Electricity costs

Sure, but what you're describing now is a room-sized condensing non-tubmling drier! It's bigger, more expensive, and takes up much more of your house than the tumble variety.

I really don't see why my condensing drier is a problem - sure it consumes 3kW, but that all gets kicked into the room, none of it is lost.

I recognise that heating electric is far less efficient, what with transmission losses, but only a small percentage of my heating is electric (tumble drier, lights, PCs).

On Tue, 06 Feb 2007 09:50:32 +0000 someone who may be Grunff wrote this:-

Depends on how the heat recovery is arranged.

There is much potential for whole house heat recovery, despite the downside of having fans running all day long. Drying clothes can be done using heat which would be in the house anyway, for example in the high ceilings in some houses.

At which point it becomes more sensible to buy and run a tumble dryer. Heat recovery devices for these could be a sensible thing as long as the heat could be directed economically to a place where it can be used - i.e. away from the utility room.

So now modify the house as well... great.