Dishwasher - Full-size or Half-size?

At long last I am getting a dishwasher after a lifetime of washing dishes by hand. Don't know whether to get a full-size one or half-size and am wondering what the pros and cons of either are. A full size one would fit in the space, but I am wondering if a full size one uses a lot of water especiallly now that water charges are on the cards. But I would hate to get one that turned out to be too small. There are mostly two of us in the house but children turn up regularly for weekends etc. We like to cook nearly every day also. Would appreciate any comments and a bit of help deciding. Thanks in advance.

Ahhh a dishwasher - wouldn't part with mine for all the tea in China. If you have the space, definitely full size! The small ones are disproportionately expensive and hold a lot less - particularly noticeable for pots and pans and if you're cooking on a daily basis... To be honest, even in small household they fill up surprisingly quickly. I don't know about the difference in running costs, just on a practical front the full size ones are a much better bet.

Buy some extra cutlery and plates and go for the full size one. There is only 2 of us and would not have a half size one now. I think we would be running the half size one at least twice as often and probably doing pots and pans as the other poster said in the sink. Defeating the object of getting one in the first place

Absolutely agree with foggy. I have a slimline dishwasher which functions very well but is really too small even for small household. You will end up having to wash every day because the machine is too small to hold two days washing up. BTW my diswasher is a Bosch which has been working well for 5 years. Good luck - great decision, down with dishwashing!!
good wishes

There are 2 of us and we have a half size one.
We run it once a day, occasionally there are bits we cant fit in and they get left to one side for the next run.
The day where we'd tend to have the most amount of stuff would be a sunday, breakfast pots/pans/dishes, sunday roast and associated pots/pans/dishes, and I do tend to hand wash a couple of pots rather than leave them to one side.

I think it also depends on your cookware, I use cast iron pans so they would never be going into a dishwasher anyway.

One thing I do find is that its hard to fit large items in, like a roasting tray, and would sometimes handwash rather than use up all that space. Also wine glasses do not fit anywhere so I hand wash those as well.

If I had the space I would probably get a full size one, but it would mean getting more dishes/cups etc..and I dont have space for those either!!!

There are only two of us in my house too and we have a full sized one, we just don't run it every day - I think we run it every 3 or 4 days. Only down side of that is that there are some things, like that medium sized saucepan that you seem to use all the time, that I can't wait 3 or 4 days to use again so I end up hand washing that unless the dishwasher is nearly full. Having said that, there will always be some things you use that you have to wash by hand (chopping boards, fragile glasses, etc), and when you do have people over then at least you can load the whole lot into the washing machine in one go.

i have a full size whirlpool model and its brill, you can do a half load either on the top or the bottom to save water etc like your washing machine, dont have model type here in work with me but i can mail it to you if you wish, would highly recommend..
susan

I had a half-size dishwasher quite a few years ago, and like other posters, was frustrated by how little it actually took (there were 2 of us in the house and we used it every day).

I have a full-size one now (all for myself!), and find it great - run it about twice a week.

I have a half size one for 2 of us and find it fine. We only run it every second day but we do both work so dont eat breakfast or lunch in the house. I could see if we were in the house more it maybe too small. If you have the space for a big one go for it.

If you can fit a full-size one in definitely do it. We had a 45cm one and we ran it pretty much every day, 2 adults and 2 babies.

I went to view a showflat in London and that had 2 45cm dishwashers one either side of the sink, the thinking being that you had all your crockery in the first, took stuff out, used it and then put it in the other one. When full, wash and repeat the procedure in reverse.

One thing to check is how effectively it dries.

SSE

Thanks for all the replies - very good of you all. Its a full-size one for me!
Yes down with dish-washing!