go to your manufacturers website.. download their installation instructions.. see what they say..

24in was fine for mine.. and im guessing it will be fine for yours two..

your dishwasher itself isn't 24" wide.. and you might find that the manfucturer allows for an opening that is anywhere from 23 5/8" to 24 1/4".. so the 24" gap will be fine..

Exactly 24" is industry standard---and it works well with the cabinet industry standard of having cabinets come in 3" increments. Any wider, and you'll get sound blowby that will increase your noise level. Any narrower, and many DWs won't fit. Yes, Euro DWs are slightly narrower than their American cousins, but your KD should know that and have a filler strip (or extended stile on adjacent cabinet) available for the installer to rip to fit to close the gap. You should NOT make the opening smaller to fit a Euro DW, as down the road, you may want to change to an American spec'd DW and then you can just remove the filler strip or trim the stile..

Thanks for the help: I think I'll double check the gap, see if it's *exactly* 24, or a tiny fraction over.

I was leaning towards a Bosch, but haven't found one I like in person.

So I'm thinking of the Kenmore that CR rated the same as the best of the Boschs. It's louder, but cheaper and actually gets better scores from it's users. There doesn't seem to be a link to any install info, but in the specs it lists a width of '24'. Could be that this includes the compressable insulation on the sides, though...

its fine..

you can get kenmore installation manuals here..

in the upper right.. just need to fill in the brand and the model number..

they arent really 24in wide..

Here is a link that might be useful: install manual for kenmores

The vast majority of 24" dishwashers are nice and standard like 30" ranges. 30" ranges are meant to fit in a 30" space and so are actually 29 7/8". So to with the dishwashers. You don't want it any less than 24" though. That said, my cabinet maker left like 25+ inches. They put a rubber gasket, but it is slightly noiser than it used to be.

- Jim