I’ve always had a dishwasher in my life. But here in Taiwan it seems almost unheard of. Yet, Costco sells a lot of soap.
Who has these machines? The local brands seem very expensive? Has anyone imported a portable “Sears” or Kenmore machine?
You can get a decent one in the states for around 419 us dollars. Can Taiwanese plumbing handle these machines? Why won’t they catch on here?
They have automatic dish dryers which are pretty popular.
Have you tried the larger department stores for Japanese brand dishwasher?
It’s my guess that the restaurants are the main consumers of the soap. But just guessing.
Importing your own would certainly not be cheap unless you were importing a whole lot of other goods at the same time. A long time ago I inquired about what it would cost for a 20-foot shipping container from the USA to Taiwan - I vaguely recall it was around US$1100, but that could have changed. Anyway, the price is the same whether the container is full or empty, so the more you cram inside, the better. You’ve also got to hassle with customs when the goods arrive - that can easily get expensive.
Spend your money however you like, but in my opinion, dishwashers are just a big waste of water and electricity. I do all my dishwashing by hand - on average, this chore occupies maybe 5 minutes of my time per day. On the very rare occasion when I’ve had to wash a lot of dishes at once (like if I have a party at my house), having a CD player with some nice music to listen to makes the time fly by quickly. Ditto for cooking. So if you don’t already have a good music system (and good CDs), maybe that would be a better investment. Just a suggestion.
regards,
Robert
I had an excellent Bosch home dishwasher… cost around NT$30,000 or more but that was 10 years ago. It’s still running without any hiccups. You need to buy special salt packs for water treatment but it does make ven the dirtiest items sparkling clean.
I will be buying a dishhwasher in the next week or so and will post here. Actually, a lot of people have them, but most of them are rich. You won’t see them in any rentals that cost less than NT$50,000. I have seen many many dishwashers though, in both expensive rentals and rich friends houses. Traditionally Taiwan people like to save money and they just did the dishes by hand to save some money and water and electricity. In lower-end homes look at the tiny kitchens.
By the way, since dishwashers are not that popular here and more of a luxury item, the local importers just might charge unreasonable prices. At least that is what I am expecting to find out.
Anyway, you have to go to fancy Kitchen cabinent/appliance shops. They are dotted all over the city. Some more expensive than others depending on what brands they carry. Look in the nicer neighborhoods of DongChu.
By the way, Kenmore is distributed here. I will be calling them next week to see where I can buy a Kenmore dishwahser since they are usually quite affordable.
Will report back here as soon I learn more.
Here you go. Just checked for you.
Taiwan Kenmore sells one model for US$750 that in the states sells for US$419. Almost double. Will keep looking to see if that is about as cheap as it gets.
I have one in my new pad at Lotus Hill. 
OK, the place to go dishwasher shopping is Daiichi (taiyi, thailand tai and one) on the north side of Nanjing just east of the intersection with Hsinsheng Rd. Take the elevator to the 5th floor. They sell the following
Ariston NT$26,000
LG NT$44,900
Asko One for NT$40,500 and one for NT$57,500
Fisher & Paykel one for NT$41,500 and one for NT$45,900
Bosch: One for NT$44,800 and one for NT$36,500
All of the ones above were 85cm tall, and 60cm deep by 60cm wide except the NT$36,500 one from Bosch which was only 45 wide with the other measurements the same.
Some of the ones there could be built into your cabinents others were stand alones. They also had brochures from all of the companies and they said they could order a different model that was in a brochure but not on display.
Amazing selection, seeing that most places do not carry any dishwashers.
I will be going for either the skinny 45cm Bosch or not sure which of the other ones. Ariston looks tempting at that price, but afraid that since it is so reasonably priced, there must be something wrong? Fisher & Paykel double drawers look really cool. Some of these by the way are similarly priced in the US, others are over priced here. I think for the price the Fisher & Paykel is the closest to the price, unless the quote was for one drawer not two.
My dishwasher is great – clean, quiet, efficient and a very nice arse.
old thread…but this statement is so wrong.
dishwashers save a lot of water.
And how much water and power was used to make a dishwasher?
If you are going to import anything, do it from China:
There are private shippers who can get these to you at about 3 or 4 yuan per kg (min. charge of 400yuan). But when I looked it was as little as 15,000nt all the way to over 30,000nt depending on model/features. The only issue is these use 220v so that might be an issue for here, but I always thought dishwasher uses 220v.
Chances are any appliances you import from the states are made in China… so pick your poison. Pay the same price as Taobao and expensive shipping from the US and no warranty if anything breaks…
But I guess the real reason why dishwashers aren’t really used in Taiwan except maybe large restaurants (who overwhelmingly just either use disposable wares or have someone wash dishes on the floor by the store) is because of either lack of need, or concept of “suffering” when working. But fact is even in the states I never used dishwashers because they don’t get most dishes clean (especially if it’s a dish with any depth whatsoever), AND you must rinse out dishes beforehand to really get it clean with a dishwasher. Otherwise debris just gets baked onto the dish which is impossible to get off. So if I have to work so hard just to use a dishwasher then why bother using them? The time it takes for me to rinse dishes off I could have just washed them.
I found this video…
In short, detergent packs for dishwashers are not good… if you are stuck with it then cut the pack open and dump some powder onto the tub then start a normal cycle. But the detergent in the pre-wash is quite important.
or just “pre-wash” by running under a tap before putting in the dishwasher. Who puts dishes with so much food and grime on it!
I guess supposedly dishwashers use less water. But who cares about that in Taiwan when you can fill an entire olympic sized swimming pool for 2000nt worth of water?
ofcourse. I use it everyday. But I don’t throw in my dishes with so much food stuck on them!
Sometimes in this heat with uncooled kitchen I have, I really just want to throw everything in the dishwasher. But I don’t live in the lap of luxury and have a dishwasher… so hand wash only for me. Dishwashers are ridiculously expensive in Taiwan, even the cheapest one costing almost 1000 US (considering how simple they are).
One idea, heat pump heated dishwasher. Use a small AC unit to add some cool breeze to a hot kitchen while that pumped heat is used to heat the water for washing dishes. Win win.
Doesn’t Ikea sell dishwashers? I’m not sure about the quality of Ikea appliances, but I can’t imagine even Ikea is charging 30,000NT+ for a dishwasher
Also, dishwashers, when full = way less wasteful than washing the same load by hand. I know someone already posted it, but I thought I’d repeat it.
My setup:
NT$ 10,000 for the dishwasher (including installation)
NT$ 7,500 for the dryer and
NT$ 3,000 for the stand
The dishwasher is a but difficult to load because of the small size and it’s not ideal to have it on the balcony. But overall, I can’t complain - and makes live so much easier!
Do you have any links on where to buy those or the brand and model?
