18" dishwasher. You wood need a cabinet guy to rework the cabinets to fit a standard 24" dishwasher. Less work but still need a cabinet guy They are not as water and energy efficient as one would think. Still a turn-off for family looking to buy this townhouse down the road.

Ditto for the double drawers. F & P and their subsidiary DCS. More than a fair number leak from the top drawer to the bottom drawer.You don't gain very much nor effective storage in an unused drawer. For the prices of these drawers I would buy a full size Miele dishwasher. Again and again.

You can't use the bottom half as storage when using a Bosch half-load/top load option. It is a single unit water, detergent and food debris would fall on the "stored" items.

Okay, so here's another question - you're concerned about resale value...how soon are you planning on selling? I ask because everyone always says that they are worried about "resale value", when in fact, many of these people don't really plan on moving any time in the near-ish future and may even be ready for a new kitchen by the time resale comes along. So, while anything can happen that would require you to move, sometimes it's smarter to make decisions based on what works best for you.

Still, having said that, being a household of 2, I wouldn't consider putting an 18" DW in my house. We typically go two to three days until our DW is full and then run it. We scrape, but don't rinse and things are usually fine. But if I've cooked something that is going to be especially unpleasant smell-wise, I'll do the "top rack" or "quick rinse" option.

If I went into a house that had an 18" DW, it would make me believe that there was a space crunch and wouldn't come close to fitting all my kitchen stuff PLUS I would have a devil of a time until we could replace the entire kitchen with the DW.

I'm also "vertically challenged" at 5'3", and we are putting upper cabinets to the top of our 8' ceiling. I won't be able to easily reach the top, but it will be a great place to store lesser used items that still need a home.

We are also adding toe-kick drawers two two areas - not a huge amount of space added, but very good usable space, never-the-less. One of the things that will go in one of those drawers is a fold-flat step-stool.

Have you drawn up your plan yet? What don't you have room for in your current kitchen that you need room for in the new? Do you know where you are putting things in the new kitchen? What I'm saying is, don't automatically assume that you need to downsize an appliance in order to have more room in your kitchen...just going frameless alone is going to more than make up the 6" difference between the 18" and 24" DW.

FWIW, I had a Bosch in my previous house and could choose to do just the top rack. The Asko that I currently have, though bought almost 10 years now that I think of it, has the capability of running either the top *or* the bottom rack separately, or both together of course. I've found that far more useful than what the Bosch allowed.

HTH

We are a family of two adults; I can't imagine wanting to buy a place with an 18 inch dw. Even though we typically don't run the washer *that* often, when we have company I really need it! The only place I have seen an 18 inch model was in my mother's retirement apartment; the residents ate their main meal in the community dining room so there was little need for a full sized dw.

Could you pick up the extra space elsewhere? Turn an unused broom closet into a pantry or something?

Bleah. Double post. :-(

This post was edited by gladys1924 on Sun, Jul 7, 13 at 11:01

We probably won't leave the neighborhood until they take us to the nursing home, but I would like to protect the daughter's inheritance! Sales targets--We don't have much turnover in our neighborhood, with many empty nesters. Only one house on the block sold since the recession, to a single woman. (Our neighborhood is pretty with lots of amenities but the schools are bad....) From the responses I am pretty convinced it would be better not to do an 18" dishwasher but rather look into dishwasher drawers, and I appreciate the feedback very much indeed. To get space, I am planning to have the upper cabinets go straight over the sink, eliminating the present cutout area, thus gaining a shelf, and with frameless cabinets, adjustable shelves, and access to the corner cabinets, I hope to get my food processor, everyday dishes and my favorite appliance, my hot air popcorn popper, off the small free standing cabinet that takes up too much space on a 3rd wall. (This is the kind of kitchen where there is room for a little table in the corner.) Then two of us can eat there!

Mock up the cabs straight over the sink (make a block with taped up cardboard of the same mass). Live with it for a few weeks.

For some reason having that mass there makes working at the sink not comfortable for me (I am 5'3"). You'd think that it would be the same as with a couontertop, but I think it's the constant need to reach all the way to the faucet, sprayer, soap dispenser, etc. that's different.

I found having it that way made dishwashing and using the sink a pain in the back. In my case it was just open shelves (bad idea also because of splasing, but that's an other story). I struggled with it for a couple of months. Then I removed the shelves. (Ain't a Sawzall great?)

Immediate relief!

I think a narrow, relatively high shelf on the sink backsplash would be fine, but a traditional upper-cab-depth and height from counter arrangement just didn't work for me.

Maybe you will find it fine, but I strongly recommend you mock this up and live with it first.

HTH

L.

That's a great idea. Thanks!