Washer driers. Anyone have thoughts on them?

Washer driers. Anyone have thoughts on them?

Tend to do my thinking on the throne tbh 😉

Mother had one. Washed fine. Drier not so fine compared to a separate drier. Clothes took longer to dry and she had a number of issues with it specific to the drying 'control' (can't remember exactly what). When it finally went fully wrong she went back to vented TD.

if it was me id get a good brand washing machine with fewer options (lets face it, how many of us just use 1 or 2 different washes for everything) and then get a decent dehumidifier for drying clothes and also removing er..... humidity in the house at the same time.  which is what we did funnily enough 😀

They tend not to be able to dry a full load

I've heard they're best avoided.

I've got one, fitted as an integral appliance in the house when I bought it.

Washing performance = good but capacity it smallish.

Drying performance = total rubbish. It would be more effective to put the wet clothes on and run round the house.  As a result I never use it to dry stuff, for winter and rainy days I use a clothes stand thing and a good dehumidifier.

As above, not very good for a full load, can take ages and burns through a lot of electricity.

However, I've got one and I use it for drying socks and underwear, as they tend to take more than 24 hours to dry when hung up to air dry.

Sheets, shirts, trousers and sweatshirts etc tend to dry overnight so I don't bother to tumble dry them, it would take ages and cost a lot to do so.

I'd advise getting a machine with slower dry cycles, as the ones with quicker cycles can get very hot and damage clothes with synthetic mixed fibres etc. I got a Hotpoint.

EDIT:

Sounds obvious but shirts, t-shirts and troisers dry a lot quicker if you put them on a hangar rather than a drying rack.

My AEG one is alright - though since the combined cycles seemed to stop moving onto the drying cycle, I've been hanging washing up again - it also seemed to make my t-shirts get really creased. In winter, I'll revert back to using the drier for non-t-shirts - I don't like having laundry hanging about the house - looks unsightly haha

When we ever used the drier everything was massively creased. So we actually just used (and still use in the winter) a clothes airer and dehumidifier.

If getting things dry is important then wash only half loads or larger items (polo shirts, sheets, towels). Set spin as high as it will go for the fabric type and there should be fully dried laundry when the cycle finishes. (We don't line dry towels as they tend to go like boards due to the hard water here).

We had one years ago, it wasn't that bad at drying sheets etc, which was probably all we used it for.

Now have a separate condensor drier, which only gets used in the depths of winter.

Does having the drying capability make the washing bit worse?

No.  I've got a Samsung job which has all the features like a contra-rotating back of the drum, the add-a-sock drawer in the front, and bubble washing etc.  The drier isn't anywhere near as good as a  vented one.

Drier negatives:

• Takes ages
• Only works with half a load, however that is still about 4kg in our case as it's a 9kg washer
• Door cannot be opened to check on stuff, you have to wait forever for it to 'cool down' which is incredibly ****ing annoying. But I think this is a Samsung specific feature. Even though they also make an oven that lets you open the door and rummage around in there as much as you want, you can bake your hands as much as you want without a single chastisement.  They give us autonomy where you could actually burn yourself but absolutely refuse to let us anywhere near our WARM clothes FFS.
• Not as efficient as a condenser drier but they also take ages
• Clothes seem to get really quite hot even on the 'synthetics' setting whatever temp that is meant to be.
• Washing/drying as a concept is a bit of a pain as we have lots of synthetics and a single load of laundry is almost never all one type of fibre.  This can of course be done if needed, and you can of course programme the wash and dry separately, but often doing one straight-through programme of wash and dry isn't ideal.  YMMV there though.
• Uses extra water to cool the condenser coil

Drier positives:

• Does not need a vent, nor do I need to leave the garage door open
• I was able to use the space the previous drier took up for something else
• Is fairly efficient compared to hot air job.
• Doesn't need emptying of water because it already has a drain and pump built in.
• Air wash feature is nice.  It's a gentle warm tumbling of dry clothes, which deodorises them.

Yeah we replaced one with another when it died. Candy something lasted 15 years then went pop (literally) so bought another,  bigger load capacity.

Mrs F is a nurse so if she needs a clean uniform urgently for a shift it's ideal to do a few things,  but I'd not use it for much else, clothes horse and dehumidifier for normal loads.

If you haven’t used the drier in years, bin it and replace the washing machine with one that suits your needs. Don’t waste extra money on something that will be a compromise.

Meh.  Ours gets used once or twice a year, but sometimes it's handy. I don't recall it being that much more expensive.

On a warm windy day my rotary line dries a full wash in around 3 hours. Bit longer in the winter.

If you’ve got more than one load to wash, you load the second as soon as the first is done as it’s drying. And as most only seem to dry half the washed load, you’ll be waiting even longer.

Raise the tumble drier in the garage onto a unit. Tada more storage no compromise.

The removal of faff will increase the usage therefore killing the planet leave it where it is.

I’d keep them as separate items unless I had no space for the drier at all. Best of both worlds with separate items. If one fails then I can continue to use the other.

Combination machines always seem to have a load compromise and potential for lots of creasing when drying due to the small drum.

The drier only gets used for occasional "Oh yeah, we got an email last week saying we need to wear all green to school today" type emergency items.

If you don't use your current drier, why do you need a new drier?

What @intheborders said.

If you only use a drier occasionally then maybe a combination machine is for you if its cost is less than that of two separate machines.

But as you have a working (?) drier in the shed and only your washing machine is ailing why not just replace the washing machine when the time comes? Sure, you could get a bit of shed space back but getting rid of a working (?) machine you only use occasionally but need when you do use it seems wasteful.

Contrary view but I really like ours as you can wash and dry towels in a single cycle. The AEG we have has a couple of settings for level of humidity to avoid the mega creased t shirt look.

If we ever used the drier it would be for towels and sheets, so creases aren’t really an issue.

We moved into a house that doesn't have room in the kitchen for a drier. So on day one we bought a washer drier. Then we found a place for the drier. The drying function has been used just twice, but its good to know that if you need something washed and dry by 7 am you can set it off as you go to bed and it'll be ready.
The washing function is fine, but if you want anything dried you're restricted to a small load.

The drying function has been used just twice, but its good to know that if you need something washed and dry by 7 am you can set it off as you go to bed and it’ll be ready.

Ever been in a house fire? I wouldn't recommend it.

I've always had washer dryers (no space for separate machines), IME they work great. Previous one (maybe a Bosch but not sure) lasted 13 years (and was probably repairable but I wanted a change by then as it did have an issue with fluff getting left in the drum after drying so next wash cycle that fluff would deposit itself on the clothes).

Current one (a Siemens) I've had nearly 10 years and it's been faultless (it also has a quick fluff clean program to...). I regularly overload mine (in that the drying capacity is supposed to be much less than the washing capacity but I often fill the drum up with clothes for the wash and then select so it auto dries straight after. Not saying I recommend doing that but it's never caused a problem for me.

Given it's a condenser drier it's not as quick as a standard tumble dryer (takes twice as long or more to dry a full load vs the standard vented tumble dryer my parent's had) but the time it takes is never really an issue for me. Not sure on relative costs per drying cycle either. I'd say the big advantage of separate machines is for a family where you can be washing a second load whilst the first is drying etc. (and do bigger loads)

Door cannot be opened to check on stuff, you have to wait forever for it to ‘cool down’ which is incredibly **** annoying. But I think this is a Samsung specific feature.

This may be to reduce a blast of humid air into the room? Going by the thought process that a lot of combined washer dryers may be in flats and small houses. Like a lots of these things in my world it would be a requirement that it's a config option in a JSON / txt or ROm setting whatever file that you can edit even if not via some press key combination

Ever been in a house fire? I wouldn’t recommend it.

We've been delay starting our washing/drying for 35 years. Not burned to death yet, maybe because we have never bought a Beko or other cheaper brand.

I was never hugely impressed with the Hotpoint one that I had. It worked to dry clothes but had a tendency to run extremely hot. Because there was no lint filter - it flushed the heat exchanger with water instead - it was difficult to dry anything without it ending up covered in fluff.

It was a compromise to suit the situation I was in with limited space. You'd be much better off with a £200 heat pump tumble dryer if you can fit it in. Saves electricity and as an additional bonus just runs lukewarm so you can throw anything you want into it.

Washer/dryers are the white goods version of flying cars, surely?

We've got a Hotpoint Aquarius that's getting on for 15 years old.

Works great and the not drying a full load isn't an issue as it's rare I'd not unload and reload to remove stuff not suitable for tumble drying.  Bed sheets and towels the exception, if I want to dry immediately after the wash I just don't overload it.

As per others though, I'd use the dehumidifier in preference as you can dry the whole load that way.

Interesting comments about the fluff, I'd put it down to some article of clothing shedding over everything during the wash so will pay more attention and perhaps do an empty rinse if I've been drying something that's shed fibres!

This may be to reduce a blast of humid air into the room?

Perhaps, but it's next to the cooker on which a pot of whatever can be simmering for as long as I like so I doubt it's significant.  Plus 99.9% of the time the clothes are hung out in the house anyway!

had one before due to space, but never again - can only dry 1/2 the wash load and even then very slow. if you have the space, separate is the way to go.

had one before due to space, but never again – can only dry 1/2 the wash load and even then very slow. if you have the space, separate is the way to go.

I tend to agree with this - when it was just me and my wife we had a washer drier but we barely used it as it was rubbish. When we had twins we suddenly found we needed to use the drier and it was next to useless for the most part, with stuff often coming out barely any drier than when it went in. When we moved house we deliberately got separates and it is a life-saver, especially in winter as there is often two loads of washing a day, much of which goes straight into the drier (we try to air-dry as much as we can, but there is a limit to just how much drying washing we want all over the house.

a config option in a JSON / txt

As long as it's only editable via SSH that only permits Kerberos authentication.

Not burned to death yet, maybe because we have never bought a Beko or other cheaper brand.

We have always had Beko tumble dryers and we have not burned to death yet either. Beko did have an issue many years ago now, but people tend to burn to death when they dont clean out the filters of any brand of tumble dryer.

Back to OP why buy something new if you dont use the existing. Is it in a shed because you have no where to put it to use it, or because you cant be bothered going to the shed to use it?

My parents have had combined machines for over 25 years and they have always worked ok. Decent ones are very expensive, but they do work.

Dryer is in shed as no room in house. Rarely used as most things dry overnight with the dehumidifier.

As you rarely use the dryer (they are handy for emergencies) then I'd get the biggest load capacity, and, importantly best fit for the space. Just be mindful of depth - as I wanted fairly 'flush' this reduced my choice a little, but still got a 10kg model.

Our dryer is in the porch, but we rarely use it - electric cost is stupid, so everything on a drying rack and a dehumidifier.

We have a tumble drier in the shed taking up valuable space and not been used for years.

What do you need another one for, then?

Does having the drying capability make the washing bit worse?

Yes.

I've had a few, at varying degrees of price points from 'bargain basement' to 'ouch my bottom hurts.' They've all been shit. The ONLY reason I can think to have one is, well, the reason I did which is having a kitchen the size of Harry Potter's bedroom whilst simultaneously being a lazy bastard.