I've seen the drawer dishwashers from KA and FP and didn't like either one. All that extra hardware just takes up space and to me it doesn't seem like you could fit as much into it as a standard dishwasher. Also, I've read reports about leaks and quality issues, but I'm not sure if that's still the case on newer models.

I went with a standard Miele dishwasher earlier this summer and have been quite happy with the results. It takes less than 5 minutes to empty, so I'm not sure how much lazier one could be?

There's a lot of misinformation floating around on these machines.

They're not exactly a "new" product. The F&P units have been on the market for 13+ years. There have been several series/design updates -- 601, 602, 603, 605, DD24/DS24, DishDrawer Tall, and now also a new DishDrawer Wide which is 36" in width. Some substantial mechanical changes occurred between the 2nd- and 3rd-generation series which greatly improved reliability, and several "minor" improvements along the way within each series. There have been "horror" stories reported on every brand. While the drawer platform of course doesn't fit everyone's "dishwasher lifestyle," I doubt they would have survived on the market, and indeed continued in development, if they really were a bad product.

KitchenAid's 1st-generation models were in fact rebadged F&P units, exactly the same mechanically, slight change in the offered cycles. Kenmore Elite, Maytag, KA 2nd-generation and later units are a completely different mechanical design, not related in any way to F&P.

Regards to capacity ... a single drawer generally should hold about 60% of a traditional machine, so both drawers together is about 120% ... but the specifics of that depends on what kind of dishes/items are involved. I have a tendency in use to think of each drawer a "whole" dishwasher equivalent to a traditional machine and have a mental urge to stuff everything into one drawer, one load, one cycle ... which of course, each drawer technically is a "whole" dishwasher, but also of course not separately equal to the combined upper/lower racks of a traditional unit. It helps to think on the 60% scale.

Obviously there isn't as much vertical height/space in a drawer as there is in a traditional unit, where large items such as cookie sheets and serving platters may be placed at the sides of the lower rack and extend upwards along the walls of the tank beside the upper rack.

One distinct advantage of the F&P units is they always, *always* heat the water to specific target temperatures per the selected cycle. There's is NO heating limitation by time or incoming water temp. They can run on a cold water connection. There's no need on a hot water connection to run the sink faucet first to purge the line, the cycle is extended as necessary so the target main wash and final rinse temp is *always* reached.

First I will say, do a search on this site. When I was in the market for dishdrawers, I found numerous threads. One that almost had me convinced NOT to buy them, but by the end GWers were helping each other with any problems(like finding a sippy cup lid that was stuck in the bottom was preventing one person's dd from cleaning completely) and for the most part it seemed everyone was happy.

I did buy the F&P double dish drawers, tall tub on top. Mine also has the water softener feature. I love this thing, it was installed by the store I bought it from (my dh could have done it, but I wanted it done so that they would stand by their extended warranty that I squeezed out of them). My dishes are sparkling.

If I had to do it all over again, I might consider the single drawer. One on each side of the sink. I'm not a big fan of using the lower drawer too much, but I do.

When I started my search, I called one store to see if they had one to look at. The salesman told me NOT to buy it, they didn't have good enough customer satisfaction. So, I called another very reputable store, talked to the service manager. He said he had one himself. He told me that F&P has worked out most of the problems that people complained about earlier, and in fact they really didn't have a lot of service calls for them. I bought it from him.

And one more interesting story--when we went in to see the dd in person, the salesman told me that he went to a seminar at F&P. In the beginning of the lecture, they put a complete cake in the dd. After they ran it, the cake was completely gone. He said that demo alone turned him into a believer.