Are heat pump tumble dryers the way to go?

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bradpitt3@reddit

Condenser dryers are simpler, cheaper and better value for money. Compare them to heat pump models and I doubt you will buy a heat pump model.

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Icy_Obligation4293@reddit

For me, drying time is the singular factor that goes into my decision to use the dryer. If I didn't care about drying time, I'd get a clothes horse and a dehumidifier.

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Opposite for me. I couldn't care less how long it takes. I want to press a button and walk away. If it beeps after an hour, 2 hours, 5 hours, 10 hours, I don't care. So long as I know. Hanging things up is the chore I'm trying to avoid. I have a condenser washer dryer. Once a week I put EVERYTHING in ("can't go in that wash"?! Tough. Anything that doesn't survive is thrown away anyway, so all my clothes can go through the washer-dryer without issue no matter what "other colours I'm washing"). I press a button. I pay it no more attention until it beeps. I take it all out and throw it in a washing basket. If I'm feeling energetic I might fold up my work trousers when they come out and put them in the middle of the hot pile of clothes, to "press" themselves. Modern fabrics don't really care anyway. I don't pay for an appliance so that I have to spend 30 minutes separating things, running three washes, moving them to a dryer or airer or hanging them up, fold them and iron them. I pay so I can press a button and walk away.

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geoffmendoza@reddit

I also practice Darwinian laundry.

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ThrowRAMomVsGF@reddit

I would also add clothes wear. With a tumble dryer some clothes would deteriorate much faster. I don't mind hanging things and waiting an extra couple of hours, so I have a (refrigerant) dehumidifier now with a simple clothes horse. It's very efficient too.

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billsmithers2@reddit

Why not just buy a dehumidifier with a rotating drum

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knight-under-stars@reddit

Similar for me. We have 4 very active teenage boys and so often we can be doing multiple loads of washing back to back. If the tumble dryer is not as quick as the washing machine it makes this a royal PITA.

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andrewrmoore@reddit

Depends on your priorities. I love my heat pump dryer, it uses about 1 kWh of energy per drying cycle, versus about 3.5 kWh of my old condenser dryer. When using it about 3 times a week, the costs add up. A quick calculation for my usage comes up with £93.60 a year in savings. Yes, it takes 2–3 times longer to dry clothes, but I don't really mind.

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Plus_Pangolin_8924@reddit

>Yes, it takes 2–3 times longer to dry clothes, but I don't really mind. I don't get where this comes from. Mines takes 2 hours to do a 9kg load on the extra dry setting. My old condenser took 1.5 hrs but most of the time had to stick it on again as it wasn't dry!

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andrewrmoore@reddit

It must depend a lot on the specific model and settings. My old condenser dryer only took about 45 minutes for a cycle, whereas my heat pump dryer is more like 90–120 minutes.

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KingDaveRa@reddit

Fairly recently bought our second heat pump dryer, and it can - and does - do a full load in 1 hour 10. Or you can go 1:30 and save a bit of electricity (supposedly, I've not measured it). It pulls about 800w at most, and only fleetingly. That's an LG and it honestly runs rings around the previous Candy heat pump drier, which just gave up.

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Existingsquid@reddit

My better half uses the tumble dryer 2-3 times a day. Saves us £100 a month... I kid you not.

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Beanruz@reddit

FYI heat pump driers need to be kept above 10c (or about) otherwise they will take all day. So a garage without heating in winter is going to be an issue. I'm currently looking too. I've read slow drying times are an issue but then I've also read it says 3hours and does it in like 1hour 20mins. I think lots depends on how dry they are before they go in. Is your washing machine 1600rpm? Or 800? Because 800 would take a eternity to dry. Especially if it's in a garage

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Al_Bee@reddit

We have a heat pump dryer in our unheated garage. The manual says it gets less efficient under 4 degrees but has never failed to dry a load. We tend to run it over night on the cheap tariff so it works out as pennies per load.

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Beanruz@reddit

That means it got a delay function? Been looking and that doesn't seem like a common feature.

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Al_Bee@reddit

Tbf we didn't actually look for a delay function but it's great (it's pretty blunt it just delays starting for 3, 6 or 9 hours). I'm surprised it's not common as a lot of the companies are looking at how to make things run when cheap. At least I thought so.

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ab00@reddit

I need a new tumble dryer but mines in the garage so cant get a heat pump. Apparently condenser will work unless it gets below freezing. Annoying!

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Al_Bee@reddit

We have heat pump dryer in unheated garage. It's worked fine for the 2 years we've had it, even in winter although haven't had any very sub-zero trials tbf

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Agreeable_Fig_3713@reddit

Yes it takes longer. Family of five - three kids two adults. One fifteen and one forty year old on the rugby teams, one 11 year old on the swim team plus a toddler and general household washing. Generally three hours to dry a full load. HOWEVER by replacing my old condenser for heat pump tumble and my fridge freezer for something a bit more energy efficient, even with the extra time taken to dry our leccy bill is just about halved. Our concerns were that my husband wouldn’t be able to fix it himself if it went wrong as he does with just about everything else in the house and that parts for it would be costly or hard to source and I still can’t comment on that as it’s not went wrong yet but it’s only a bit over three years old.

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dglcomputers@reddit

Be aware that it's not generally recommended for just anyone to fix a tumble dryer due to the fire risk, naturally heat pump dryers have less of a fire risk due to the lower temperatures involved but do use flammable gases in the refrigeration circuit like any modern fridge/freezer/compressor based dehumidifier.

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Agreeable_Fig_3713@reddit

Babe. We’re working class. Both got families full of tradies. We fix everything ourselves

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Illustrious_Smoke_94@reddit

Babe, you're middle class...You're a teacher that's not a working class job.

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Icy_Obligation4293@reddit

Did you just scour through someone's reddit profile to find out their job so you could clap back on someone just because they called you "babe"? Lol.

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Existingsquid@reddit

That sounds similar to us. We spent more on appliances to save money. Swapped to a heat pump dryer and miele fridge freezer.

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super_starmie@reddit

I have a Beko heat pump dryer. I absolutely love it. I also don't think it takes very long, even though people say they take ages. I always use the eco cycle, and the timer says it takes 3 hrs and 9 mins... But it has NEVER taken that long even with a full load of towels in it. It has a sensor that adjusts the time and stops when it's dry. I'd say the longest it's ever taken is probably 1hr 45. Takes less time than my washing machine, which I hate - cycles are either 30 mins or 3.5 hours, there is no in between

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Plus_Pangolin_8924@reddit

YES! Amazing for how cheap they are to run and my 9kg one takes about 2 hours to dry a full load perfectly. Its basically a closed loop dehumidifier. So much better than my old condenser one for sure! That thing never seemed to dry properly.

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V65Pilot@reddit

The fastest drying will be the old fashioned, exhausting through a hose type. It's in the garage, so I'll assume an external wall? That's what I'd do. I have a condenser, but I rent so I can't cut holes in the wall....

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mellonians@reddit

Got a heat pump and it lives in the garage. Yes it can take an absolute age so plan your washing a bit. No more than 3 hours tgough. Also, on the coldest of nights it won't work but that's only caught me off guard twice. I'm pleased to report that it's a lot gentler on clothes so I trust it with a lot of untumbledrierable garments. If it's in the garage, run a waste pipe straight through the wall it's a game changer not having to empty it ever again.

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LanguidVirago@reddit

I love mine, super cheap to run for a dryer, yeah, not in the slightest bit fast, generally a full mixed fabric load takes 2.5 hours to dry. My washing machine from the same brand works at a snails pace too. But I don't care, I live alone and tend to do a couple of washes at the weekend.

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FakeNordicAlien@reddit

If drying time is the most important thing then you probably want a vented. Assuming you have a vent. Heat pump dryers do take a while to dry, and longer in a cold or damp room. They probably take a little less time than condensers, though I’ve only used condensers at other people’s houses, so I haven’t given them a fair go. (I’m fine with this, I hated them when I used them.) The plus sides of heat pump dryers are that they use very little electricity (I think mine is about 10p/hr to run), they dry at a lower heat so cause less damage to delicates (and to all clothes in the long run), and you don’t need a vent. On the minus side, they take longer than vented dryers, they’re not great if the room is cold and damp, and the initial cost is higher, though you probably make up for that in the first few months with what you save on electricity. Vented dryers are fast and cheap to buy, but damage clothes faster (especially fragile things), use a ton of electricity, and need a vent. Condensers, IMO, combine the worst of both.

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Ancient_Phallus@reddit

Have a Samsung heat pump dryer. Absolutely love it. It has a sensor option, so it will end the cycle prematurely if the clothes are dry. Also my clothes don’t shrink either. In terms of electricity costs, there are only 2 of us so haven’t noticed any increase in our bill

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oktimeforplanz@reddit

I think heat pump dryers are great, but they're probably not one to choose if drying time is important. Most stuff takes 2-3 hours to dry on a standard cycle in mine. This isn't an issue whatsoever for us, because there's just two of us and we generally do 4 or 5 loads of washing a week (lights, darks, bathroom towels, bedsheets, cleaning cloths/handtowels/etc). So we tend to just do one a day and the drying time is irrelevant. I work from home though, so I can get more than one done a day if I need to. It's so much quieter, which was a big plus, and since it doesn't dump heat out into the room, it doesn't make the kitchen intolerably warm if I have it going while I'm cooking. It costs much less to use than our old dryer as well. We got it because the old one broke down beyond economical repair, and it was already a cheap shit one. So we decided to upgrade and I'm glad we did.

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44617272656E@reddit

Generally air-source heat pumps work better (more efficient) in a warmer environment but most are ok down to around -10degC. Check the temperature rating on the one you want to buy.

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ab00@reddit

This is completely wrong, heat pump tumble dryers are different from heat pump heating systems. You *cannot* put a heat pump tumble dryer in a room that's going below about 7-10 degrees C.

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ab00@reddit

Wont work if it's in a room that gets cold so worth considering this.

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r33c31991@reddit

We had a relatively expensive tumble dryer and had nothing but problems (Hoover branded), swapped it for a heat pump dryer and the difference was night and day, it takes between 2-3 hours to do a 10kg load but it uses significantly less electricity, during the winter I'd say we were saving around £15/m on electricity alone

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SyboksBlowjobMLM@reddit

They’re really good. They are much lower temperature, with much lower risk of fire opening up the possibility of running overnight to offset the longer running time.

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Breaking-Dad-@reddit

I don't know how well they work in a garage. We had a dryer in the shed (came with the house) which gave up the ghost. We decided to go with a heat pump and bring it in to the kitchen (which is tiny so we had to move and old under counter fridge and put the fridge freezer in the dining bit). It is slow, but not as slow as it advertises. It is however, **way cheaper** to run. We got a very expensive Bosch one but it is paying for itself. It is A rated which might be why it cost a bit more but hopefully it will last and it really is good.

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Internal-Leadership3@reddit

They get less efficient the colder the ambient temperature is. If it gets really cold (thinking beast from the east cold) you can even end up with a frozen solid water drawer. Still get a thumbs up from me, much cheaper to run.

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Internal-Leadership3@reddit

They're slower, but as they barely seem to get the clothes even lukewarm, probably more gentle on your togs. Come to think of it, I've not seen a bobbled hoodie or jumper since we got our heat pump.

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Odd_Explanation558@reddit

They do take A LOT longer, over 3 hours for my 8kg Hoover unit but they're so much cheaper especially for frequent day time loads.

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Inaword_Slob@reddit

My HP dryer takes about seventy five minutes to dry a full mixed load of washing. The program usually estimates two hours but mine has never taken that long, the sensor finishes the cycle a lot quicker than it estimates. They are the most cost-effective form of tumble drying, do if you need a tumble dryer, there's not really a reason not to go HP, you can stick them almost anywhere.

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StationFar6396@reddit (OP)

Thanks, what make is yours?

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Inaword_Slob@reddit

A Beko, bought it when the energy prices started shooting up, now I'm jobless and I'm glad I've got it.

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R2-Scotia@reddit

We have a heat pump condenser one. It's OK but yes takes ages.

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Fractalien@reddit

We changed to a heat pump one a few years ago and it takes about the same time as the old one did but I am sure it depends on how good the respective models are that you are comparing. I've never been worried about speed so unfortunately I can't tell you how long it takes - 2 or 3 hours for a full load would be my guess but the sensor turns it off when done so the timer is no help.

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