Whirlpool WDT790SAYW Review

Introduction

Design & Usability

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For $100 more, you get a stainless steel exterior

While the WDT790SAYW lacks a stainless steel exterior, the front is white enough to match an igloo. It will also look good in some kitchens. For the same price, the machine also comes in black, and a stainless steel model can be found for an extra $100. The controls are hidden on the top of the machine.

The wash tub is stainless steel, and inflexible racks (seriously, they're entirely fixed) fit ten full place settings plus a serving setting.

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Features

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This is a pretty basic dishwasher

An Overnight Cycle is the main feature on this dishwasher. It takes six hours, but it uses very little water and electricity when compared to other cycles. If you like to run the dishes while you sleep, you might as well choose this option.

There's also a Sanitize feature, a four-hour delay, and a top rack wash. One wash cycle is sensor-based, and changes up the timing of a wash depending on the level of dirt in a load.

Performance

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Uneven cleaning depending on the cycle

The Whirlpool Gold WDT790SAYW is all over the map. While the One-Hour Wash is—shockingly—an hour in duration, its performance was bad to the point of being useless. The Normal and Heavy washes performed much better, but they weren’t stellar—or quick.

Averaged over the course of a year—with the Normal cycle chosen 50 percent of the time—we calculated that the WDT790SAYW will cost roughly $27.40 to operate, which is pretty good by almost all industry standards.

Conclusion

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Not bad for a mid-range dishwasher, but there are better options out there

The Whirlpool Gold WDT790SAYW is an efficient, modestly designed dishwasher with so-so performance. While we appreciate the price (we found it online for less than $500) and variety of extra wash options, the performance and design were basically okay.

Science Introduction

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All of our dishwashers are subjected to a battery of standardized tests, including washing standard stains off standard dishes. This Whirlpool didn't really impress us in any way.

Cleaning Performance

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You're not getting a laboratory-quality clean here.

If you’re the type of person who looks at their glass, sees a few flecks of Lord-knows-what stuck at the bottom, and think to themselves, “good enough!” then you won’t have a problem with this dishwasher, particularly the Normal cycle. Everything came out mostly clean, while few dishes were thoroughly and completely clean.

The Heavy cycle's results weren't that great. The cheese and lasagna tests were lackluster, and—unlike most other Heavy Cycles we’ve tested—it fell short of satisfactory in our milk test (in which we burn milk to the bottom of a glass). Additionally, the 1-Hour Wash cycle may have taken exactly that long, but it barely got dishes clean.

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Efficiency

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Very efficient, especially when it comes to electricity use.

Much of the WDT790SAYW’s efficiency stems from its low energy consumption; with a hot water connection the machine spends less power heating water. Specifically, we found the WDT790SAYW used between 0.37 and 0.76 kWh per wash—depending on the cycle—marking an electricity cost of between 4 and 8 cents per wash.

The WDT790SAYW has average hot water consumption. Interestingly, the One-Hour Cycle used more water than the Normal Cycle (5 gallons on the One-Hour, 2.78 on the Normal, and 7.57 on the Heavy). This made for an average water cost of 3 to 7 cents per wash. Given the One-Hour cycle’s inferiority in both performance and efficiency, we suggest using the Normal or Heavy cycles more often.

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Other Tests

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