My favorite near disaster story was due to my 100 year old house having come with 50 year old electric cooktop that sat over the (slightly younger dishwasher).

My favorite near disaster story was due to my 100 year old house having come with 50 year old electric cooktop that sat over the (slightly younger dishwasher). I destroyed the dishwasher right after moving in (by running it with the new water line turned off - I should have checked) and was happy to see that at least the dishwasher shaped hole was still standard sized. What I didn't realize until the new dishwasher arrived was that the old dishwasher was smaller (lower) inside the case - leaving a handy buffer space between the underside of the electric burners and the top of the dishwashers electronics. The new dishwasher had only about and inch of space and even after sticking in a layer of nomex insulation test runs of the cooktop with a thermal probe sited on the top of the dishwasher's insides revealed that I couldn't use any settings beyond medium without hitting questionable levels. The cooktop's associated oven put the whole question to rest soon after by bursting into flames due to a wiring failure. (This apparently period appropriate setup for small kitchens placed the dishwasher at the bottom with with cooktop above it and then a small oven on top with a integrated exhaust system underneath and on top of the oven - actually pretty handy).