COMFEE' CDC17P2AWW Countertop Dishwasher: A Powerful Cleaning Sidekick for Small Households

It began, as many great inventions do, with frustration. The year is 1882. In the Shelbyville, Illinois home of socialite and entrepreneur Josephine Cochrane, the echoes of a successful dinner party are marred by a familiar, heartbreaking sound from the scullery: the sharp crack of heirloom china being chipped by weary staff during handwashing. For Cochrane, this was more than an inconvenience; it was the steady erosion of her heritage, piece by precious piece. Her now-famous declaration, “If nobody else is going to invent a dishwashing machine, I’ll do it myself,” was not a boast. It was a promise.

By 1886, her promise took the form of a mechanical marvel: a wooden wheel in a copper boiler that shot hot, soapy water onto dishes secured in wire compartments. It was large, loud, and revolutionary. It was the genesis of a technology that would one day find its way into nearly every home.

Flash forward over a century to a modern-day apartment in Montreal. On a countertop, nestled between a coffee maker and a block of knives, sits a quiet, compact box: the COMFEE’ CDC17P2AWW. It is the direct, miniaturized descendant of Cochrane’s colossal invention. But while Cochrane fought a visible war against broken porcelain, this modern machine is waging a far more sophisticated battle against an enemy that is entirely invisible.

An Expedition Into the Unseen Battlefield

Let’s peer inside this small theater of operations with the eyes of a microbiologist. Take a plate, rinsed by hand until it squeaks with apparent cleanliness. Under a microscope, this pristine surface is revealed to be a bustling metropolis. Colonies of E. coli, Salmonella, and Staphylococcus aureus, transferred from food, sponges, and hands, thrive in the microscopic film of moisture and nutrients left behind. This is the unseen world this countertop box is designed to conquer.

The cycle begins. The first weapon deployed is ancient and elemental: extreme heat. As the machine fills, the internal temperature climbs steadily, surging past the thermal death point for most bacteria and viruses. It reaches a formidable peak of 192°F (approximately 89°C). This is not merely hot water; this is a state of pasteurization. At this temperature, the very structure of microbial life collapses. According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Food Code, sanitizing water must reach at least 171°F (77°C) to be effective in a commercial setting. This compact appliance operates comfortably within this professional, scientific standard, conducting a thermal purge that handwashing could never safely or sustainably replicate. The microbial city is, in effect, subjected to a microscopic inferno.

But the assault isn’t over. After the heat subsides, a faint, ethereal blue glow might be perceived through the viewing window. This is the UV Hygiene cycle, the deployment of a silent, sophisticated weapon. The machine is emitting a specific wavelength of ultraviolet light, likely in the UV-C spectrum around 254 nanometers, long-established by science as germicidal. Think of this light not as a heat source, but as a barrage of invisible, high-energy daggers. When these photons strike a bacterium or virus, they penetrate the cell nucleus and perform a kind of molecular surgery, scrambling the organism’s DNA and RNA. This genetic damage is catastrophic, robbing the microbe of its ability to function or reproduce. It is a final, definitive act of sterilization, ensuring that any heat-resistant spore or shadowed survivor is neutralized.

The Poetry of Constrained Engineering

To command such a powerful bio-warfare campaign is one thing. To do so within a container measuring just 17.25 inches deep by 16.5 inches wide is another entirely. This is where brute force science gives way to the elegance of engineering under constraints.

Consider the water. The entire wash and rinse cycle consumes just six liters of water—roughly the volume of three large soda bottles. How can this paltry amount so thoroughly outperform minutes under a running tap, which the EPA estimates can flow at up to 2.2 gallons (about 8.3 liters) per minute? The answer lies in the physics of force and coverage. Instead of a high-volume, low-pressure flood, the machine uses two spinning spray arms to create a 360-degree matrix of high-pressure jets. This atomized water acts like a thousand tiny scalpels, physically blasting contaminants from surfaces. It maximizes the kinetic energy of every single drop, achieving a superior clean with a fraction of the resources.

Then comes the challenge of drying. A lesser design might employ a brute-force heating element, consuming significant energy to bake the dishes dry. This machine, however, chooses a more intelligent path rooted in thermodynamics. At the cycle’s conclusion, the Auto-Open function unlatches the door. This simple action initiates a sophisticated dance of natural forces. The hot, moisture-laden air inside, having a lower density, naturally seeks to escape and is replaced by the cooler, drier ambient air of the kitchen. A built-in turbofan accelerates this process of convection, actively pulling the damp air out and across the dishes. It is, in essence, a calculated, mechanical exhalation that efficiently wicks away moisture without the high energy cost of a dedicated dryer.

This dedication to intelligent design is not without its candid trade-offs. Some users have noted that, over many cycles, the potent UV light can cause a slight yellowing in certain plastics—a process known in materials science as photodegradation. In a way, this is a testament to the sheer power of the UV sanitization; it is the faint scar from a potent, effective weapon. It also highlights the importance of proper loading. The efficacy of both the water jets and the UV light depends on line-of-sight, a fundamental limitation of physics that requires a user’s thoughtful arrangement to ensure every surface is reached.

The Promise, Fulfilled

We return, finally, to Josephine Cochrane. Her ambition was born from a desire to protect her valuable things. More than 130 years later, this quiet countertop descendant protects things she could have scarcely imagined as being under threat: our health from a microscopic world, our time in an increasingly fast-paced society, and our precious resources on a crowded planet.

The COMFEE’ CDC17P2AWW is more than a convenience. It’s a desktop-sized dossier on over a century of scientific and engineering progress. It is a testament to the idea that the greatest solutions are not always the largest, but the most intelligent. For the modern dweller—in the compact apartment, the traveling RV, the minimalist home—it fulfills Cochrane’s original promise, updated for a new era. It is a machine that washes dishes, yes, but in doing so, it brings a measure of control, a touch of science, and a quiet sense of mastery to the beautiful, complex, and often constrained canvas of daily life.