Edit and update, Dec. 2022: (Earlier article below)
I decided that the Counter top Dishwasher (DW) made by Hermitlux linked here from Amazon would probably work best for me so I ordered and received it in December of ’22. And I dismissed the idea of installing the Miele because I didn’t like how big and tall the Miele DW was (see story below). It was only 18″ wide so I could have lived with that but it was counter top tall would would have necessitated cabinet remodeling to make it fit into the kitchen correctly. Plus it was so heavy that I’d need some stout clamps to make it safe in the event of an accident. I eventually gave up on the idea of using the Miele and I sold it for $199 so I did good with that too, made a nice profit.
After receiving the Hermitlux, set it up on the floor next to the kitchen counter and initially used the pitcher to put 5.0 ltrs of water in the holding container inside the DW, routed the drain hose into the sink, plugged it in at the nearby CGFI outlet and loaded it with dishes. And right off the bat I could tell it was going to be my favorite purchase for this RV since it does a terrific job! Relieving me of that much hated chore. Plus it’s only 26 lbs, and 16.73″D x 16.85″W x 18.03″H. Small!
Knew that I wanted to permanently install the DW eventually and it’s now April ’23 and I’ve gotten it mostly installed. The drain & water supply were temporary and I just finished the plumbing job to make a closer to a permanent installation. Here’s the old drain setup which couples the drains of the two kitchen sinks:
…and here’s how I jury rigged an up/down DW drain pipe assembly used by most home DWs into this horizontal setup. They don’t really make this kind of pipe setup that would fit my situation in an RV so I had to use caulking to make a waterproof seal. The end of the drain hose from the DW is soft rubber like plastic (gray) that makes a really tight fit onto the barbed drain pipe (white) shown here. I doubt it will ever leak but if it does I can always add a clamp. The hose itself creates a ‘U’ shape between here and where it attaches to the DW so I’m not worried about swamp gases getting out.
Drilled a hole around half way to the floor and threaded the drain hose through…
Looks nice, but I’m going to build a platform with drawers or shelves to lift it up higher. Maybe a fancy cabinet. Haven’t decided.
Edit: July ’23 – Found a cabinet…
I was browsing FB Marketplace and happened on a nice cabinet that would work under the dishwasher to bring it up to the height I’m looking for. It’s legs needed to be sawed down. Has a nice drawer underneath the DW now.
So here’s how it looks now. I’ve ordered some flush rings that I’ll install in the sink cabinet for a bungee cord setup to hold this while traveling. It’s lower than the countertop because I need it to be out of the way so I can water TV from the dining table.
And then another hose for the water supply. I bought the needed water connections from Ace Hardware. The DW did come with a connection hose but it wouldn’t work for my purposes.
And here it is connected to the water supply under the sink sharing a water connection with the water filter.
Nice and tidy and no leaks so far. Next I need to figure out some way to solidly attach the DW to the RV frame somehow. In the event of an accident, don’t want that 26 lb DW bouncing all over the inside of the RV.
After everything was set up, I ran some water usage tests and wow, hand washing dishes really uses up a lot of water compared to this machine. Even though I only used water for filling the sink to wash, and then only when actually rinsing something, the DW at 5.0 ltrs (1.32 gallons) per wash cycle uses 1/3 as much water as I typically did doing them by hand. What that means is that I can still use the DW when dry camping or at an RV park were they have a central dump.
And no more leaving the dish washing chore to when the sink is full. I’m already finding that when using this DW I can still go more than 10 days between tank dumps since it uses so little water. AND it gets my dishes much cleaner then I ever did, the bottom of my copper pan looks nearly new after having run through several times now. Very much worth the $260 I paid for the DW plus plumbing parts.
2021 – 2022 (From remodeling thoughts beginning in 2016)
Most RVs don’t have a dishwasher…and I truly hate to wash dishes in the sink. And since I bought this RV in 2016, I’ve occasionally surfed the web looking for an economical solution to the lack of a dishwasher and for the most part was unsuccessful and disappointed. I did develop a pretty slick method of getting out of the dishwashing chore for long periods and that was scraping and/or rinsing them off, and leaning them up against the back of the sink so they would dry. Not allowing any water to accumulate on the dishes in the sink. And once dry, they don’t smell or attract bugs. Simple. I can go up to 10 days that way, but usually it’s only 5 days between washes. Why not paper plates you ask? Well, I tried them years ago, and just do not care for paper plates. Even the expensive ones. I like ceramic dishware. If I have to, then sure, I’ll use paper but I’d rather not. I did stumble on this sonic dishwasher a couple years ago but the problem is you can only do a few dishes at a time so you’d be messing with it and it’s operation just a tad less then doing them by hand. I couldn’t see how I could fill the sink with dishes and still have that thing work. My sink isn’t as wide as they show in the video either.
And just now I found the ultimate small DW, at Amazon at a very reasonable price. I think I’ll rethink my plans and get this one: Counter top Dishwasher
Here’s another economical counter top type dishwasher but for where I have in mind to place one permanently, this is too wide. It is small with a large capacity though. And the price is attractive too. Comfee’ DW
Damn, now I’m seeing small DWs everywhere. Home Depot has a line of 18″ wide DWs too now as well that I don’t recall seeing 2 years ago. I think industry finally caught on that small homes are here to stay? Three four years ago, I wasn’t able to find what I wanted.
But that early searching from 2016 on with no acceptable results brought me to a place where I felt the best thing to do was buy a very expensive half size dishwasher I’d occasionally happen upon while surfing the web. A regular dishwasher is 36″ wide, and I felt I only had space for max 20″. So I watched for that kind of DW. Since I already had plans and started remodeling my living room to use the 47″ TV I had, I felt that the DW, once I found one, could fit right next to the sink without interfering with watching TV. And that’s what I watched for.
And one day, I visited the Building 160 Supply Co. in Pahrump, NV and they had this nice Miele 18″ DW for $75. I wrote down the particulars drove home looked it up and found it’s a commercial kitchen DW with all the bells and whistles and new they are $2200. This one was supposed to have come out of a Casino’s hotel ballroom or meeting room so didn’t get much use and the interior was so clean it kind of told me that was true. So went back, paid the $75 + $5 tip for the worker guy to help load it in the backseat of the car and off I went with it.
I didn’t have the ambition to rip my living room apart at the time so it basically stayed in the backseat of my car for months until I got up to Milton Freewater, Oregon. The RV pad I was at was wide enough that I set it up next to my RV.
And I used it for a few months that way. And does it work well. Just how you’d expect a $2200 DW to work. Oh, boy, clean dishes without much work at all.
All the while during this period I was trying to get up the ambition to make it permanent inside my RV. Thing has some weight to it so I knew that I’d have to drill holes through the floor for big anchor bolts. And cut a giant slot in the kitchen cabinet in order to fit that giant water solenoid device you can see in the above picture where the hose connects. It’s a water solenoid and a ‘fault’ item too so if it was just missing the computer would shut the DW off. So it has to stay attached to the DW. It’s got all sorts of safety features built in because in normal operation in a casino, someone could load the dishes and then likely not come back for days. It has ‘unattended’ water safety features. All those protections were to prevent any flooding that might cost 10’s of thousands to a casino’s giant room before anyone noticed. And if it did happen, then Miele would be on the hook. So another reason their prices are so high.
In an RV, I wouldn’t need all those protections.
Anyway, it started leaking from that left end of that plastic flat tube you can see on the top of the DW, which is shown in the next picture, and I came up with a fix involving some JB Weld water putty. That worked for weeks. And then it ended up on the back seat for another 8 months.
Then it was time to head south again and I couldn’t catch the park manager to help me store it in the storage building plus I had this dream I would still be able to set it up and use it on the road. Turned out that over the next 8 months or so, it just laid on the back seat of my car and I never was in a place where I could use it. Dammit.
Recently, I’m back up in Milton Freewater and pulled it out, and that pipe just crumbled. Dammit. Too much heat and too much sun lying on the back seat of hot car for months is very bad for that type of plastic…at least I know that now. Of course that repair part has been discontinued so I needed to come up with a fix. And fix it I did! It’s working right now, and no leaks. Yea! Here’s what I did…I got an 18″ length of reinforced plastic tubing that just fit inside the existing pipes after I cut out the ruined section (it’s there in the upper middle). Then I used the left over JB Weld Water Weld from the first repair to make seals on either end of the tubing. And so far it’s holding well.
Here you can see that section of the original water pipe that I wrapped with Eternabond water proof roofing tape trying to save it. Didn’t work because the water pressure and heat caused water to leak out under the tape on either end. That’s when I cut the crumbled section of plastic pipe out and replaced it with this hose.
I have a piece of 1/2″ X 1/8″ AL flat stock that I’ve wedged in between the sides arranged to snugly hold the hose down and I expect the hot water that flows through that tube to eventually soften the hose so it becomes naturally & permanently flattened down so it’s not sticking up like it’s shown above. Of course with ample space above the DW, that wouldn’t matter much.
And here’s the control panel. It’s not very modern and difficult to program things so that’s another strike against actually installing it inside my RV. Especially when there are really nice small counter top units I could build a nice cabinet for next to the sink that wouldn’t take up half the space and only weigh in at 26 lbs.
So I’ve run it through one entire cycle without a leak and I’m now on the 2nd test with dishes. I wanted to rinse it out before putting dishes in it for a actual wash cycle. It seems to be holding up well and soon I’ll have clean dishes.
Did find a drop or two of water on the back edge where the hose goes inside the DW, cleaned up the JB Weld edge there the hose is inserted and reapplied more JB Weld, let it solidify and it’s now working again and no leaks so far. I’m ready sell it and get it out of here.
And after it’s sold, I’ll buy one of the two counter top units linked above and then build a small tray with under storage for it next to the sink. Neither of those units will do the huge load that the Miele will, but a place setting of 3 or 4 will work for me. The dish washing would be needed every 4-5 days. And as long as I’m not dry camping, I’m okay with the water usage and dumping into the grey holding tank as long as I’m in an RV park or near a dump station. It’s not a dry camping type of appliance though so I wouldn’t use it for that.