Dishwasher Spotlight

Abstract diagonal sweep illustration in sky blue and pale ice on white — decorative header for Countertop Dishwasher Reviews, from the Spec Sheet

Countertop dishwashers: tank or tap, and what six place settings means

A countertop dishwasher sits on the worktop and needs no cabinet opening. It is the dishwasher for a flat, a rental or a small household, and its specification sheet is about how it gets water and how little it holds.

What the category is

A box roughly the size of a microwave that washes four to six place settings. There are two kinds, and the difference is the first thing to establish. Faucet-fed machines connect to the kitchen tap with an adapter and a hose while they run, and drain into the sink. Tank-fed machines have a built-in reservoir you fill from a jug — typically five litres — and need no connection at all except a drain hose into the sink. Some do both.

How to read the spec sheet

Water supply is the decisive line. A tank-fed machine can live anywhere near a sink and asks you to fill it before each cycle; a faucet-fed one needs a tap the adapter fits, and the adapter’s thread is listed on the sheet or in the manual, not on the box. Tank capacity in litres and water use per cycle together say whether one fill does a cycle.

Place settings: four to six, and the figure assumes small plates. The sheet’s maximum plate diameter — often 10 or 11 inches — is the number that tells you whether your dinner plates go in at all.

Dimensions: width and depth for the worktop, and height for the gap under the wall cabinets, which is usually 17 to 18 inches and is the measurement people forget. Weight matters if it is going to be moved.

Cycles: a normal, a quick, a heavy and often a fruit-wash or baby-bottle cycle. Cycle time on a countertop machine is long — two hours is common on the standard cycle — and the sheet gives it.

Drying: most countertop machines use heated or air drying without a fan, and plastics come out wet. A model that lists a fan or an auto-open door is the exception worth noting.

Noise: quoted in decibels far less often than on built-ins, and the machine is at ear height on the worktop. Where the figure exists, a review quotes it; where it does not, a review says so rather than guessing.

Power: a standard plug, but a heated dry element draws enough that the sheet’s wattage is worth reading if the socket is shared.

Who it suits

One or two people in a flat, a rental where nothing can be plumbed, a caravan, an office kitchen. A tank-fed model suits the room with no tap nearby; a faucet-fed one suits a kitchen where filling a jug six times a week would grate.

Who should skip it

A family. Six small place settings after a family dinner is two loads, and a built-in or a portable holds twice as much. Anyone with 10-inch dinner plates should check the maximum plate size before anything else.

Where to start

Or answer four questions and let the dishwasher finder narrow the 63 to the ones that fit how you sleep.

To see specific models side by side, read dishwasher comparisons, including the countertop class report.

Six of the 63 countertop dishwashers reviewed on this site, one per model, across manufacturers. Every review is written from the manufacturer’s published specifications — how, and what that leaves out.

All 63 countertop dishwasher reviews

Newest first. Consumables, accessories and parts that were once filed here are excluded.