I have a plain old dishwasher that drains into a plain old garbage disposal. Had never heard of cleaning out a "trap" before reading this thread. Sometimes - more old fashioned is easier. With regard to SS - when I was looking at ovens - I briefly considered SS. Some appliances have finishes that really are totally fingerprint resistant - others take prints suitable for the FBI :). Go to an appliance store with your kids after they've been playing outside and have them wipe their hands off on the various finishes. WYSIWYG. BTW - another issue where I live is SS interiors. We have hard water with lots of minerals - and - even with a water softener - the SS interiors look like garbage after a couple of washes (many that are hooked up and run in showrooms look horrible). FWIW - to keep my flatware looking good - I take it out of the DW and hand dry it so it doesn't spot all over. My flatware is worth it. The interior of a DW isn't - at least for me. Robyn

That's what I thought too, but having had to clean my KA's disposer twice (a real PITA) and replace it once over the course of 18 months, I don't think so anymore. I can only speak about KitchenAid (and the associated Whirlpool and Kenmore models). Perhaps other brands have better arrangements, I don't know. It's not really a food disposer; it's a rather cheap chopper and screen assembly (see link below), and if you're not careful about what solid foods remain on your dishes, it will clog and prevent adequate water flow from reaching the upper rack. Moreover, it will take some of the semi-chopped solid food and actually make whatever's in the top rack dirtier than when it went in. I've learned to carefully scrape every plate before it goes in. Mine is less than 2 years old and works reasonably well otherwise, but when I eventually replace it, I'll avoid a built-in "disposer". Here is a link that might be useful: KitchenAid Repair/Chopper Replacement

You might try one of these models. They are the only dishwashers that that I know of which offer food grinders/disposers while operating at a 44 dB level. These two models offer this and the only difference between these two model numbers is the handle style. (one has the towel bar style handle and the other is a pocket door style, but they are otherwise identical and offer an impressive array of options and cycles). Not all of the Maytag line has the same low decibel level and even though these are the most expensive Maytags you can purchase, they are still a great value in my humble opinion. I have a number of luxury brands that I selected for my kitchen project, (Wolf & Subzero for example) but I specifically chose these (I bought two of them actually ) for my dishwasher needs because I create so many dishes to be washed on any given day that I really don’t want to have to clean out dishwasher filters about once every three weeks, which is what I had to do when I owned a Bosch. Not everyone has to clean out their filter as frequently as I do and perhaps that’s just me, but it is one of my idiosyncrasies that I do not want to pay $3000 for a European style dishwasher that I have to play “clean the filter game”. On the Maytag website under dishwashers, I believe they have a website video showing off the “ Power blast cycle“ if I recall the name correctly. It shows them putting in all kinds of food such as a whole cake and then running the dishwasher and showing how it cleans. That’s a pretty cocky claim to make, but apparently it works as advertised because I have never had anything left on dishes when running mine. These are the two model numbers I was referring to here: Maytag MDB9979SKZ Maytag. MDB9959SKZ

I started to use this sight when I up-dated my kitchen, the help I've received is invaluable. Hope this is not found OT. We became first time pool owners when we bought this house. The first summer we had someone do our chemicals and clean the pool. After emptying the skimmer baskets 2 times I put handles on them. The first time I emptied out the Robot bag I regretted getting the robot if I had to do this each week, I thought it was disgusting. I then looked online for disposable bags. I found them at Nastybag.com. I'm able to use each bag for several cleanings, my pool is always clean, in fact the person I use for pool emergencies (opening/closing/ broken heater) told me how my chemicals are always perfect, and pool is always clean. I gave him a bag, he now uses them too, as do several friends. Thought I would pass this information here to.