Tumble Dryer

[polygonum]

We are going to get a condenser dryer of some sort.

Very, very unlikely to get Hotpoint, but looking at others, I am utterly perplexed by the efficiency ratings/electricity consumption.

The figures below, other than cycles per year, are as listed on John Lewis site. Oddities:

The kWh per cycle for the Bosch is lower than the Miele - but it only gets A+ rather than A++. (The Miele is also only 7kg load.)

The Panasonic uses 176 kWh/year despite using only about half the kWh per cycle of the Miele.

Eventually I tabulated it and back-calculated the number of cycles implied by the kWh/cycle and kWh/year figures for each. They vary from

116 to 204. What sort of comparison is actually going on?

(Well aware there are numerous other models. I just took the first listed model for a number of manufacturers within my selection criteria.)

John Lewis JLTDH20 Load (kg) 8 Rating A+ kWh/cycle 2.65 kWh/year 318 cycles per year 120 Bosch WTH83000GB Load (kg) 8 Rating A+ kWh/cycle 1.65 kWh/year 270 cycles per year 163.6 Zanussi ZDH8333PZ Load (kg) 8 Rating A+ kWh/cycle 2.65 kWh/year 308 cycles per year 116.2 Panasonic NR-P8ER1WGB Load (kg) 8 Rating A+++ kWh/cycle 0.86 kWh/year 176 cycles per year 204.6 Miele TKB140WP Load (kg) 7 Rating A++ kWh/cycle 1.73 kWh/year 211 cycles per year 121.9

Finally, which one would you buy? Virtually all get quite a number of pretty critical reviews as you look around the web. Perhaps the best rated is Miele, overall, but at some cost (even allowing for a £100 cashback and an extra 3 years of warranty thrown in).

I will be installing it! When I work out how the unit we eventually get attaches to a drain...

[Tim+]

Get a gas one. Our White Knight is around 25 years old now. Still going strong.

Tim

[polygonum]

Even they are now selling heat pump electric dryers:

"White Knight Condenser Tumble Dryer Heat Pump A+ Rated A+96M7W"

This is NOT a gas appliance however its just as efficient using new Technology, and you wont need a gas safe engineer to install this product, its just plug and play. The White Knight Heat Pump Tumble Dryer dramatically reduces how much it costs to run compared to a standard condenser dryer. The job of the heat pump is to reheat the air that's circulating within the dryer. After hot air has passed through the drum, absorbing moisture from your clothes, it passes through filters where the air is partly cooled and moisture is removed from the air, as condensation. The water collected will be deposited into a water tank, as with a normal condenser tumble dryers. Meanwhile the warm air is re-heated and circulated back to the drum. The reuse of hot air means energy is kept within the machine instead of being allowed to escape.

£349.98 "

[Tim+]

Well I can't offer running costs but ours has been amazingly reliable. Heat pumps may well be as or more efficient I suppose. Seems a good price for a heat pump machine.

Tim

[polygonum]

Well that is a good bit of feedback from your perspective. Thanks but I don't think we'd go for gas for several reasons.

[Bob Eager]

We have a Bosch Logiixx and are very happy with it (about 5 years in now).

It doesn't plumb in - there is a slide out tank to empty after each cycle. Easy and quick.

[polygonum]

Thanks for that Bob. As it will be installed right next to a sink, I had simply assumed I would plumb it in. But at least some of the Bosch ones don't plumb in - as you rightly pointed out. (I think all the Miele ones do plumb in.)

[Capitol]

Why condenser? I'd buy a White Knight and vent to outside. Although ours currently vents inside without any condensation problems?

[Capitol]

For a bog standard one, I recall paying £150!

[harry]

In a condenser dryer, only the heat losses have to be replaced once it's up to operating conditions. If you're not getting indoor condensation, (assuming doors & windows are cl osed) then you have a serious draught problem

[John Rumm]

Got a feeling ours is a hotpoint! To be fair its been fine for the last

7 years or so. Is a tank type - has a long pull out tank in the place where the soap drawer would be on a washing machine.

What load can the washing machine take? If that only does 6 or 7 then having extra available in the drier may be less useful that it would first appear.

The other thing to keep in mind is that with a condenser drier, the heat is kept in the house, and so the energy use can be offset against that needed for heating.

As with many of these edicts that one must display running cost figures, it does not mean they have to make sense!

You probably get the most sense taking the energy use per cycle and dividing by the load size to get an energy per kg. However so long as they include humidity sensors to know when to stop drying it seems unlikely there will be that much difference between them since there is not much a drier can do to effect the amount of energy required to evaporate a fixed amount of water.

[RJH]

Or within the machine - wrap it in Kingspan? :-)

A 1 hour cycle typically lifts the temperature of the very well ventilated cellar (where it's located) 3/4C

Been very pleased with the Beko condensor I've had for the past 3 years.

[terry.shitcrumbs]

I'd be surprised if you could not quite straightforwardly plumb in a Bosch one, if it has the top-mounted water reservoir. On mine, every few years I have to clean the tube between pump and water re servoir, since it eventually clogs with fluff. It's a doddle to take off th e dryer lid and disconnect the pipe from the back of the reservoir. If you wanted to plumb in, surely you could just route that pipe out of the back o f the dryer casing, either drilling a small hole, or using an existing one.

Regards.

Terry.

[Brian Gaff]

There are so many imponderables, such as why is it that some washing machines with the same spin speed and the same loads seem to have wide variations in how dry clothes are when they come out? In tumble driers, how long does a cycle actually take?

I have just not bothered with a drier, I have a box room upstairs, I just put lines in and open a window or in the winter use a low power oil filled heater with the door closed.

I am also a bit peed off with the modern trend in washers and driers of having the flat panel lcd touch screen and menus to do, what in reality is simple tasks that could be done with a dumb device operated by mechanical switches. The technology-isation of everything eventually will mean that anyone with sight loss will need to find another way to do their washing. Brian

[0345.86.86.888]

Quick pondering on loads...

If a washing machine has a load capacity of 7Kg presumably dry clothes going in, is a tumble drier rated on the weight of dry clothes coming out or wet clothes going in?

Even after a 1400+ spin towels for example are still significantly heavier.

[Tim Watts]

Because you are blowing all your expensive heat outside instead of reusing it to heat the house :)

[alan_m]

Miele TKB140WP Load (kg) 7 Rating A++ kWh/cycle 1.73 kWh/year 211 cycles per year 121.9

Some of that information is incorrect

They all quote a 'standardised' figure for _160_ cycles

For instance the Bosch EU data pack says

Energy consumption 270.0 kWh/annum, based on 160 drying cycles of the standard cotton programme at full and partial load, and the consumption of the low-power modes. Actual energy consumption per cycle will depend on how the appliance is used.

Both Panasonic and Miele quote exactly the same wording and give figures (in the machine manuals) for 160 cycles/annum

Bosch 270 KWh/annum for 160 cycles (a A+ machine) Miele 211 KWh/annum for 160 cycles (a A++ machine) Panasonic 177 KWh/annum for 160 cycles (a A+++ machine)

The figure you have for the Panasonic of 0.86 KWh/cycle is what they claim for a half load of 4Kg. The full load figure is 1.4KWh

Ignoring reliability[1] and cost of spare parts etc. the question to ask is a more expensive machine actually going to pay for itself in the lower use of energy over, say 5 or 10 years, especially if you may be using a washing line during hot sunny days.

[1] I no longer take any notice of a recommendation from someone who says that have a reliable service from their 20 year old machine. What's on the market today is likely to be designed by a different company who have bought the brand, by different designers and farmed out to a third party far eastern manufacturers. Alternatively brand X uses exactly the same parts as brand Y because they all come off the same production line. If, as a result of previous experience, you will not buy a particular brand don't be fooled into believing some of the alternative brands are anything other than re-badging exercises.

[Andy Burns]

I remember when the clunky rotary control was the weakpoint on washing machines, when it went it was so expensive it was usually best to get a new machine, my last few machines, the rotary control is just a position encoder (doesn't turn during the wash) and the actual wash is run by the controller PCB.

I did have a problem where PCB died within couple of weeks, turned out the be a common fault on new model, when the manufacturer arrived to replace PCB they also fitted a plastic shield to divert any drips of condensation away from PCB, you'd hope that sort of fault was found during product development)

Can't really see how a touch screen LCD screen benefits a washing machine, more expensive than half a dozen LEDs and three for four switches, I'd think ....

[The Natural Philosopher]

No. In general the less switches of a mechanical nature you have, and the more touchy feely bollocks, the cheaper and nastier a piece of shit you can design.

Which is why the tendency is away from a 'one switch one function' to menu driven systems.

If one cheap touch screen can also replace 10 mechanical switches that's even better.

shows that even at retail, a touch screen module is around £10. You wont buy a rocker switch for less than a couple of quid...

And that will need wiring up. AS will discrete LEDS.

The beauty of digital is that you do everything in a mass produced pre-programmed chip, and the expense is interfacing to the user and the product. Touch screens and LCD displays are about e cheapest way to interface to the user these days.

Until cortically implanted bluetooth modules go on sale ;-)

[Graeme]

In message , alan_m writes

I long ago gave up researching TVs, white goods etc., and just buy whatever is on special offer at Tesco, or wherever. Whatever we buy these days seems to have far more buttons and options than we ever use, but perhaps we're the ignorant minority.