Flat with no outdoor drying space and a vented dryer that turns the kitchen into a sauna. Four loads a week, two adults, and the heat pump models are roughly double the price of a condenser where I am. The cycle times quoted look long enough that I'd only manage two loads in an evening. Is the running cost saving real at four loads a week, and do things actually come out properly dry?
The running cost saving is real and it's the same mechanism as your heating: moving heat rather than making it. At four loads a week it's a slow payback rather than a fast one. The reason I'd still buy it in your situation is that it doesn't dump heat and humidity into the room, which is precisely the complaint you opened with.
The kitchen becoming a sauna is genuinely half my problem, I just hadn't ranked it as the main one.
Then buy on that and treat the electricity saving as a bonus. You'll be happier with the decision either way.
Cycle times are long and they don't get shorter — that's inherent, because the drum runs cooler. Two loads in an evening is about right. What changes is that clothes come out at a temperature you can fold immediately, and things you'd previously have line-dried only can go in without shrinking.
I have one and I still hang half my washing, because the cycles are long and I'm impatient. If you're the sort of person who'd hang things anyway, a cheaper condenser plus a decent airer might be the honest answer for you.
Check the noise rating if the machine sits in a kitchen you actually spend time in. They run longer, so a noisy one is noisy for considerably longer.
Also check whether it can be plumbed to a drain. Emptying a tank twice per load is what made me stop using my first condenser dryer within a month.
@probe_to_ground · 5mo ago · 2 replies
Maintenance is the thing nobody warns you about. There's a second filter, usually behind a hatch at the bottom, and if you never clean it the machine slowly stops drying properly and you conclude the technology is bad. Fluff filter every load, condenser filter monthly.
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@solder_sundays · 5mo ago
This is the number one cause of 'my heat pump dryer stopped working' posts. It's almost always a blocked heat exchanger, not a dead compressor.
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