Tumble dryers often get a kicking in the press, mostly for being expensive and even being called a ‘demon appliance’ by Martin Lewis for how much power they use.
There’s truth to this, but I wouldn’t be without my heat pump tumble dryer. It’s more important to work out how and when to use a tumble dryer, or investing in a proper alternative.
I wouldn’t bother with a heated airer
One alternative to a tumble dryer is the heater airer. It’s a regular clothes airer, but a heating element warms the clothes, and aids evaporation of water. Running costs are comparatively low.
A typical airer will draw between 200W and 300W, which works out at between 5p and 8p per hour, but larger models will draw more, and there are fast-drying models that will draw 1000W and cost around 26p per hour to run.
That doesn’t sound so bad, but a low-power dryer will take a good half-day or so to dry your clothes (say, six hours) and so will cost around 48p to dry a load of clothes (assuming 300W). A high-power model might take two hours, so around 52p to run.
Of course, there are a lot of variables, but this gives you an idea of the cost. We’ll come back to that later.
The big issue with heated airers is that the water in your clothes must go into the environment, the same as if you just left your clothes out to dry naturally. The difference is that you’re saving time, but not environmental impact.
During a recent test, Meaco washed 13 adult shirts and then let them dry naturally. In the first test, the shirts took 20 hours to dry. The room started at 20°C and 55% relative humidity; at the end of the test, the room was 19°C and 66% relative humidity.
Hanging a second load out saw the relative humidity spike to 77%, and the shirts took 28 hours to dry.
That’s not good news. In winter, high humidity can cause problems ranging from condensation to mould. In short, you don’t want to dry clothes inside if you can avoid it.
Tumble dryers are useful
A decent heat pump tumble dryer is an efficient bit of kit, and used properly with a sensor dryer doesn’t have to be that expensive. When I review tumble dryers, I use the same 5kg load of mixed washing, which includes trousers, tops, underwear, sheets and towels.
Going for the cupboard dry option, prices for a heat pump dryer tend to top out at around 32p for a cheaper dryer, such as the Hoover H-Dry 350 HRE H9A3TBE-80, but as low as 21p for a high-end model, such as the Miele TQ 1000 WP.
Washer-dryers and old-style condensing tumble dryers are a lot more expensive to run. With the same wash load, I find that they’re closer to £1 per load.
Of course, there are a lot of variables, and the type of load you’re drying, how wet it is, and how much you put in the dryer all have a part to play. But, with an efficient modern tumble dryer, such as one on my list of the best tumble dryers, running costs are manageable.
More importantly, a tumble dryer holds the water it removes, and either puts it down the drain or into a tank. There’s no impact on your home’s relative humidity. Suddenly, those heated airers don’t seem like such good value.
The other reason that I like tumble dryers is that they help keep clothes soft. In particular, well-used towels will come out of a tumble dryer soft and fresh; leave them to dry naturally and they can go hard and scratchy. And, tumble dryers are much faster than air drying.
I do balance tumble dryer usage, saving it for those times when I need clothes fast or soft. I avoid overloading the tumble dryer, too, as this can cause the cycle to extend and leave clothes wet. And, where possible, we hang clothes outside and let them dry for free.
If you want to dry naturally, get a dehumidifier
If you do need to dry inside and really don’t want a tumble dryer, or don’t want to buy an efficient one, then you do need a dehumidifier. These will remove the excess water from the air, and can aid drying. But, there’s a cheap way to speed them up.
Meaco’s research showed that using a MeacoDry Arete One 20L with the same load of T-shirts mentioned above, the clothes would take 4h 45m to dry, but with relative humidity finishing at 50%, and a cost of 28p.
Part of the reason that clothes dry fast outside is that wind aids with evaporation. Using a simple fan in combination with the dehumidifier, Meaco found that its test washing dried in just two hours, the final relative humidity was just 56%, and the running cost was just 14p.
