Condenser Dryer or Dehumidifier

P933alilli

My condensation tumbledryer has finished and not worth the price of a new part; it was nearly ten years in the garage and i'm debating whether or not to buy a dehumidifier with a dedicated laundry mode to put in a spare room or just buy another tumbledryer to put in the garage. I'm thinking the dehumidifier would be cheaper to run and keep clothes in better condition but would it add to dampness in the room before drying the laundry (i dont see how it could but...?)

teaselMay

I think it may depend how warm the room that you're drying in is.

On a different site people were talking about heated airers and dehumidifiers and from their power ratings and time that they were using them, my bog standard ~10 year old condenser drier is roughly the same cost to run. If you've a house that tends to be warm a dehumidifier alone may do the job nicely. If you've quite a cool home it probably won't because the water on the clothes won't readily evaporate and what does evaporate the dehumidifier will be in competition with cold surfaces for condensation.

P933alilli

teaselMay said:

I think it may depend how warm the room that you're drying in is.

On a different site people were talking about heated airers and dehumidifiers and from their power ratings and time that they were using them, my bog standard ~10 year old condenser drier is roughly the same cost to run. If you've a house that tends to be warm a dehumidifier alone may do the job nicely. If you've quite a cool home it probably won't because the water on the clothes won't readily evaporate and what does evaporate the dehumidifier will be in competition with cold surfaces for condensation.

Thanks, that makes sense!

DullGreyGuy

Heat pump driers can be notably cheaper to run than condensers but it will depend on what temps the garage gets down to or if there is the option of putting it in the spare room? A high spin washing machine obviously helps no matter which drying method.

ThisIsWeird

P933, you have a spare room? Cool. Does it have windows? Double-ditto.
You can almost certainly get rid of the vast majority of clothes moisture simply by ventilating that room thoroughly - ie, windows wide open, heating off, door closed - in a day, the clothes should 'just' be damp, and then ready for finishing off either on rad racks, or a quick tumble. 
The initial clothes drying may benefit from assistance with the use of a fan, either a separate cooling fan if you have one, set to slow speed, or by a dedicated type in a clothes airing rack. Air circulation is the key.
I'm not saying that this is a solution - I'm not sure how effective it will be - but assuming you have a 'orse, then you could always have a trial? 
Remember - windows wide open, rad off (waste of heat), door kept closed, horse standing to best catch the draught. Give it a day, and see how dry it's become.
If this does the bulk of the drying, then for finishing off you may wish to just buy a cheap, even 2nd-hand, vent drier for the final 30-minutes. 

prowla

As I see it:

• A dehumidifier presumably takes moisture out of the air, so it has to be in the air in the first place.
• A condenser dryer is an enclosed unit which doesn't rely on its surroundings.

For drying alone, I'd stick to a condenser dryer.

Plus it'd be out of sight and sound i nthe garage.

However, another consideration is that dryers tend to shrink clothes like T-shirts, so I usually put them out on radiators.

OTOH, they do make towels nice and soft.

mark_cycling00

All three devices remove moisture by passing the damp air over a Chilled grill and letting the water run off to a container.

A dehumidifier does this at room temperature of about 20c whereas a tumble dryer is doing it at about 40c and 100% humidity. This is more efficient because there's much more water vapour in the air.

There's lots of "received wisdom" that dehumidifiers are cheaper because they operate on low wattage but you end up leaving them on 10x longer than a tumble dryer. Plus as mentioned above your central heating is costing you money to get the moisture into the air and this cost is never included in the cost calculations.

So if you get a nice Bosch heat pump dryer, the heating aspect is 3x cheaper than a typical electric heating element. 
So the cost of getting moisture from clothes into the air isn't too far off the cost if using gas central heating to do this 

I can see a scenario where you're generating electricity yourself in which case the dehumidifier might turn out cheaper.

I have a dehumidifier and also a Bosch heat pump so have been able to compare.

Veteransaver

mark_cycling00 said:

All three devices remove moisture by passing the damp air over a Chilled grill and letting the water run off to a container.

A dehumidifier does this at room temperature of about 20c whereas a tumble dryer is doing it at about 40c and 100% humidity. This is more efficient because there's much more water vapour in the air.

There's lots of "received wisdom" that dehumidifiers are cheaper because they operate on low wattage but you end up leaving them on 10x longer than a tumble dryer. Plus as mentioned above your central heating is costing you money to get the moisture into the air and this cost is never included in the cost calculations.

So if you get a nice Bosch heat pump dryer, the heating aspect is 3x cheaper than a typical electric heating element. 
So the cost of getting moisture from clothes into the air isn't too far off the cost if using gas central heating to do this 

I can see a scenario where you're generating electricity yourself in which case the dehumidifier might turn out cheaper.

I have a dehumidifier and also a Bosch heat pump so have been able to compare.

You can also get dessicant dehumidifiers which work differently. I have one and it is quite effective at drying laundry and can be used at low temperatures.
Dessicant ones use more power but can be more efficient in terms of the amount of moisture they remove. They also add a decent amount of heat to a room and act like a sort of heat pump.
They are also smaller and lighter so easier to move about.