Installing a dishwasher - cost?

[LaSevillana]

I live in London and would like to install a dishwasher, as I'm sick of washing up multiple times a day! It looks like I'll need a slimline one to fit in my kitchen (small flat), which seem to be around the £300 mark, and I'm wondering if anyone had a ballpark idea of how much it would cost for a plumber to install it for me? I think they'd need to redo some of the pipes to connect it (not sure of the technical term here, sorry).

I plan to ring around and get some quotes, but I just wanted to have an idea of what a reasonable cost would be.

[Elieza]

Slimline is fine for the two of us.

In my next house though I want two slimlines - one can be on or open and drying, while the other can be loaded during the course of the day as the dishes get used for meals. That way I will not have to have them sitting in the worktop attracting flies waiting for the dishwasher to finish and air dry.

It’s the way forward lol!

[Pangolin23]

@LaSevillana

Thanks for the info. What does the isolation switch accomplish?

I think I will need another plug socket, unfortunately. The only feasible place for it to go is next to the washing machine, and there's no socket near there.

I meant to write “isolator switch”. It’s not really necessary but it would be to switch off the dishwasher in an emergency (if it seemed about to blow up…) without having to pull it out from under the worktop to access the plug socket that will be inaccessible.

[CasperGutman]

@Elieza

Slimline is fine for the two of us.

In my next house though I want two slimlines - one can be on or open and drying, while the other can be loaded during the course of the day as the dishes get used for meals. That way I will not have to have them sitting in the worktop attracting flies waiting for the dishwasher to finish and air dry.

It’s the way forward lol!

This is the setup we have. It's great!

Havin two means there's always somewhere to tidy dirty dishes away, and reduces the rush to get the thing emptied if you have guests over (or just can't be bothered!). If you have an open plan layout, the last thing you want is a load of dirty pots hanging about while your only dishwasher completes a (modern 3-4 hour Eco) wash cycle.

We are a family of four and find one slimline usually does us on a weekday, when there are just two meals' worth of things to wash. At the weekend, or when guests come over, we just put two loads on, running each when it's full.

Having two means we aren't tempted to run a half empty dishwasher because something we need is in there.

It also means it's less of a disaster if one of them breaks down (touch wood neither has yet). Because there's a backup, we felt able to accept the risk of getting cheaper models, so the two slimlines probably cost less than one bombproof German engineered full size.

This solution is also a fraction of the cost of a multi-drawer machine (literally - I saw one of them for £1600, whereas ours were about £600 for both). The multi drawer one might give some of the same flexibility but would be smaller overall (being 600mm wide instead of 2 x 450mm) and would be vulnerable to losing both drawers if a key component e.g. a pump failed.