Who uses the tumble dryer at night though - they're not the quietest of domestic devices? And isn't the flip side of all these cheap night time deals, more expensive day time electric?
Tumble dryer - heat pump or condenser?
- Thread starter Gimpymoo
- Start date
Kitchen Washer typically go's on overnight so it is done at 7am ... yes you have to take care on how you pack it so spin/rinses are not overly noisy,
but I'd expect a heat pump dryer to be much quieter.
Before energy crisis, the octopus
Permabanned
- Joined
- 23 Apr 2014
- Posts
- 23,552
- Location
- Hertfordshire
Have a condenser, couple of years old, seems to work well but its one you have to empty a water tray after a few loads. Probably dries a load in a hour or so. No idea what it costs.....
We run ours overnight, no issues at all.
It's a heat pump one, maybe that contributes to being quieter.
Everyone should run overnight if they can. If you are on economy 7 then you're saving yourself money, if you aren't then you are being greener because you're helping level off energy demand.
Heat pump ones can take a bit longer, but they use less energy overall than normal condenser ones. Another big reason we went for one is that they are kinder to your clothes too. Less sagging of elastic and things like that.
Looking at the energy saving Lewis's suggest 250kwhr/yr versus 500, so, if you're now paying daily 20p/unit £50 a year saving, & after 4 years you might have saved the price difference, perhaps a faster payoff than heat pumps for house heating, but with less wear on clothing those 4 years become insignificant;
although I'm not unconvinced that (the siemens) washing machine plays its part in premature clothing wear too, looking at piping whilst ironing T shirts ...
you are not meant to wash good jeans - are you.
although I'm not unconvinced that (the siemens) washing machine plays its part in premature clothing wear too, looking at piping whilst ironing T shirts ...
you are not meant to wash good jeans - are you.
To update the thread, Went with a heat pump in the end.
No problems at all.
Run it at night and ours is upstairs in a utility room off the bathroom. Put a sound proofing mat down and all good, it was vibrating all the way through the house but the sound proofing mat solved that.
Never used a condenser dryer so no idea what am "missing".
It has sensors to detect when clothes are dry so never on for more than it needs to be.
I was like a kid with a new toy last winter, washing and drying clothes was a novelty and having previously used Radiators to dry clothes, the house feels much more healthy for it, seeing all the water coming out of the clothes, it does make you wonder what that does to a house over a period of just a year.
Do not be tempted by "bigger drum", look at drying times, some of the cheaper heat pumps have silly cycle times.
Not all programs support a "full load" meaning your large drum is kind of pointless and the reality is, your clothes come out much better if they are able to have enough room to "tumble".
One thing to consider if you have a small room you can use, is use a dehumidifier, many have a laundry function nowadays and cost pennies to run and can dry all clothes without fear of damage but can take obviously longer. In a old house though like ours, keeping moisture out of the house is the name of the game.
No problems at all.
Run it at night and ours is upstairs in a utility room off the bathroom. Put a sound proofing mat down and all good, it was vibrating all the way through the house but the sound proofing mat solved that.
Never used a condenser dryer so no idea what am "missing".
It has sensors to detect when clothes are dry so never on for more than it needs to be.
I was like a kid with a new toy last winter, washing and drying clothes was a novelty and having previously used Radiators to dry clothes, the house feels much more healthy for it, seeing all the water coming out of the clothes, it does make you wonder what that does to a house over a period of just a year.
Do not be tempted by "bigger drum", look at drying times, some of the cheaper heat pumps have silly cycle times.
Not all programs support a "full load" meaning your large drum is kind of pointless and the reality is, your clothes come out much better if they are able to have enough room to "tumble".
One thing to consider if you have a small room you can use, is use a dehumidifier, many have a laundry function nowadays and cost pennies to run and can dry all clothes without fear of damage but can take obviously longer. In a old house though like ours, keeping moisture out of the house is the name of the game.
Which model / make of dryer did you go with?
This seems appalling, as part of a new utility i was thinking about going all new appliance. Bosch obviously isn’t the best of brands but even the cheapest of condensers will dry a heavy load inside approx 1hr on a high setting. Overall if it is running for such a period, are these even really any more efficient?
Despite the extended runtime, I think they still use approx half the energy per load (I recall seeing comparisons of 3kWh vs 1.5kWh per load when I last looked). It'll depend how much use it gets overall as to whether that's going to transfer into enough savings on your bill to offset original purchase premium.
You also need to consider if you're comparing like for like on dryness too when considering 'X will do it in an hour'.
Comparing two similar Beko 8kg models for example, on their 'Cotton Cupboard Dry' setting, the condenser is a 145min programme, the heat pump is 205min.
The 'Synthetics Cupboard Dry' programme, which is 53min on the condenser, is 70min on the heat pump.
Last edited:
Yeah, I don’t know if we are comparing the same size loads and many other factors.
On the face of it, heat pumps seem excessively slow compared with that which I am used to. We have a fairly old Bosch condenser which I had planned to upgrade to a better brand along with everything else for a totally new fitout. Less energy is clearly preferable, but not first and foremost over performance and maintenance? A condenser such as this you throw in a new element for only about £40-50 every 5-6 years, that being all the maintenance you’ll ever likely need. If you stick the old thing on a high setting it’ll make a good job of a wet load inside approx 1hr, which crucially, is as quick or quicker than the washing machine creating each load.
Probably not comparing like loads with like though, unfortunately these are lessons you are only really going to learn once you’ve bought the wrong item
On the face of it, heat pumps seem excessively slow compared with that which I am used to. We have a fairly old Bosch condenser which I had planned to upgrade to a better brand along with everything else for a totally new fitout. Less energy is clearly preferable, but not first and foremost over performance and maintenance? A condenser such as this you throw in a new element for only about £40-50 every 5-6 years, that being all the maintenance you’ll ever likely need. If you stick the old thing on a high setting it’ll make a good job of a wet load inside approx 1hr, which crucially, is as quick or quicker than the washing machine creating each load.
Probably not comparing like loads with like though, unfortunately these are lessons you are only really going to learn once you’ve bought the wrong item
Yeah, I don’t know if we are comparing the same size loads and many other factors.
On the face of it, heat pumps seem excessively slow compared with that which I am used to. We have a fairly old Bosch condenser which I had planned to upgrade to a better brand along with everything else for a totally new fitout. Less energy is clearly preferable, but not first and foremost over performance and maintenance? A condenser such as this you throw in a new element for only about £40-50 every 5-6 years, that being all the maintenance you’ll ever likely need. If you stick the old thing on a high setting it’ll make a good job of a wet load inside approx 1hr, which crucially, is as quick or quicker than the washing machine creating each load.
Probably not comparing like loads with like though, unfortunately these are lessons you are only really going to learn once you’ve bought the wrong item
I'm afraid your possibly impatient
most of us are including myselfHeat pumps are more efficient but as stated in the run times above it'll run for an additional 20-30 minutes compared to a condenser dryer.
Another way to look at it is how can you dry clothes quicker, and chances are you can't, otherwise clothes would shrink or get damaged.
I don't think I've had a situation where I'm crying out for clothes to dry quicker. Sometimes I feel we need a reality check on our expectations.
At what point do heat pumps become more efficient?
Im guessing it's a loads per time kind of thing.
I don't use the tumble at all in summer. Just put clothes in garden but now those days are getting rarer. So probably use the tumble 50 times a year?
I'm guessing at that rate condenser is better? Due to being cheaper?
Im guessing it's a loads per time kind of thing.
I don't use the tumble at all in summer. Just put clothes in garden but now those days are getting rarer. So probably use the tumble 50 times a year?
I'm guessing at that rate condenser is better? Due to being cheaper?
Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Dec 2006
- Posts
- 9,428
- Location
- Around Town
.
Soldato
- Joined
- 14 Apr 2014
- Posts
- 7,971
- Location
- Hampshire
Yeah, I don’t know if we are comparing the same size loads and many other factors.
On the face of it, heat pumps seem excessively slow compared with that which I am used to. We have a fairly old Bosch condenser which I had planned to upgrade to a better brand along with everything else for a totally new fitout. Less energy is clearly preferable, but not first and foremost over performance and maintenance? A condenser such as this you throw in a new element for only about £40-50 every 5-6 years, that being all the maintenance you’ll ever likely need. If you stick the old thing on a high setting it’ll make a good job of a wet load inside approx 1hr, which crucially, is as quick or quicker than the washing machine creating each load.
Probably not comparing like loads with like though, unfortunately these are lessons you are only really going to learn once you’ve bought the wrong item
Ultimately a heat pump dryer will always take longer than a condenser for an equivalent load, because they're drying with warm air that they recycle, rather than hot air that they vent - if you're used to and happy with the performance of just throwing a condenser dryer on max and leaving it for an hour, a heat pump is probably not for you.
We don't find any issues with ours being able to keep up with the washing machine but we're not using 'fast wash' programmes on the washing machine, so they're typically running for a little while anyway.
What is worth bearing in mind though, is that programme lengths are effectively 'typical maximums' - most dryers these days will work on a moisture sensor and simply stop once they've reached the target moisture level of your chosen programme (although this throws in the issue of people perceiving heat pumps to take even longer because they perceive the lower temperature of the dried clothes as more moist and so subsequently try to over dry their clothes). I don't think anything we've dried in our heat pump dryer has ever taken 3 hours.
As you say, it's the sort of thing that you'll only end up realising doesn't work for you once you've bought it and started using it
It is a very long time but it uses far less energy than a condenser. My smart meter stays green with the washer and the dryer running at the same time. I'm ok living with an extended run time to save a little bit extra.
You should always use the extended run time programs on the washing machine anyway. They use far less energy.
In reality you don’t need your stuff washed and dried in 2 hours. It’s not like you are sat their waiting for the machine to do it’s thing.
In reality you don’t need your stuff washed and dried in 2 hours. It’s not like you are sat their waiting for the machine to do it’s thing.
Why do people need fast wash cycles as standard? I get they are useful if you need something quick but I'm not really sure why you'd be fussed normally?
I nearly always use 3hr eco on the dishwasher.
Rarely ill use express. Sometimes I'll use intensive just mainly to clean the machine. Or if something really needs a a pounding.
I nearly always use 3hr eco on the dishwasher.
Rarely ill use express. Sometimes I'll use intensive just mainly to clean the machine. Or if something really needs a a pounding.