You are supposed to empty it after each load. We frequently don't, thogh. It takes a few seconds - slide it out, tip over sink, replace.
Effectively. The tank you empty is at the top of the machine (in the same place as the soap powder drawer on a washing machine, and the same dimensions panel-wise, but full depth).
There is a large holding tank inside the machine that collects water. When it's full, a sensor starts a pump that moves the water to the removable tank. If the removable tank fills, a bypass sends it back to the holding tank. A sensor there detects potential overflow and stops the machine.
So is it effectively a sealed tank, all but a drain hole (that was a fill hole, at the top)?
So, given this tank would end up at about eye level for me (at 6' 2") it may not be so easy for the Mrs to empty (the person most likely to be emptying it) at 5' 4"? (Did I see some of the White Knight TD's look like they have been built upside down)?
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Ah, cool, thanks.
So, you still haven't answered my question Bob and that was 'if you could wave a magic wand and have it plumbed in, why wouldn't you?'
We were round my Uncles one day and discussing his old open fire and tiled fire surround. He hinted that he might like a wall mounted gas fire there but it would be a lot of effort. The Mrs asked", "If you could wave a magic wand and it be done, would you?" He thought for a second and said ... "Well, yes."
So, the Mrs looked and me and said "Let's go home and get the tools" and we did and it was all done within a few days (he didn't mind about that, it was just going past that first step that was holding him up).
My point was that if we got a condensing TD and no matter how 'easy' it was to empty, we *would* plumb it in because we would rather not
Then do your research more carefully than I. I have a moderately expensive Bosch heat pump one that has no facilities to plumb it in. I naturally assumed ...
Nope. A conventional dryer will cope with that lot in under an hour, even if spun at 800-1000rpm.
We stayed at a holiday rental earlier in the month and it had a condenser-dryer.
Apart from having a control panel to rival a 747 (and no instruction manual), when it failed to dry half a load in 2hrs the assembled company decided it was completely unfit for purpose (which was getting some stuff washed overnight dry again to wear that morning).
Ok, not entirely sure what your point is then, non-condenser models do dry quicker whether heat pump or not. Not exactly surprising when you consider how hot they get.
The argument was whether heat pump condenser models are slower than non heat pump condenser ones. That's the point I'm not convinced about, except in the circumstances tabbypurr points out.
So by 'conventional' do you mean 'vented' Rowland?
FWIW, we generally spin at 'not the fastest' speed because I'm not sure it does the bearings any good. [1]
A condenser-dryer or heat pump?
That's fine, as long as it's intuitive (and many aren't).
Great.
Since we have repaired the old vented Zanussi (again) she tells me it's working very well again. There is a short length of the corrugated hose going to some of that rectangular box ducting, 90 Degree turn at the top and though the outside wall to a flap valve and grille. Even when the glass of the dryer door feels fairly warm the ducting feels fairly cool so I'm guessing most of the heat energy is going into the clothes to balance the latent heat of vaporisation?
Cheers, T i m
[1] The previous WM had a 1200 spin speed but stamped into the spider holding the bearings it said 'MAX 1000 RPM'.
I'm not going to attempt to argue with specifications, if that's what the people who make it say, then it must be so :)
I can only repeat that we have a Bosch heat pump dryer, it dries washing faster than the machine we were using before (not difficult!) and about the same as most other condenser machines we've used.
That's based on cotton, mostly and by "dry" meaning dry enough to store in the cupboard/wardrobe.
Synthetics are virtually dry when they come out of the washing machine so do not require much drying time any way.
This is the sort of thing I hate when replacing something that has done just what you need, easily and simply for many years and you can't find a straight replacement.
Like when we thought the TD was a gonna the last time (the new handle came today and I've just fitted it btw ) we were actually looking for a straight replacement but couldn't find one with an exhaust port on the left. Ours has them at the left, right and the rear!
But then the old TD allowed you to run it from an external timer (E7) whereas this one requires you to press the start button. ;-(
I'm with the other posters here who haven't bothered to plumb in the condensate waste. It's trivial to empty, it's something else to go worng, and you might have a use for the water. And I think there may be something of the 'bagless hoover' effect going on - a weird sense of well being in seeing what it's achieved.
Sorry, only spotted that when reading your reply here (I'm sure it must be one of those frustrating things you get a lot, unlike my Tym (which I quite like BTW)), but that's also 'word blindness' for you). ;-(
Noted.
Ok ... but I'm guessing it might not be heat pump in a 'holiday rental', unless the electricity was inclusive?
It is indeed ... and it seems fewer and fewer people care about such things, willing to accept pretty well whatever they can get easily rather than going for what they really want.
The problem with the latter (for anyone who has tried) is, as you say, the lack of good information (including key dimensions sometimes) but how quickly the choices fade out.
The real frustration is when the things you want and that most agree are sensible or even a basic minimum, are only available on a small selection of models, if any? [1]
Like, having the option to 'plumb in' something like a dehumidifier or condenser dryer and even to have the choice of positions (like not all appliances can have their doors hinged on either side).
Cheers, T i m
[1] Years ago I had to spend quite a bit of cash to get a telephone answering machine that both recorded the date and time stamp on each incoming message and displayed the number of new messages in a simple display (rather than expecting you to count the flashes etc). Wouldn't
*everyone* consider those things to be basic requirements, even at the beginning?
I wouldn't quite call it rage though, just it seems difficult to get an answer to my question. ;-)
Ok.
But still needs doing. I'm guessing you have plumbed in your dishwasher rather than hooking the rubber hose over the sink? ;-)
Ah, ok, that is at least *an* answer, suggesting that the auto drain function is more likely to go wrong than forgetting to empty the tray and have the machine cutoff mid cycle or dropping / spilling the container whist emptying it (we have spilled the condensate tanks on both our dehumidifiers and some time or another but the plumed in one (on the split aircon) has not leaked so far). ;-)
However, in support of that I recently helped a mate 'fix' his aircon unit because part of the self drain function had become blocked and it was spraying water all over the place. To be fair to both him and the design, it did seem that they had allowed quite a bit of debris in there, possibly during the installation that had helped block the outlet pipe and the spigot on the outlet tray was fairly small and poorly designed meaning it was easy to block. After clearing it and cleaning around to minimise the risk of it happening again, we overviewed the option of a little re-design, if it happened again in the future. ;-)
See above, we have *more* than enough water of that type and possibly cleaner than that recovered from clothes from a washing machine?
Maybe I get that fix emptying two de-humidifiers (or seeing them off because we forgot to). ;-(
Noted. Still, there is no knowing what the owner thought and could have been 'sold' on the low power consumption of a heat pump model without realising where it would sit in the consumption chart?
How many ordinary people really know the running costs of most household stuff?
I had a reasonably technical mate (in things other than 'electrics') who called me re what size cable / fuse he would need to put on a small electric towel rail (don't ask). I think he said it was 150W but when he tried to look up how to convert that into Amps, the sites he found mentioned power factor and that wasn't mentioned on the blurb. I suggested that being it was a purely resistive heater it would probably have a PF of 1 and so it would just be the 150W / 240V?
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