I Never Thought I’d Own a Dishwasher, Until I Found This Renter-Friendly One (It’s So Compact!)

I’ve lived in the same rental apartment in Brooklyn for a number of years now, and while I love it and have no plans to ever move, there is one thing that is a genuine annoyance: There’s no dishwasher in the unit. My apartment doesn’t have a washer/dryer in the unit or building either, which is all fine (and typical of New York City rentals), but the older I get, the more I wish I had automated cleaning devices in my apartment — especially when it comes to doing the dishes. Besides laundry, it’s my least favorite chore, and I’m terrible at keeping up with it, so without fail at the end of the day there’s a big pile of dishes in the kitchen sink. 

That’s why I was so excited to have the opportunity to try out the Farberware Compact Portable Dishwasher from QVC, which is small enough to fit on a countertop, doesn’t need a plumbing hookup in the wall, and, while tiny, makes sense for my family of two. 

The Farberware Compact Portable Dishwasher is a smaller, cheaper version of its professional-level dishwasher, but it’s still a cleaning powerhouse. It measures 17.3” x 16.5” x 17.3”, and was light enough for me (a petite person) to move around from counter to counter as I figured out where to set it up. 

The dishwasher has five washing programs — normal, rapid, baby care, glass, and air refresh — and a steam function. It includes a water connection hose, a drain hose for your sink, and a water pitcher if you don’t want to hook up your device, and a cutlery and baby care rack. It requires 750 watts of power. 

The dishwasher is designed to either be hooked up to a sink or you can fill the tank manually, which makes it the perfect renter-friendly appliance — no installing anything required! You do need to keep your dishwasher by a sink for the drain hose, though. 

It’s definitely compact compared to a regular dishwasher. I live in a New York City apartment with a much smaller kitchen than most people, so it does take up a whole section of my counter. Still, I find the convenience of not having to hand-wash every single dish I own a major convenience compared to the minor convenience of missing a little bit of counter space. 

The Farberware Compact Portable Dishwasher would be absolutely perfect for a single person, but it really does work for me and my husband. It fits a deceptive amount of stuff — sometimes I can cram four glasses, two bowls, and two dinner-sized plates alongside food containers and forks and knives, thanks to the cutlery tray. 

If I’m working from home and cooking dinner, we’ll probably run it twice a day, but if we’re not working from home, it gets run once at night (and we still hand-wash any non-dishwasher-safe items). I usually run the longer, normal cycle, which is two hours and 10 minutes, but the rapid cycle works just as well in a pinch — it’s just 40 minutes, although your dishes come out wetter on the other side, so be prepared with a towel to wipe them dry. I also decided not to hook up the hose to our sink. Instead, we fill the tank with the water pitcher, which is very easy.

Notably, the instruction manual said the dishwasher utilizes liquid dish soap (rather than tablets) the best across all different wash cycle types because it dissolves faster. 

One thing I love — for purely fun reasons — is that the dishwasher has a glass door, and the light inside the dishwasher stays on for the first few minutes of the wash cycle. It’s so fun to watch all the water pool in and be sprayed from the top and bottom of the dishwasher. Eventually it turns off, but it’s like I’m watching something that’s usually a secret to me! 

We’ve had the compact dishwasher for over a month now and have been using it daily, sometimes multiple times a day, since we got it. It’s really held up to constant use, and every few loads I do wipe it dry, clean out the filter, and make sure no mold is building up in the machine, as it stays pretty consistently wet in there. 

Our dishes come out so clean that it makes me think we weren’t cleaning our glassware at all when we were hand-washing it before. Plus, just the added time I have back when my husband and I do big cleans or even as we’re shutting the kitchen down at night is a huge plus. One reviewer on the QVC website called it “an awesome little machine,” and I have to agree.

I will say that it appears our electricity bill has ticked up slightly, and I’ll be monitoring that over the next few months to see if that’s a fluke or definitely related to the dishwasher. But it’s pretty marginal — and for the price of no longer having to stare down two days’ worth of dishes in our sink that we let pile up because we are basically lazy, it’s worth it. 

Without a doubt, I would 100% recommend the Farberware Compact Portable Dishwasher to a friend, but realistically only if they were single or in a family of no more than three people. It’s small for a reason — so it works for us — but there are other, larger portable dishwashers that might make sense for a family of four or five. It’s also great for renters like me because it’s portable — I can take it with me when I move. In the meantime, I’m thrilled with this little machine, and it makes every day a little exciting.

Buy: Farberware Compact Portable Dishwasher, $309.99