Singapore Expats

Ok, so I know many people just get their maids/helpers to do this dishes.. whilst we will also get a maid/helper, we'd also like to use a dishwasher - just makes things easier for everyone..

When I had a look at apartments there, noticed that most did not have dishwashers. I think I saw just one in a new condo block.

Do apartments have dishwashers? And if not, do they have spots that you can put one in?

Thanks
Colin

I was wondering the same. Dishwashers are fairly standard in London and I was wondering if there is any particular reason why they're not used in Singapore? Surely it can't be the price because they're not particularly expensive.

I had one put in my condo (which I own) when I renovated it. I had to train the contractor how to install them! That gives you an idea how common they are. The dishwasher has pushed up my electricity and water bill by probably $50 a month.

I suspect they just don't need them - they have maids to wash dishes.

We really like it though - it washes far better than hand washing.

Yes - you're correct - they are not expensive. The problem is though - most kitchen's don't have a slot for them built into the cupboard spaces.

I noticed the same thing a few years ago when I was looking for a place to live and was quite surpirsed -all these brand new places with no dishwasher!

I guess places here are often quite small with limited storage so many developers try to optimise the kitchen space by installing cupboards instead.

Time to stock up on dishwashing detergent and teatowels!

The biggest reason why they are not built with dishwasher spaces is the very few people here wash dishes with hot water. I've not used hot water for washing dishes for the past 30 years. The oils normally used here are easily cleaned with the liquid detergents formulated to work with normal tap water. I've never really seen the need for a dishwasher that didn't do the laundry and vacuum the house as well.......

Same principle with Clothes Dryers. I do have one of those but we hang them out on galah poles normally except during the monsoon season like now for instance.

It is IMHO for the reason of a highly competitive product present in the marked and mentioned by OSD: the living-in maids.

sundaymorningstaple wrote:I've never really seen the need for a dishwasher that didn't do the laundry and vacuum the house as well.......

+1


But we discussed that earlier in the year too. I little exercise never killed anybody

But therein lies the problem, I'm bloody tired of all the exercise!

Thanks for your answers. So it seems like we're leaving our dishwasher (the mechanical kind) in Oz.. such a pity as it's pretty new & a very good one, until we buy our own place.

singaporeans mostly have a single bowl sink with no hot water, i think.

i get confronted very often when i do the dishes in a hot double bowl "scrape, scrub, rinse and stand dry" style. they say it's not clean...

i've decided having a dishwasher (non-human sort) is better than having to explain i like doing MY dishes MY way.

I have some very vague recollection of the HDB's having limited eletrical capacity in the early years. It's possible dishwashers were 'banned' for some time - certain aircons were.

I looked at around 14 condos and they all had dishwashers installed.

I can confirm that older HDB flats only had 30 AMP mains - those flats built prior to 1 January 1994. Subsequent flats have 40 AMP mains.

Shellie_h wrote:I looked at around 14 condos and they all had dishwashers installed.

Can you name some of them please? I've looked at around 10 (through .) and none had dishwashers fitted, nor they looked like you could fit one (no sufficient space)

they sell table top dishwashers that are the size of an oven. you can stick it (almost) anywhere.