Exciting times - we need a new tumble dryer! 🙂
So in these times of high energy bills I've been looking at heat pump ones, but are they any good?
And does the longer run times negate the lower power usage?
And do they use a lot less energy than a normal pipe vented one?
Clothes airer ! Dryer now only for emergencies. I suppose you need to see how much eneregy it consumes for a typical load. We can get two washer loads on the airer - leave it in the conservtory. Dehumidifier for winter.
Heat pump are the most efficient.
Had to do the same last year. The heat pump dryer is much nicer. It dries the clothes just as well but the room it's in is very noticeably cooler when it's finished. I assume that means it's more efficient.
Also, ours, a Bosch, has a see-through door and an internal light which is on when it starts tumbling. You get quite a neat light show on the walls when it starts up.
I've looked at those drying racks, but we just don't have room for one, plus a dehumidifier (which surely defeats the energy saving!?).
The tumble dryer will be stuffed in a corner of a shed.
Pleased enough with mine. Only use it when we can’t hang stuff outside though. Hate wet clothes hanging in the house
Is the energy saving not just false advertising, because they suck the heat out of the room, so you have to spend more on heating the room?
If the dryer is going in a shed, then might a normal vented one be better - you'll be using a heat pump one in cold conditions ? Our dryer is in the porch, vented to outside.
Is the energy saving not just false advertising, because they suck the heat out of the room, so you have to spend more on heating the room?
This is my other thought - is it greenwashing? And it will be in a shed so there's very little heat to suck out of the air, especially in winter!
We can get two washer loads on the airer – leave it in the conservtory. Dehumidifier for winter.
dehumdifier seemed to use almost the same or more energy than the condenser drier in our case - sure it uses less per hour but it was required for many many more hours .
surely outside of winter you hang the clothes on the outside washing line and take advantage of the wind and solar power.
we were fine without a tumble drier when it was just the two of us - once kids arrived it was necessary evil.
Clothes are always on the washing line if the weather is OK.
If you're putting it in a shed then a heat pump isn't going to work in winter. Otherwise our John Lewis/AEG one has been running for 9 years with just the motor needing replaced when the magnet bars started delaminating, other than having to use the old end plate (different mount IIRC) it was a straight swap. As for taking the heat out the room, not to any appreciable degree, certainly not worthy of cranking up the heat.
The "solution" of airer and dehumidifier is just the same principle as a condenser dryer but you're having to dry a much bigger volume. Just open a window.
surely outside of winter you hang the clothes on the outside washing line and take advantage of the wind and solar power.
Depends, are we talking west coast or east coast? You lot are cold but relatively dry, we're cold and wet. If I wanted to dry clothes "outside" for 2/3 of the year I'd need a dedicated drying shed and room to build it. Actually seriously considering this when we move, just needs hit and miss walls and a clear roof like a vented conservatory.
It takes heat to change water into vapour, but condensing the vapour back to water gives off heat. Vented dryers use electric elements to heat the water in the washing and dump the warm moist air outside. Condenser dryers start off the same but draw in cold air to cool the moist air to condense the water, so don't need a vent, but the heat recovered from the condensation isn't recovered. Heat pump dryers input some heat (from their surroundings) but also recover the heat from the condensation, so are the most energy efficient.
I've read that condenser dryers aren't perfect at getting all the condensation to happen in the dryer, so you can get condensation on cold walls and windows, but I have never had one. We went from vented to heat pump.
Heat pump takes longer but works at lower temperatures so you can dry almost anything without risk of damage. The lower total energy use plus the longer time means that the electrical power requirement is much lower, we have solar panels and the low power can often be mostly covered by the panels (yes, we could just dry washing in the sun, but hanging it outside isn't good if you get hay fever).
Drying racks are fine when you're not heating the house, but the heat to evaporate the water has to come from somewhere, and if you're not recovering any from the condensate it will increase your energy use. But if your heating is gas, it's cheaper than electricity, so might still be a saving.
If you're drying clothes indoors you're using energy. Dry them on an open rack and the evaporation will cool the air in the room (which during the heating season you're heating again with your heating system). A dehumidifier is then using more power to get the moisture you've put into the air out of it.
my understanding is that a heat pump dryer *should* be the most efficient way of drying clothes indoors. The do generate a small amount of heat (so it makes sense to put them in a room in the house and not in an outbuilding) but nothing like as much as any other form of tumble dryer
Re passive drying, we put a clothes rail on the ceiling at the top of our stairs where it's always warm and isn't in the way. Dries really well, and we don't need a dehumidifier. Due to the design of the house the heat collects up there where it's not really needed so using that is essentially 'free' heat.
I like ours and it doesn't send the SMART meter into a fit when it's on. Crucially this
you can dry almost anything without risk of damage
Had to do the same last year. The heat pump dryer is much nicer. It dries the clothes just as well but the room it’s in is very noticeably cooler when it’s finished. I assume that means it’s more efficient.
Sorry but this just isn't how heat pump tumbledriers work. It's more efficient because the drying air is in a closed loop. A seperarte coolant circuit (the heat pump) extracts energy from the warm, wet air leaving the drum and then transfers it back into the dried air going back to the drum. There is still an overall net energy input into the room because the machine is drawing power to run the compressor, mechanical drive, energy losses etc
Miele explain it here
We were looking at replacing our tumble drier recently for energy saving reasons (conventional hot air type). Worked out the power draw of the current machine using the electricity meter - it used 2KWh for a full load. Decent heat pump models were claiming 1.4KWh for a full load. We currently pay 38p KWh (eco tarrif, so no cap on it). Potential saving per load is quite modest at 50p per load.
We do probably 80 loads a year - so current saving would be £40/yr, maybe touching £100/yr if prices go as high as forecast. Looking at £600 for a decent quality machine. YMMV but for me there is no financial justification for chucking out a functioning tumble drier to get a heat pump model unless you're a very heavy user with several loads a week.
If I was replacing a machine that broke would defo go heat pump. With a decent quality machine with a 10 year life will defo pay for itself.
We got one when ours failed about 18 months ago.
Think was less than £100 more than a normal one at the time. Wife happy. It seems fine in use. Not used it for last 3 or 4 months though. Job done, seems like a no brainer.
Not sure how ours works. It's a washer dryer, so it recirculates the air, but I think it is cooling the hot air and condensing it out by using cold water. This might be a bit less energy efficient but it's wasteful of water.
It gets used about 5x a year though.
What is the most energy efficient method of drying clothes and washing in general in the winter?
Washing them less frankly.
@airvent, when you have 3 kids, 2 of which are under 4 and have a hands on manual job that's a pipedream
Bosch Heat Pump dryer here. We have it in the utility room where the boiler is also located so the room is always warm which I assume helps the dryer work more efficiently.
I reckon on a like for like load it uses 25% of the electricity of our old vented dryer. Two reasons for this:
1. It’s more efficient
2. (IMO opinion more importantly) it detects when the load is dry and stops drying. Our condensing dryer was in the garage so you’d just set a load of towels to E.g 2 hours and walk away
We use it as little as possible though. Either line drying in the day or using an airer and dehumidifier if drying overnight
@molgrips I thought washer dryers just heated the drum up and flung the stuff about in the vain hope of evaporating any water?
