Drying Laundry with a Dehumidifier - How much?

carted00

It's getting to that time of the year again when clothes have to be dried indoors more often than outdoors. My wife uses the tumble dryer but my head gets in a spin watching the electricity meter whizzing round. We move into a new house hopefully the end of this month and although there isn't room in the kitchen for the tumble we do have another spot if necessary.

I've been looking at dehumidifiers for drying clothes but I'm not sure whether they'll be any cheaper to run. The plan is to put the clothes and dehumidifier in the bathroom, close the door and let it do its stuff.

Anyone any experience of running costs?

TIA,

Darren

alanobrien

They certainly dry clothes quicker than just leaving them near a rad. Given a tumble drier can be >1kw i suspect a dehumidifier may be cheaper. If you need one anyway then being able to dry clothes with it is a useful add on. Ours also has a built in heater which came in useful during one heating breakdown some time back. When we had old aluminium windows it ran about 10 hrs a day during the winter months and by my calcs added approx £8 a month to our electric bill (350w machine) which wasnt to bad in my view.

carted00

Thanks Alan,

Not sure whether we'll need it for anything else. As I say we're moving to a new house so the plaster will be going through its drying out phase so it could be useful.

The trouble I have at the moment is that damp clothes near the radiator on a clothes horse just seem to generate loads of condensation because my better half seems to have an aversion to fresh air and doesn't seem to understand that you need a window open for circulation. I could definitely do with a dehumidifier at the moment but don't want to spend the money if in a month's time I have no real need for it.

I looked on the EDF website to get an idea of running costs.

Tumble dryer on full cycle (1.5 hrs I guess) is 2.5 units.
Dehumidifier is 3 hrs on 1 unit.

How dry are clothes going to get in 3hrs??

Darren

never_enough

Have you considered getting a higher spin washing machine? My sister has a wm that spins things practically dry. Shirts on hangers in doorways are certinly ready to iron in a couple of hours.
My guess with the dehumidifier is that it wont help with the big things that can take ages to dry like towels, dressing gowns, duvet covers etc You don't want those hanging around damp or they'll just get stinky!

alanobrien

carted00 wrote: »

How dry are clothes going to get in 3hrs??
Darren

Not easy to answer. Depends on how wet they were in the first place and whether you use heat with the dehumidifier (they are more efficient at higher temperatures). I would say around 2 to 4 hours unheated is a typical drying time cycle for ours. Less if they start of damp rather than wet. NeverEnough is absolutely right though, any more than a day or so and they can get stinky...hence our use of the dehumidifier!

WestonDave

My guess is that your tumble dryer is actually more efficient than a dehumidifier is going to be.

Logically your dryer heats a very small space and the clothes are confined in that space. The hot wet air is vented outside. Drying with a dehumidifier involves getting an entire room as hot (it may not reach the same temperature but the same energy per cubic metre will be required to evaporate the water from the clothes except instead of the 1 cubic metre of the dryer you will be doing 10 for the bathroom!), and additionally using energy to cool the hot wet air down enough to make the water condense into the dehumidifier storage tank.(although part of that energy is used to create heat for the room).

The other thing which is worth factoring is that a condenser dryer is effectively a combined dryer and dehumidifier (instead of venting the wet air it cools it to extract the water into a bottle which you tip away). Because this still retains the small clothes space it is going to be more efficient than your bathroom idea, but critically all manufacturers admit their condenser dryers use more power than their vented ones. The motor to turn the drum is a relatively low user of power - its the heat that makes the meter spin. Given the craze for marketing highly green appliances if dehumidifier technology was so great, someone would have stuck a turning drum on a dehumidifier and called it dryer - they haven't and you have to assume its for a reason!

Of course this is all based on logic rather than statistics so I guess someone will now prove me spectacularly wrong!

carted00

Never enough, I currently have a 1400 spin m/c and am looking to replace it soon with another 1400 m/c (I'm going to buy a Miele and the 1600rpm m/c is just that bit too expensive for me, bearing in mind that most cycles don't seem to use the max spin speed anyway)

Alan, That's useful info because that looks like it is cheaper to run the dehumidifier than a tumble.

WestonDave, Although I will have somewhere else to put my current TD it will need to be vented into a condensing unit, or I buy a new condensing machine which I'm loathe to do. The dehumidifiers I've been looking at have vents that direct the expelled heat towards the laundry so I'm hoping that I'd be drying the clothes before heating the entire bathroom.

Darren

ixwood

I have a couple of airing/drying rack things in the bathroom and everything drys fine on it's own. I do leave the bathroom window open most of the time though. It's usually dry within a day or 2 and doesn't smell regardles sof how long i leave it, as it's dried.

cuffie

I used my dehumidifier in the utility room. I hang stuff on hangers and hang on something called a "hang a way" - like a tripod with arms. Like you say, close the door and let it do its stuff! I would say if I did a wash first thing in the morning, I am ironing/putting stuff away at lunchtime. Towels are a problem. I put the in the utility room on hangers and once they have started drying out in the utility room and I am ironing the other stuff, I hang them in the airing cupboard. sorry - have no idea on running costs, but I wouldn't be without mine.

owned_by_2_Siamese

The dehumidifier works great (beware though - it can leave towels like corrugated iron!) - it's not just the cost saving - it reduces the condensation throughout the house !

looby-loo_2

There's no way I would PAY to dry washing either in a tumble dryer or with a dh.

After it's washed overnight on E7 I hang all the washing on hangers above the radiator in the bedroom on the curtain pole. Heating comes on in the evening and everything is dry by morning ready to be ironed. Some even dries during the day. Before the heating comes on I have bedroom window ajar to let out the condensation but have never had any problems with damp.