Dishwasher basket or cutlery drawer

[daisygirl999]

My dishwasher has packed in. A lot if new ones have a cutlery drawer this is new to me. How do people find these or should I stick to basket

The drawers are great. Keep everything apart and it's easy to scoop cutlery into the drawer when it's dry.

Having had both, I vastly prefer the cutlery tray and would never willingly go back to the basket.

It may take a few seconds longer to load the cutlery into the tray, but it unloads faster, ready-sorted for the drawer. Little things that get lost in the cups tray, or washed off it, are safe to wash in the cutlery tray.

And I have never been injured reaching for things in the cutlery tray. I've been stabbed by forks and cut by knives in the basket.

I much preferred the cutlery basket and can’t get used to the new layout either. Hate change :)

We swopped from a basket to a rack / shelf and I think it’s much better .

Our dishwasher comes with both, and I use both but probably the tray more.

Mine came with both and i much prefer the tray. Things stick together in the basket. The tray takes time to load though.

Tray anytime. That said, I'm not particularly keen on the Bosch/Neff tray (too clunky) and much prefer my mum's Miele.

I prefer a basket but only because the tray limits the height clearance of the top level and we have large glasses.

I've always had dishwashers with cutlery trays except when we moved house and the existing built-in dishwasher just had a basket. It's now been changed to one with a tray -- our experience with the basket confirmed that trays are much better. (And bigger. )

I was very sceptical when a new dishwasher had a cutlery drawer but am totally converted -will be going back to a basket one for a while soon and know it's going to get on my nerves.

Miele racks have adjustable height levels to accommodate tall items. Other brands may have too?

I took out the cutlery tray and use the basket I had saved From my old dishwasher. I couldn’t get on with the tray although initially though it was a good idea but tedious to load.

If you have teens they will never bother to load a tray properly. So basket all the way

Basket is maybe a bit easier to just drop the cutlery in, rather than placing individually across the tray, but I still prefer the tray. Creates a bit more space in bottom rack which helps.

I prefer the tray. It's useful for other small items and no longer to forks get stuck together which sets my teeth on edge.

NATALT 😉

Sounds like it might help the DH with stacking. He has a tendency to put large serving spoons in the more shallow basket slots.

Hated the tray when we had our first one. We moved and dishwasher has basket- when it packs up, definitely will have a tray again. Just take a few seconds to keep all separate and then so easy to pick up and put straight into draw.

We have the cutlery tray at the top but we took some of our bowls and tall glasses with us into the showroom to see if it would have an impact. I wasn't prepared to change out 18 glasses that we have and love.

We also took a baking tray too, I know it sounds crazy but if I am lowering the top rack down to accommodate the tray at the top then I need to see how it impacts the bottom rack.

@Anameisaname you see when teens or younger children don't pack a dishwasher correctly you call them back into the kitchen and make them do it properly, they then learn to pack it correctly and continue to do so because they know you will not stand for it. If you ignore it and sort it yourself they will never correct their own behaviour.

I’ve had both over the years but I really prefer the basket.

I found even adjusting the height of the trays below, with a cutlery tray there were still issues fitting tall glasses/tumblers beneath.

Chantelle Atkins might still be alive today if she'd had a cutlery drawer

We switched from basket to drawer about 5 years ago and I still hate the drawer every single day. Slower to load, slower to unload (you can't carry it to the cutlery drawer), reduces head height in the other drawers which is a PITA (even though the middle one is adjustable, if you lower that to get pint glasses in you can't fit big plates or pans in the bottom one and the extra space in the bottom rack doesn't make up for any of these drawbacks.

You can adjust the height of the top rack in mine so you can make room for tall glasses

I liked the basket but switched to a try with new dishwasher and it's fine. It's handy for putting small lids and things on as well as fish slices etc...The trays are easy to move if needed to allow for more space. It's easy to empty. I think it comes out cleaner too.

Basket.

Having the tray takes out an inch or two from the total available space. We could either fit our plates or our glasses in. Not both.
And it takes forever to load because you need to space everything out, and still needs sorting afterwards because someone just shoves stuff in.

A tray does clean spoons better. But that benifit isn't worth the disadvantages.