Product Review: Frigidaire 24" Built-in Dishwasher

The Frigidaire Built-in Dishwasher (model: FDBB2040FCI) serves up some interesting features but some hit and miss performance. Retailing for $379.99 for stainless steel, Frigidaire provides a mid-price dishwasher with contemporary styling. Here's the Good, the Odd and the Ugly on Frigidaire's 24" Built-in dishwasher.

The Good

As a mom to a three-year-old, one of my favorite features is the child lock. The child lock can be activated to keep your child from starting the dishwasher or from changing your settings during a wash cycle. Since most dishwashers have push button functionality, this keeps little ones from soaking clean dishes, running the dishwasher on empty, or shutting it off in the middle of cycle without you knowing. (Yes, I am speaking from experience.)

The Frigidaire 24" Built-in Dishwasher has two deep baskets and a large silverware basket. The top rack is even deep enough for bowls and dessert plates, freeing the bottom rack for large plates and pots and pans. This reduces the chance of overloading the bottom shelf while the top remains relatively empty. A middle spray arm (attached underneath the top rack) ensures an even wash.

The middle spray arm also allows you to wash a small load of dishes while conserving energy by selecting the upper rack cycle. With a family of three preparing and eating all of our meals at home, I've yet to have a load of dishes that small, but I could see how it would come in handy for smaller or larger families, or to wash recently purchased dishware prior to use.

Dried-on and baked-on dishware, you can use the pots and pans feature that automatically activates the Hi-temp Wash and Sanitize features. This feature will use an additional 2.4 gallons of water and additional electricity to heat water temperatures 155 degrees. Of course, you may use that much water pre-rinsing your dishes otherwise. You can also add the Sanitize feature to a normal or light wash, a great feature for sanitizing a small load of baby bottles.

The Frigidaire Built-in Dishwasher is incredibly quite. The first time I turned it on, I had to go back to the kitchen to make sure it was running.

The Odd

That child lock I told you about, only locks out functionality, it does not lock the door shut. Once your small child has figured out how to open the dishwasher there is nothing stopping them from pulling the knives out of the silverware basket. If you have small children, you shouldn't load the dishwasher until you are ready to run it and you should empty it as soon as it's done.

The middle spray arm is convenient for small loads and even water distribution, but you need to make sure it's not going to hit the dishes on the bottom rack, after all, it's made of plastic.

Rinse Aid is a must for the Normal wash cycle. Originally, the dishes in the top rack were not drying as per my expectations. Our Frigidare Built-in Dishwaser did come with a sample bottle of rinse aid, however, and once I started using it, the dishes in the top rack were significantly dryer. (This is less of an issue when using Hi-temp wash or Sanitize features due to high temperature evaporation.)

The Ugly

Though I am completely satisfied with the brushed stainless steel look of my new Frigidiare Built-in Dishwasher, the manufacturer places a protective plastic cover over the finish that attaches under the plastic handle/digital display. When you remove the protective cover, it leaves a plastic fringe beneath the handle. If you try to remove it with a razor edge, you can scratch the stainless steel finish.

Overall

Overall, I think the Frigidaire is a good buy. I was impressed by its versatility and quite performance, and after getting past the initial drying issue, I was satisfied with it's performance.