Tumble dryers

Thriftylady

I've seen those dryer ball thingys in the Lakeland catalogue and was wondering if they actually work?

The cynic in me says no, but then again, something that re-distributes heat around the dryer should theoretically speed up the drying time.....

Have a small baby and our electricity bill has soared since her arrival.:eek: It rains a lot where I live, and I mean a lot!! If I didn't use the tumble dryer we'd all be in damp clothes, so if there was a way of shortening the drying time I'd be very interested....

jcr16

um i have never seen these. in theory it sounds great tho.

i read a thread a few days ago about putting a dry bath towel in with tumbly and this helps speed things us. so maybe before spending money u could try this. i haven't tried it yet as i haven't used my tumbly since reading it.

saving-grace

Sorry can't help with any info on the tumble drier ball things.
Where I live nothing dries outside from october to march, even on what appears to be a nice day. What I do is dry things on the airer and then only if they need it, I might give them 10 or 15 minutes in the tumbler just to finish them off.
(but when I had babies, I always did their nappies in the tumbledrier to make them nice and soft.)
Are you using your washing machine on its fastest spin? This can make a big difference to drying time

tawnyowls

And keeping the TD free of lint, and if it's a condenser dryer, making sure there's lots of air circulating will help. Dividing clothes into heavy and light before drying makes sure that most of the load isn't cooking just to get one pair of jeans dry.

Larumbelle

Someone told me to do loads of drying right after each other, since the drum and everything are already hot this is supposed to save you money. I've never tried it out though, I never use mine.

culpepper

If you have the vented to the outside kind like we do (bought for baby nappies 16 years ago) take off the removable lint filter and hoover the venting hose out with your vacuum cleaner's flexible hose. The hose will still get lint in even though the filter is cleaned every cycle and will slow down the drying.
You could partially dry the nappies by hanging indoors during the day and finish off in the tumble drier at night when on economy 7. They wouldn't need as long then and the power is cheaper.