The Indesit ICD661 Compact Dishwasher Review

It is no secret that when it comes to washing up, I am a little particular about how it is done. I have mentioned in the past how I just cannot stand Luke donning the rubber gloves and poising himself at my sink. It is though he takes the dirty washing up from the ‘dirty’ side of the sink just to merely place it on the ‘clean’ side after dipping it in tepid water. Of course I see the pile of washing up sitting there on the ‘clean’ side taunting me. Before long I am stood at the sink running the hot tap on full, squirting the washing up liquid and washing everything all over again, only this time… properly.

Washing up very quickly became my job under my own request, and I wished that we had the room for a dishwasher so that we could simply let the machine do the dishes. Our kitchen has two spaces for large kitchen appliances by the sink, and we already have a washing machine and a dryer, this leaves us no space for a full size dish washer.

I discussed the possible options with Luke and presented the idea of a compact dishwasher, which would simply sit on the work surface by the sink and make our lives so much easier. I finally convinced him that it would be beneficial for us and save us so much time in the long run.

You would be surprised at just how much washing up can accumulate within a small family of three.

Having a browse online at the different compact dishwashers available at Argos gave us an idea about what each one had to offer, we decided to go for the Indesit ICD661. This is a compact dishwasher doesn’t take up much more room on the counter than a microwave and features 6 place settings over one shelf. You may be surprised just how much you can fit inside this compact model, I know that I have been and in the few weeks that we have been using it I have been nothing but impressed.

Installation

Installation fell into a list of Luke’s jobs, but Indesit would have actually fitted it for us. As I am out at work during the week I had actually provided my parent’s address as our delivery address, so we opted to just have the dishwasher delivered and installed the machine ourselves. As we already have two machines under the sink Luke had to order a few parts to be able to plumb the dishwasher in. As Luke had anticipated this he got everything installed pretty quickly and we were soon up and running with our new machine.

First Impressions

My first impressions of the Indesit ICD661 were that it was well made and didn’t look to garish up on the work top as I had initially worried. It is comparable to a large microwave, but where we have it positioned in the kitchen it really isn’t taking up any space that we would have previously used.

Opening up the door to have a look inside the dishwasher I did wonder if our large dinner plates would fit inside. Not yet having any washing up to put inside, I grabbed a dinner plate from the cupboard to see if it would fit or not. On first attempt it seemed like a really tight fit, and I was even more sceptical as to whether they would actually fit inside. I realised that the plastic stackers where we slide the plates can actually be re-positioned to allow for bigger plates. This seemed to do the job and allowed us to position the plates inside, now although it is tight, our dinner plates do fit. They are definitely borderline but we can load them into the dishwasher.

With the plate dilemma now solved I continued to have a look around, we have a cutlery holder, shelving for cups and large utensils and room underneath the shelving for additional cups.

Using the Indesit ICD661 Compact Dishwasher

I always knew that having a compact would mean that we couldn’t fit everything inside that we would be able to in a full sized model and I always knew that we would always have a little bit of washing up at some point or another. But since we began using our compact dishwasher I have been really impressed with how much we can actually fit in each load.

We tend to put it on once each day, usually in the evening with all of that days washing up. A typical load will consist of dinner plates, side plates, Leo’s toddler plates, cutlery, a multitude of different sized glasses, mugs and kitchen untensils. We can fit the majority of everything that we have used in one wash including our medium sized pan, and I think our compact dishwasher definitely meets the demands of our family of three.

What we can’t fit inside the dishwasher are chopping boards because of their height and width, bigger pans (or we probably could if we didn’t put anything else in..) and our wok. These are all the items that we actually have to wash up by hand these days.

There are 6 different programs that you can choose between for each unique wash load.

1 – Intensive – Washes at 70

2 – Normal – Washes at 60

3 – Eco – Washes at 55

4 – Delicates – Washes at 45

5 – Speed 30 – Washes at 40

6 – Soak 

We have been using program 2 for normal washes, we tend to rinse everything down anyway before we put it in the dishwasher so this does the trick for us. The running time for each program varies but as we are putting each wash on in an evening we don’t really notice how long it takes. The machine runs quietly and if you happen to turn the machine on and suddenly realise that you have neglected to load an escape plate, you can pause the wash, open it up and pop the plate inside. It even beeps when the cycle comes to an end so that you know your load is finished.

Going from washing up by hand which can take a considerable amount of time to using a dishwasher, really has been a welcome relief. It has certainly made me appreciate my dishwasher on a whole other level, we load it as we go along so that once it is full it is just a case of choosing the desired setting, turning it on and leaving it to do what dishwashers do.

For the price of the Indesit ICD661 I think it is great machine, it saves me time and leaves everything clean and ready to be put away in the cupboards. For the compact size of the dishwasher we can fit pretty much fit everything that we need to in one load. My only negative point on this model is that it is a tight squeeze to put our dinner plates in, and it would maybe benefit from being a little bit taller just to accommodate for the different sizes of dinner plates. Aside from this I really love it, and once you get used to how to load this machine it becomes second nature.

We are very pleased, and I love being able to do my washing up… Hands free!

Disclaimer: This post is in association with Argos