Heat pump vs other tumble dryer

[psynuk]

Looking for some quick real life experience of heat pump tumble dryers,

Before I buy one.

 

There's a fair bit said on t'net about looong drying times. Does anyone who's got one find this to be the case and taking that into account, is it worth the extra initial expense (£200) vs the longer term 'saving' in electric (approx 50%).

 

Do you regret it, love it?

[Dozer]

We've got one from Bosch, highly rated by Which magazine. It works well. I have to admit I've just taken their word about the energy efficiency, but we're happy with it. You do have to empty the water drawer after every load, but that's easy to do.

 

Unlike our old dead cheap tumble dryer, it does need an engineer to come out every 2-3 years to remove cat hair from it for about £90. The symptom is that it clogs up so that the water doesn't reach the water drawer for 3-4 loads, and then it overfills on the next one.

 

Hope that helps!

[Jomie]

Don't know the answer to your question but have you thought about a gas tumble dryer? They are efficient and very economical. There is only one - White Knight. We have had one for decades. The current machine is only the second and it is in daily use. Link

Edited October 31, 2016 by Jomie

[crookedspire]

My experience of tumble dryers is they use a lot of electric and clothes still feel damp it just has easy to put them outside. Iv got what I call an ' car port' basically a covered shelter over the car drive Iv attached an rope to the poles so no matter the weather still can put my clothes out.

[ianparkin]

We have recently bought a LG eco hybrid 9kg one and its works well nice and quiet maybe its on a bit longer than a condensor one we replaced but certainly energy consumption is much less

[Flexo]

Heat pump models have extra components in them, i.e. the "heat pump" which is much the same as a refrigerator's gubbins.

 

Obviously that takes energy and resources to manufacture and dispose of at end of life, so the unit may not be as green as they are made out to be.

 

They are considerably more expensive than dryers without heat pumps and take some time to save enough energy to pay for themselves.

 

There is more to go wrong and more to deal with when they do.

 

You'll get the best results and shortest drying times with a vented dryer.

[syne]

 

Obviously that takes energy and resources to manufacture and dispose of at end of life, so the unit may not be as green as they are made out to be.

 

Yes, I'd thought about that, from an ecological point of view it's almost impossible to figure out if the extra components needed to create the energy saving are an actual gain or not. Obviously over a long enough period of time they will be, but actually figuring that out is nigh on impossible.