My absolutely ancient Zanussi condenser dryer sounds like it might be on the way out.
Have opened it up and ran it and all seems to be running fine. But definitely making a different noise than usual. A sort of whirring.
I only ever use it when I am in the house. All the horror stories of dryers catching fire freaks me out. And, it is only ever used for quick drying due to the clothes being needed for whatever reason. (And with a 4 month old granddaughter now, most recent uses have been from daughter’ laundry than mine!
Anyway heat pump v condenser. Is this still an argument of more efficient but much longer times vs less efficient but quicker? Or have heat pumps moved on in last year or so?
As I say, it doesn’t get used a lot and when it does time is usually of the essence? Does that mean condenser is the road to go down?
Budget would be minimal, prob sub £400.
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My understanding about the fires is mostly that people don't clean the lint out often enough, and not surprisingly it catches fire.
Anyway I have an early generation heat pump one and no way could do you a quick dry in it!
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Due to the idiot contractors who built our house putting the vent for a dryer half way along the depth of the dryer and us not having a dryer at the time so not noticing we can't easily use a vented dryer.
We replaced a Bosch conventional condenser drier with a heat pump version of the same brand c2017. It's still a condenser in terms of where the vapour goes but much much more efficient.
It's rated at 1kw whereas the previous one was north of 2kw. Probably not quite as quick but even with cottons it's not massively over an hour or so. My Rohan garb, mix of light polycotton and various artificial fabrics, takes around 35-45 minutes for a weeks worth of shirts and two or three pairs of Bags.
Compared to the old one there's next to no waste heat warming the utility - which I actually miss as the back door is metal and cold.
I think the cost was more than your budget but as a demo of how effective they are it's brill.
It also has a self cleaning condenser and pumps the condensate out rather than needing a reservoir emptied.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Mon 2 Dec 24 at 17:22
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Your logic is impeccable Bobby but we manage OK with the heat pump job (Bosch, I think it was c. £500 but it's not quite the cheapest one).
As Bromp says, you can dry sensible stuff fairly quickly, sodden towels are another case.
And they condense like a condenser so you don't need a vent, you either T it into the washer/sink drain or keep emptying a tank.
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>> As Bromp says, you can dry sensible stuff fairly quickly, sodden towels are another case.
Sodden stuff would be a problem. Towels that have been washed/spun are maybe 90 minutes.
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Try the latest in clothes drying equipment, the outdoors washing line. Works really well with all types of clothes, cheap to install and amazingly has no running costs. So good we have two both attached to an oak tree at one end and the house at the other.
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There's an issue with that here in Scotland (which is where Bobby is as well I think)....
If you are not a heavy user and speed is of the essence then the extra cost of a heat pump is probably not justified - the coefficient of performance is only about 2 so they still use half the energy of a conventional dryer. We replaced our 15+ year old White Knight condenser (the plastic internal duct was breaking up and no longer available as a spare) about a year ago and went with an AEG Heat Pump; it was a run out model so it was cheap(er), and not that much more than a condenser one - it's not the most efficient, but more efficiency = more drying time! It takes a while to dry a load, and the sensor is optimistic - always needs a further timed run to get it dry.
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Ours is an old vented White Knight one, which finally failed to heat a couple of months ago after probably fifteen years or more of service.
Luckily, a bit of googling revealed it might be the easily replaceable thermostats, and for £7 from eBay, it was sorted. It’s long since out of production, so irreplaceable when it does finally fail.
It dries a load in about 40 minutes, or an hour max for towels etc. Lint build up is cleaned easily every run.
I’ve put it on a Tapo smart plug to run at cheap times. Just looked, and we used it thirteen times last month for a total cost of £2.50 odd, but then we got £1.50 of that back because it was in free hours from Octopus.
A standard 40 minute dry overnight last night cost 9p.
The preference, of course, is the washing line on a decent drying day. In one of those “how can I not have known that” things, I recently discovered that “if the paths and roads are drying, your washing will too”, apparently.
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“if the paths and roads are drying, your washing will too”
I like that and will steal it!!
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>> Try the latest in clothes drying equipment, the outdoors washing line. Works really well with
>> all types of clothes, cheap to install and amazingly has no running costs. So good
>> we have two both attached to an oak tree at one end and the house
>> at the other.
Absolutely, just what you need now the last 18 months has been the wettest in history.
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We do have and use an outdoor whirligig.
We also have a winter edge or clothes horse.
The dryer is the last resort, obviously gets more use in winter.
I have noticed however that it condenses the evaporated water imperfectly, it gets quite humid in the little room it lives in when it's running.
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We have an old-fashioned clothes airer that is a rack attached to two pulleys in the ceiling of the (small) utility room.
It works really well and costs nothing to run.
It took me a while to realise that the reason it's so good is the presence of a large-ish fridge-freezer in the room, which produces enough movement of warm air to dry a washing-machine load really quickly. A good use of surplus energy.
Last edited by: James Loveless on Tue 3 Dec 24 at 12:48
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Referred to as a 'creel' where I come from. We had one in the old house, right over the Rayburn. I'd forgotten that. Very handy and I enjoyed hauling it up and down:)
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The warm, moist air has to go somewhere. Our old tumble dryer used to pump it straight outside. The current condenser model sits in the utility with an (insufficent) extractor fan in the ceiling. I used to leave the utility room door open to use the heat to warm the house, until Zeddo pointed out the humidity of the air.
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>>The warm, moist air has to go somewhere
Ta. Never had a condensing one before given a heat pump has a cold side and a hot side I suppose I was hoping it would condense more than it does.
It's not a worry if it's working properly. There's an extract in there running continuously as part of the ventilation system, which seems to manage humidity very well.
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Tumble Dryers. Again - smokie
