Refurbished Dishwasher Benches

Because washing up is a flow, not a machine. Dirty crockery arrives in a pile and has to be scraped, rinsed and racked somewhere before it goes in; clean racks come out hot and have to land somewhere to steam dry before they are put away. Take either surface away and the person on the machine stops being able to keep up.

The dirty side is the one people underestimate. It needs to be long enough to hold the arrivals of a full service, which is more space than a tidy kitchen plan suggests. If something has to be short, shorten the clean side and add a rack trolley.

The dirty side, with a spray over it. The sink is there for scraping, soaking and pre-rinsing, and it only works if it is upstream of the machine. A sink on the clean side turns the whole run around and means dirty work crosses clean.

Work out the direction before you buy, because benches are made left-handed and right-handed, and a refurbished bench comes in the orientation it was built in. Stand where the person will stand, decide which way the racks travel, then look at what is in stock.

For a passthrough machine, yes. Rack slides let a full rack be pushed from the dirty bench into the machine and out onto the clean bench without lifting it, which is the whole point of a passthrough setup and the difference between a comfortable shift and a sore back.

For an undercounter machine it matters less, since racks are lifted in and out anyway. In that case put bench length and a good sink ahead of slides. Dishwasher racks come in sizes, so confirm the slide spacing matches the racks you intend to run.

Flatness and the condition of the welds first. A bench that has been dropped or twisted will rock, and a cracked weld at a leg or a sink corner is where water gets in and corrosion starts. Then the sink bowl for pitting, and the underside for rust around fixings.

Scratches on the top are cosmetic and normal on a working bench. What matters is dents that hold water, edges that have been bent, and whether the legs and feet adjust. Ask us for photos of the underside and the welds as well as the top, since that is where the condition really is.

Only if the heights line up, so measure your existing bench height first and compare it with the product page. Commercial benching is built to a handful of common working heights, but a used bench comes in the height it was made in, with only adjustable feet for fine tuning.

Depth matters too, because a shallower bench in the middle of a run leaves a step the kitchen will catch things on. Where the match is close but not exact, a stainless infill strip is usually a cheaper answer than holding out for a perfect size in one-off stock.

A splashback where the run meets a wall, yes — spray from a pre-rinse goes everywhere, and a bench without one soaks the wall behind it. A rear upstand also stops water running down behind the bench where nobody can clean.

On drainage, the bench itself usually only needs a fall towards the sink or the machine, but the area does need floor waste. Plan the plumbing and the waste for the whole wash-up run at once, including the commercial stainless steel kitchen mop sinks if they are going in the same corner.