Heat pump tumble dryer

powerful_Rogue

Good afternoon,

One of my biggest worries when the weather changes is the drying of clothing/bedding etc this winter.

We used to rely on a normal vented tumble dryer, but after having to put this on the other day to very quickly dry some clothes, I noticed my IHD clock up £5 in electric costs.

I've looked at heated clothes airers, but then I stumbled across heat pump tumble dryers.

Doe's anyone have one and would you recommend? The ones i've seen reckon about £1 (at 55p KwH) for a full 9KG load.

Sterlingtimes

We have had many issues with the Candy and the Hoover heat pump tumble dryers: they have proved unreliable and do not deliver the expected savings. We use the Beko condenser dryer in preference and benefit from a little room heating in the winter. During the summer, we can achieve a greater number of dying cycles during solar hours.

macman

Mid-range Bosch will do the job. Bear in mind that no tumble drier is cheap to run: the heat pump models require much longer drying cycles, but run at lower cost because of the heat recovery.

facade

If it used £5 worth of electricity at todays rate 28p a kwh, it used 17.8 kwh!!!

There is something severely wrong with it*, typically a vented or condenser (which would be better**) use about 5 kwh on a full load- around £1.40 today, £2.50 in October. A heat pump one uses around 2 kwh, so saves about £1.50 over a condenser/vented from October.

Sounds like you need a new one, you can get a heat pump one for £350, the cheapest condenser one is about £200, so after 100 drying cycles you would pay for the difference.

* or something else was using power at the same time, or your IHD was playing catch-up....

**A condenser warms up the kitchen so your central heating does less work, the vented one warms up outside so completely wastes the heat.

When my condenser gives up I will likely replace it with a heat pump, the only downside is they don't get as hot- I like to put washing that is "dry" off the line through the drier to kill off all the insects that have decided to make their homes in it whilst it was outside.

powerful_Rogue

Thank you. Been doing a fair bit of research and the leader for me so far is a Hotpoint.

It's A+++ rated and is listed at 1.42kWh per cycle, 175kWh per year.

Second seems to be the Hoover, A++ at 2.18kWh per full load, 1.15kWh for partial load and 259kWh per annum.

I understand that tumble dryers have never been great when it comes to costs, but for us it's a bit of an essential, so need to try and find what would save us the most money.

powerful_Rogue

facade said:

If it used £5 worth of electricity at todays rate 28p a kwh, it used 17.8 kwh!!!

There is something severely wrong with it*, typically a vented or condenser (which would be better**) use about 5 kwh on a full load- around £1.40 today, £2.50 in October. A heat pump one uses around 2 kwh, so saves about £1.50 over a condenser/vented from October.

Sounds like you need a new one, you can get a heat pump one for £350, the cheapest condenser one is about £200, so after 100 drying cycles you would pay for the difference.

* or something else was using power at the same time, or your IHD was playing catch-up....

**A condenser warms up the kitchen so your central heating does less work, the vented one warms up outside so completely wastes the heat.

When my condenser gives up I will likely replace it with a heat pump, the only downside is they don't get as hot- I like to put washing that is "dry" off the line through the drier to kill off all the insects that have decided to make their homes in it whilst it was outside.

Could quite possibly have been. Although  it works, it was cheap when purchased around 8 years ago, so isn't going to be the most energy efficent!

Just so much to take in when it comes to the heat pump tumble dryers. I thought I has narrowed my selection to 2, then I found a Sharp at a very reasonble price which is A++, 1.88 kWh full load, 1.10 kWhhalf load.

macman

Both budget brands that are built down to a price. I'd spend a bit more for something that will last: Bosch or Siemens perhaps. 
If you are looking for a budget machine then I'd simply go for a Beko.
Hoover are Chinese owned now, but I think the European tumble driers are badged up Vestel models, made in Turkey. Hotpoint, probably Poland or Italy.

Mstty

Our Indesit vented tumble dryer costs 1kwh for bedding and 1.2kwh for a full load on full roast temperature with two ecoeggs. It's a very simple machine no sensors or loads of settings it's either full roast or half roast and a dial for the time. We know how long things take .

I can't see a heat pump dryer saving us enough money. 

Vincero

AEG / Electrolux / Zanussi do heat pump tumble dryers and seem to be generally reliable and varying price ranges.
John Lewis partner up in some cases so you can get a similar product with either a slightly lower price or longer warranty.

From all accounts Bosch / Siemens are maybe the best, followed by others like AEG group. Beko heat pump dryers supposedly were pretty bad originally but are meant to have improved - not sure where Hoover/Candy rate but they did have a bit of a slump a while ago in customer ratings which I hope they are getting out of.

Alnat1

Had a Bosch for around 7 or 8 years and I'm very happy with it. I was expecting it to take much longer than the old dryer it replaced but it's not that much slower. It drains down the same outlet as the washer, so no messing emptying water.

I use a couple of the spikey type of dryer balls and they help cut the drying time. Tested them on our king sized bedding load over a couple of weeks and it was 25% faster with the balls.

I also don't need to iron stuff that comes out of the dryer, another good energy saving.

F70

We have had the first Miele heat pump dryer when they was a new concept and it was good but not perfect, 6 years later bought a new modern Miele version and it is superb. Runs very cheaply. We are a family that has 3 loads of washing a day. 

Top tip buy a Miele engineer silicon spray the seals to stop them drying out as it works by being a sealed unit.