Integrated dishwasher installation

[CornishGem1975]

Sorry for the boring question.

Our dishwasher is defunct and I need to replace this week. I'm loathe to pay £100+ for someone (Currys, AO, John Lewis and local independents etc all charging this) and wondered if it is just a simple job to install ourselves? DH is very handy but he's not a plumber or electrician, but if it's replacing an old dishwasher surely it can't be that much work?

Lots of good DIY videos on YouTube. Installing a freestanding dishwasher is very straightforward. I haven't done an integrated one but I don't expect it's much more difficult.

The plumbing and electrical aspects of the installation are the same as for a freestanding dishwasher. The difference lies in the need to deal with the plinth and the door panel.

Overall it's not too bad a job, but it's worth being aware of a couple of possible pitfalls.

In theory you can just pull the plinth away from the units and move it out of the way. Possibly there might be a screw or two somewhere, but most likely there'll just be clips holding it to the cupboard legs. Once you've replaced the dishwasher just put the plinth back as it was. A potential complication is that some dishwashers give less clearance to the top of the plinth than others. In our old kitchen there was a notch cut out of the top of the plinth to allow the door of the dishwasher to open fully. There's a chance you might need to do something similar if the new appliance gives less clearance than the old one.

The door panel will be attached to the door of the actual dishwasher by screws visible from inside the door, around the edge. There'll be some screws holding the actual door together and some holding the wood panel on, so it might take a bit of fiddling about to work out which are which. Hopefully you'll find that the new dishwasher either needs screws in exactly the same place - great! - or in a completely different place - also fine, but you'll want to drill some little pilot holes for the screws. Take great care not to go too deep or you'll see the holes when the door is closed! Things could get awkward if the new holes are very close to the old ones, as you might need to fill in the old screw holes before adding new ones to avoid chewing up the whole area of the door and leaving the new screws with nothing to bite firmly into.

We have two dishwashers next to each other and found one door wasn't quite vertical. There's probably a proper way of dealing with this by levelling the dishwasher, but I couldn't get it quite right and ended up dealing with it by putting a couple of little spacers between the dishwasher door and the outer panel.

Sorry for the massive essay - had no idea there was so much there, and as you said it's not the most exciting topic!

Ha, thanks really helpful. The plinth is already off as we had a leak so we know that comes and goes pretty easily.

I think like you say the trickiest part will be the door but my DH works in building/maintenance and wields a drill for about 90% of the day so he's pretty experienced there. I'd like to think it's within his capability, just concerned if there's anything that might trip us up!

It's that or we just go for a freestanding, if it will fit under existing worktop and drainer and just cut out the plinth 🤔

freestanding (or under counter with a less pretty top) are much cheaper than integrated. and you have more choice.
when ours dies (currently about 10 years old) we will go for freestanding for this reason.

It is technically not tricky to plumb it in but fixing an integrated door panel and adjusting the height so that the door clears the plinth can be a faff. We had JL install ours and they needed to come back to adjust it.

I am coming around to this. Also we may change our kitchen around in the next 3-5 years so maybe freestanding is better option

If you plan to replace an integrated with a freestanding dishwasher then take a minute to check this won't give any issues. Are there appropriately coloured panels on both sides of the existing dishwasher? Is there something there to support the ends of the plinth where you plan to cut it? It's usually okay, but if the existing dishwasher is next to another appliance like a washing machine or something then there could be an issue to overcome.

There are some great youtube videos and if you can find your current model you can sometimes find someone installing it or removing it so you can see where the screws are. Have a watch of a couple to see what is involved. We did this a couple of years ago.

Honestly a free standing dishwasher cheapens the look, you wouldn't find one in a kitchen show room. The new integrated dishwasher will come with a template for the door panel so as your Dh is handy with a drill this is cake. Even if you change your kitchen in a few years you can still use the old integrated machine.

We recently had to replace our integrated dishwasher with another of the same dimensions. It wasn't as straightforward as I thought, the pipes and outlet were in slightly different positions that required the fitter to fiddle about to get it to fit. So I was glad that I paid for the fitting rather than rely on my enthusiastic but less competent than he thinks DH.

We put in a Bosch integrated dishwasher into ikea kitchen. Bit of checking door measurements twice, but dh and I did it ourselves fairly easily.

I went for a free standing when our integrated dishwasher broke, much easier to install, I just sawed the plinth to the right size!