[Closed] Boring laundry room discussion

With a desiccant dehum are you not going to spend your life changing desicant (and redrying it?) - why not an electric condensing one - if you have a sink then one with a drain will be very effective. Not sure an extractor helps other than blowing the air you've warmed and dried outside. I guess the question then is which is more efficient a condensing tumble drier or hanging stuff in an electrically heated and dehummed room?

Somewhere to hang washing in winter is one of the main things we look for in a house. One of those washing line rack things that goes across the room above the doors has been a real benefit.

We put our washing in a spare room with a dehumidifier.
6 hours gets everything but the waist band on jeans dry. 300 w an hour.

Lakeland heated Clothes horse.

If you are going to all of that effort and cost, a heat pump tumble drier with a plumbed in drain will probably work out cheaper and less effort to install, and less faff to actually dry clothing to and less expensive to run.

Edit. It will obviously take up less space than a heated clothes horse, but it could still be worth putting a hanging creel in there as you running the drier will generate a little heat, so you may as well used it.

You either want a dehumidifier OR ventilation not both*. Not even much point in the heated towel rail either asking as it's not freezing in there.

*At the same time, obviously ventilation is a good idea if you plan to not use the humidifier but heating air then letting it out is just daft get a heat exchanger or something?

and less faff to actually dry clothing to and less expensive to run

It's no more faff than a washing line and you can dry loads of things you can't put in the tumble drier including tents, boots, anything wool, phones that you dropped in the toilet. And you get alot more in. Three machine loads overnight dry is better than three empty and refills.

I also have a tumble drier. I would also agree if you have one it is a good place to put it.

We've got something like this: https://www.castinstyle.co.uk/section.php/2/1/traditional-pulley-clothes-airers - a family member found the iron bits in an antique shop for £20 and I dug out laths, rope and pulleys to sort it. It's in constant use and does the job well. We've got a similar sized utility and it has a small rad in it that gets things dry overnight.
Deffo get some sort of ventilation fan to the outside if you can - I tend to crack the fanlight as often as possible to ventilate ours but in the winter it builds up. I leave the door open too if I can.
A shoe drier is also a Very Good Thing, what with soggy school shoes, wetsuit boots, riding shoes, trainers and football boots building up like snowdrifts. Big wet stuff like wetsuits get hung up over the shower in the winter or on the line in the summer.

The two fundamental questions are how to get heat into the clothes and how to get the water out of the room.

If feasible I would go for extract fan as cheaper to run than a dehumidifier and definitely avoid dessicant as mentioned previously.

For the drying, a heated clothes horse is very effective, better than a towel rail, although if you also put in a heated towel on your CH system instead of a radiator that can be convenient sometimes.

A tumble dryer will work but will be more expensive to buy and to run. They are quick and effective but some fabrics don’t like them.

A few hooks over the sink so you can hang things like waterproofs that are sopping wet, to drip before the go on the heated clothes horse.

poly
Free Member
With a desiccant dehum are you not going to spend your life changing desicant

J-R

If feasible I would go for extract fan as cheaper to run than a dehumidifier and definitely avoid dessicant as mentioned previously.

You don't replace the dessicant in a proper dessicant dehumidifier. It's a rotating disc of dessicant within the machine.

Like this: Dessicant dehumidifier

Because they have a heating element in them, they are generally more expensive to run than a condensor dehumidifier, but they work down to lower temps. Condensor deehumidifiers don't work very well in cooler locations - such as unheated outbuildings, garages etc.

OP Your list at the moment looks like you have several solutions on top of each other. If you have the dehumidifier, then you don't need the heated bits & an extractor. But, perhaps if you just want to dry a towel or riding gear it would be better to have a small heater going with an extractor on. Hard to know as it will come down to specific situation & use case.

We've just bought a dehumidifier (condensing) so we can reduce condensation in the house & dry clothes faster during the winter months. It seems to work pretty well, although takes a bit longer than expected.
We've also got a tumble dryer in the garage but I am hoping we will use that less now we have the dehumidifier.

I forgot to say: we were given a tumble dryer a few years back and have it plumbed in, but only use it when there's no option (tons of washing to get through or stuff like duvets). Our boiler is in the room as well, which helps with ambient temps.

I created a post on this last year, might be helpful

https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/how-to-make-a-drying-room-better-at-drying-stuff/

The outcome was I got a dehumidifier, it is very very good.

Our boiler is in the room as well, which helps with ambient temps.

You definitely need a condenser dehumidifier (over a desiccant) then if you have warmer ambient temperatures.

Condenser tumble drier blows warm dry air over our ceiling mounted washing hanger for double efficiency. Small utility room with no heating (underfloor but not used).

Agree that a condenser dehumidifier is better than a desiccant one but not for this reason:

"With a desiccant dehum are you not going to spend your life changing desicant (and redrying it?)"

The desiccant is on a revolving wheel, they then use heat to remove it. Their advantage over a condenser type is that they maintain efficiency down to low temperatures. However, at typical room temperatures they use roughly twice the energy of a condenser type for the same effect. So unless you are using them in a unheated garage, condenser is the way to go.

A dehumidifier is better than a heated clothes horse for a couple of reasons. The first is that with a clothes horse you will need some form of ventilation which inevitably means cold air coming into the house somewhere. The second is that dehumidifiers are more than 100% efficient at turning electricity to heat as they release the latent heat from the moisture in the air. Typically, they are in the region of 150% efficient as a heat source. So they would also be preferable to other electrical heating apart from heat pumps as a heat source.

Thanks for the tips, all.
Dehumidifier sounds like the way to go - we've got lots that doesn't go in the tumble dryer. Wonder what the relative costs are dehumidifier Vs tumble dryer?

Heated shoe rack also a good shout - anyone got any recommendations?

Wonder what the relative costs are dehumidifier Vs tumble dryer?

Very similar but a heat-pump tumble dryer is cheaper to run than a (condenser) dehumidifier. They work on a similar principles. However, the economics don't always stack up if you are replacing a working tumble dryer with a heat pump dryer as the saving will only be around £50 per year (£90 down to £40)

You don’t replace the dessicant in a proper dessicant dehumidifier. It’s a rotating disc of dessicant within the machine.

every day is a school day!

We put our washing in a spare room with a dehumidifier.

+1

We have space for 4 loads of washing in the spare room and that costs around a pound to dry.

You either want a dehumidifier OR ventilation not both*

Definitely this, or you're just pulling moisture in from outside.

We have space for 4 loads of washing in the spare room and that costs around a pound to dry.

Which give or take it the same as a heat-pump dryer.

Heat pump dryers are slower than previous dryers because they operate at lower temperature. The flip side is that they are less likely to shrink/damage clothes

Also, something I didn't know til a recent purchase, chrome towel radiators have much less heat output than white ones, the one I bought had around 2000BTU, chrome one was 1200BTU. And they're not as good as a dehumidifier to be honest.

Also, something I didn’t know til a recent purchase, chrome towel radiators have much less heat output than white ones

Never knew that so I googled it and found this:

First and foremost, surface emissivity plays a huge role. Chrome possesses a low emissivity value, which means it tends to contain heat and struggle to transmit it to the same extent as other materials.

So how does that work then?
The core material is the same (steel) so it will absorb the same amount of heat regardless of the surface finish, and you can't just "absorb" heat [energy] - surely it has to be released at some point otherwise it's effectively destroying energy which, as we all know, is physically impossible.
I presume a chromed towel rail will ultimately give off the same amount of heat but will take longer over doing so.

I have a "drying cupboard".  My boiler is in it and there is a space around 1.5x1.5x3m(High)  I have built a rack in it. My old boiler was less efficient and wasted a lot of heat - the new one is not as bad from that point of view.  2 loads of stuff in there dries in around 18-24 hours now - used to be 12 hours with the old boiler.

I considered putting a small radiator in there but it still dries clothes well enough for me.  There is an air inlet from the eaves low down and I have a series of holes in the wooden panel above the door to get air circulation and when I have a lot of stuff in there I leave the door open.  No sign of any damp or condensation

for the OP I would use a small radiator mounted low down and have a humidity sensing extractor fan if worried about condensation but as most folk say central heating leads to dry air so just ensuring good ventilation into the rest of the house might be enough

Spent sometime on the last 2 big threads on this and it seems a lakeland heated airer and a dehumidifier was the ultimate solution.

However, I went with just the recommend Meaco DD8L Dehumidifier, and couldn't be happier. 4 standard airers in the bathroom with the door shut and the dehumidier on, is such a game changer. The clothes come out bone dry and zero hassle, other than emptying the water drawer every handful of hours and being amazed about how much water it has collected.

Meaco DD8L Dehumidifier, order one!

sharkbait - the remaining heat goes back into the system - the water flowing out of the rad is hotter with a chrome one or the total flow is lower if balanced properly

If you are going to all of that effort and cost, a heat pump tumble drier with a plumbed in drain will probably work out cheaper and less effort to install, and less faff to actually dry clothing to and less expensive to run.

This. Just this.

We're in an airtight, very well insulated house so we also have a "Sheila Maid" (stainless steel version) clothes airer on the ceiling (and a fold up airer as well). The ventilation system means stuff drys pretty quickly without any damp issues but you're still cooling the air in the house to dry the washing so supposedly a heat pump condenser dryer is cheaper in winter anyway.

I don't dry 'kit' clothes in the tumble drier but they tend to dry quickly in any case .

We use a condenser dehumidifier, as mentioned earlier you don't really want to combine it with ventilation as it's trying to dry out the whole world.

We find it works best if we load the clothes horse up in a small room and shut the door.

We have a combination washer dryer but we only really use that to dry towels and bedding due to the amount of water they hold and the size. About half our stuff can't go in a tumble dryer so it's easier just to hang it all up.

If you have a laundry room I'd get a dehumidifier that the drain can be diverted outside so you don't need to empty it. Ours has a little heater built in and it keeps even a large room surprisingly warm if the heating is off.