Dehumidifier v Tumble Dryer

Accredited_FI

Winters coming.

Anyone used a dehumidifier in a practical way to dry clothes?

Was it effective? How did you do it?

Thanks

biscan25

Accredited_FI said:

Winters coming.

Anyone used a dehumidifier in a practical way to dry clothes?

Was it effective? How did you do it?

Thanks

I do this. I put it in the ensuite ( the smallest room in the house) with clothes on driers and the heating on (dehumidiers are more efficient at higher temperatures). It's dry within 6 hours.

I have the Meaco ABCdry 12l

JSPENCER

We do - literally stick all the clothes onto clothes horses in a bedroom, close the door and turn the dehumidifier on. It really does work as well. 

Alnat1

Do the clothes need ironing? If you have to add in cost/time to iron, a heat pump tumble dryer wins for me.

Martyn1981

We've got picture rails, so we can hang loads of clothes (on coathangers) around the room, this means they hang dry, with the dehumidifier, and no ironing is needed.

Exiled_Tyke

It would be great to get a definitive answer on this one as it has come up before.  A tumble drier with a heat pump is working in a very similar way to a dehumidifier but it's all happening in a much smaller space. So in theory it should be cheaper to run? On the other hand it also move the clothes around all the time so that's more energy.   I haven't tried drying with the dehumidifier but I'm very happy with the tumble drier (especially on cold but sunny days!)  I would try a comparison test but it would be a lot of faff to do it and getting accurate electricity consumption estimates over such a long period nigh impossible. 

Meatballs

Exiled_Tyke said:

It would be great to get a definitive answer on this one as it has come up before.  A tumble drier with a heat pump is working in a very similar way to a dehumidifier but it's all happening in a much smaller space. So in theory it should be cheaper to run? On the other hand it also move the clothes around all the time so that's more energy.   I haven't tried drying with the dehumidifier but I'm very happy with the tumble drier (especially on cold but sunny days!)  I would try a comparison test but it would be a lot of faff to do it and getting accurate electricity consumption estimates over such a long period nigh impossible. 

There's two styles of dehumidifiers:

* Desiccant-based which blow the air across a  chemical desiccant to absorb the water, then use heat to extract the water from the desiccant. These work well at all temperatures and they cause the room to heat up a fair amount.
* Condensing dehumidifiers which cool some fins (same refrigerant principles as heat pump), and blow the air across this to cool it down and the moisture to condense. These are more efficient but I think they work best from about 15C upwards.

The condensing one is the closest to the heat pump but its not doing the same action. The heat pump is taking heat from the air and putting it into the machine to cause the water to evaporate from the clothes, presumably its then doing a condensing function to collect the water too. The dehumidifier is cooling the air in the room across its condenser coils to remove the humidity and mostly letting the clothes air dry. 

As for what's more energy efficient my condensing dehumidifier uses 185W but suspect it would need to be on for many hours to dry clothes - 10 hours would be 1.85kWh. Internet says around 2.16kWh for a load in a heat pump tumble dryer.

Spies

I used to use a dehumidifier (250w) but don't really have a room I could enclose so it took many hours to dry, I got a heat pump tumble dryer and most loads are dry in around 90 minutes and it typically uses under 1kWh.

I just use the dehumidifier to take the condensation off the windows some mornings. 

QrizB

We used to use a dehumidifier with a couple of clothes horses in the spare room. It was cheap and effective.

Then we got a washer-dryer and we've rately needed the dehumidifer since - the convenience of the washer-dryer outweighs any potential energy savings.

The dehumidifier does get brought out now and again, most often if we've been line drying but clothes are still damp and we need them for the following day.

Grumpy_chap

I seem to be the only one who does something different.

We hang clothes on a clothes horse and sit that in front of the patio windows in the south elevation of the house.  Wash in the morning, hang out, and away in the evening all done.

No tumble dryer.
No dehumidifier.

Although, to be honest, we are still hanging most stuff out in the garden.

70sbudgie

Grumpy_chap said:

I seem to be the only one who does something different.

We hang clothes on a clothes horse and sit that in front of the patio windows in the south elevation of the house.  Wash in the morning, hang out, and away in the evening all done.

No tumble dryer.
No dehumidifier.

Although, to be honest, we are still hanging most stuff out in the garden.

Where abouts in the country are you? I'm now at the point when it isn't warm enough to dry clothes even if they've been hanging out all day (dryer doesn't get enough direct sun). So I do as much as I can outside, to make them smell nice and then dry inside on modified clothes horse, in a small room that has good ventilation.