Speaking from the perspective of maintaining student houses please use a dehumidifier. Students dry everything with heat and airers which leads to condensation which leads to black mould.
Or you could use a dehumidifier which extracts the water into a tank or down a drain.
(Simplified and generalised to provoke someone into explaining at great length why I'm wrong).
@snotrag. Sorry, I had a 50:50 chance of recalling the correct one that works well in low temperature....and got it wrong!
Presumably all the people recommending Meaco dehumidifiers are not the same people in a recent thread detailing all the faults they'd had with them!
A simple fan increasing the flow of air to wet garments helps. Desk type fan or something.
More gentle on them too, drying a bit more naturally this way.
That's what I do, easily dries a whole load of kit in a night just on an airer and with a 12" desk fan running on it's lowest setting. Costs about 20p to run all night too according to the Smart Meter. The fan cost me nothing as it's main use is for Zwifting, shifts a decent amount of air considering it's size. I air out the flat every morning for 20-30 mis so that takes care of the residual humidity.
Presumably all the people recommending Meaco dehumidifiers are not the same people in a recent thread detailing all the faults they’d had with them!
twas my thread. in the end i admitted defeat and have binned it now, altho it gave us around 12 years of decent use. meaco offered me 20% off the latest model so just got that yesterday and am currently drying the latest batch of washing with it. im guessing its cheaper to run than one of those jobbies in the OP altho i dont know for sure.
A simple fan increasing the flow of air to wet garments helps. Desk type fan or something.<br />More gentle on them too, drying a bit more naturally this way.
interesting, not heard of that before, i'll have to try it sometime. and then use the dehumidifier to get rid of the moisture afterwards 😎
I have dehumidifier and while it works it's slow and consumes 3250watts for many (10+) hours to dry a load . I think a simple fan would actually be more useful
The condenser drier does the same amount in an hour for 1.8kwh reliably.
Residual heat into the room then drys the items that can't go in the drier (mainly sports gear)
My white knight vented tumble dryer has 2 heat settings, high 2kw/h and low 1kw/h. I start the tumbling process on high for around 10 minutes then switch it to the lower heat setting for the rest of the drying. I separated the heavy materials from the synthetic materials and only throw the synthetic stuff in when on the low heat part.
Does a good job and pretty quick usually less than 30 minutes. Pity the excess heat is in a well vented cellar. Moisture is vented outside. Clothes then get hung on a maiden if there is any dampness remaining.
I do have a heated air-dryer but that is 900w/hr and is a chore to load up. Excess heat would stay indoors though.
I know the answer to this one!
Insulated airing cupboard+ dehumidifier+ fan to move air around+ shoe dryer. A bit of work but brilliantly effective.
I always find the tumble dryer takes an age to dry - this works amazingly
@stonster You may have looked into it, but advice I've seen is not to have dehumidifier running in an airing cupboard due to potential overheating?
On a related note, but slight thread hijack, house humidity - what are people's current experiences?
Right now, ours appears to be hovering between 65 and 75% which suggests upper end. Bathroom (where we dry clothes) with dehumidifier is easily controlled, and we open windows regularly for a recirculation of the air inside. But rooms still naturally return to 65-75%. Central heating been on low for a couple of weeks.
Assume it's just the weather and it'll drop in months ahead. Don't really want to be running another dehumidifier all the time on an endless battle.
When we were in temporary accommodation we picked up one of those Lakeland Drysoon heated cabinets as the washer dryer in the rental was total crap. I was expecting a 60w light bulb hidden in a box at the bottom of a disposable Argos wardrobe. I was 90% right, except the 60w light bulb is actually a 1.2kW fan heater! I can run at least three of our heat pump dryer cycles for the cost of one session in the sh!t cabinet. Utter pish.
Right now, ours appears to be hovering between 65 and 75% which suggests upper end
a few weeks ago when it was warmer we were at 70% humidity, and the wooden front door had expanded and was starting to stick, but now its gone cooler we're at 58% . we dont use a dehumidifier
I've got a Drybuddi. I've been mocked for this, but have nowhere for a tumble dryer, no car port and certainly not a cellar.
It works ok. Clothes don't smell of damp when they come out of it, like they would if the whole drying process was done in the airing cupboard.
On a related note, but slight thread hijack, house humidity – what are people’s current experiences?
ours at present is 75 with no heating/dehumidifier on. its been up to 90 on occasion first thing in the morning. dont like those figures but dont particularly want to run the dehumidifier constantly either, i prefer it to be for just drying clothes altho that may have to change.
We have a dehumidifier, it needs a base level of heat to operate, around 18c. We also have one of those electric drying racks, but without the cover. It spot drys the clothes so you have to move it around a but. I'm pretty unimpressed TBH. It may be better with a cover, but assume it's breathable to let the moisture out.
yep! Is it an industrial one for drying floods?! I have a one that's 300W and another that's 185W I think! Both dry clothes fine.3.3KW for 10 hours, WTF?!<br /> <br />Mine uses about 300w
On a related note, but slight thread hijack, house humidity – what are people’s current experiences?
Rooms in the house at this moment varying between 63 and 72%*. I find this time of year is always the worst - damp, cool weather, but not cold enough to really get the heating cranking. Also, one of the disadvantages of per-room heating control is that rooms I don't heat all the time, as they are used sporadically, tend to get much colder and damper than when I was on a 'dumb' heating system.
*The outlier to that range is the 'damp' cellar where I have a humidifier running set to keep the humidity at nominally 55%, yesterday it varied between 53-60%.
Our dehumidifier is about 300 Watts, takes a few hours to dry a machine load hung in a spare bedroom, so not exactly the smallest space. All the energy goes as heat into the house, so you don't actually loose anything, we get an extra 300W of CH from it...
3250watts is the total for 10 hours that it seems to take to dry a load
i wont be spending another 200 quid for a new dehumifier to save 400watts a load + all the residual heat from the drier goes into the house also.
It spot drys the clothes so you have to move it around a but. I’m pretty unimpressed TBH. It may be better with a cover, but assume it’s breathable to let the moisture out.<br /><br />
I used mine earlier this week, I had a load consisting of lots of socks, pants, teeshirts, vests, shorts, etc. I put them out on the washing lines, which did most of the real drying, but I couldn’t leave it out past sunset because weather, so it went on the airer with the cover on.
Turned it off when I went to bed, turned it on in the morning and left it all day, then left it turned off the next day, because I couldn’t be arsed to put everything away, but it had all dried by the second day. The cover is just thin nylon/polyester, but there are several vents along the top that you can feel warm air venting from. I have no other option but to use it, I can’t use the airing cupboard because it’s now got my gas boiler inside, whereas it used to have the hot water tank, and I was instructed not to stuff washing in there. 🤷🏼
I do open the top vent of the landing window to allow air to circulate, because that’s where the rack is. Works for me, which is good ‘cos I’ve got no other practical options.
http://www.pekodryingcabinets.co.uk/products/peko-ed-1900r-drying-cabinet-new-model/<br /><br />
These drying cabinets are amazing for drying clothes and riding kit without needing the heating on. They’re not cheap by a long stretch but I picked a used one up a while back on eBay for about £100. They’ll dry a full wash of bike and running kit in about an hour and according to a smart plug thing it costs about 50p to turn for an hour. <br />Works well with normal clothes as well and unlike a tumble dryer, they don’t shrink things. <br /><br />
have dehumidifier and while it works it’s slow and consumes 3250watts for many (10+) hours to dry a load . I think a simple fan would actually be more useful
All of these dehumidifier/tent/whatever solutions see to be a more expensive, less convenient and to take up more space than a heat pump tumble dryer (but with a lower upfront cost)
There was an article online recently comparing drying with a heated airer and a dehumidifier. The dehumidifier won on time plus less hassle as you needed to keep rearranging the stuff on the airer to get even drying.
The best was he dehumidifier in conjunction with a normal fan which served to move the air about to replicate a breezy day outside - cut the drying time nearly in half.
All of these dehumidifier/tent/whatever solutions see to be a more expensive, less convenient and to take up more space than a heat pump tumble dryer (but with a lower upfront cost)
Assuming you have space for one. We don't. Drying in the winter means using the small room my wife uses as an office, when she's not using it as an office a few days a week. Atleast the drysoon can foldaway out the way behind a set of shelves when not in use.
IME, it depends on what's actually keeping your stuff damp. Is it lack of heat, or is it too much humidity? The room I dry mine in is very dry, but it's also very cold, and so stuff just takes a long time to dry regardless. Dehumidifier makes no noticable difference (and gathers little water, for the same reason obviously). Whereas a heated dryer probably would work really well in there as it'd just help the water evap off. But ymmv, probably a lot of people have warmer but more humid rooms?
If you wrap your wet washing in a hand towel, how do you dry the hand towel? We've a 20l Meaco turning up today, if it lasts 12yrs it's paid for itself.
Dehumidifier and large desk fan.
Fan blows from one end of clothes horse with dehumidifier at the other end.
I looked into getting one of those electric airers last winter but too many negative reviews put me off. So, we started putting clothes on 2 normal airers and a shirt hanger airer in front of a radiator, then draping a duvet cover over them and the top of the rad. The heating then goes on for an hour or so here and there and is enough (because it's contained to that space) to dry everything either overnight or within 24 hours.
Simples.
2 hrs in the Dribuddy yesterday and all my riding gear was dry and smelling sweet. 🙂
Probably said already but putting t-shirts, shirts and sweatshirts on hangers and hanging them from a shower pole or pull up bar seems to do the job for me overnight.
Same with trousers, hung from trouser hangers (tk maxx type) with the pockets pulled out. Well spun beforehand obvs.
We've had one of those heated drying racks for donkeys years and it's fantastic. Ours is kept on top of a washing maching in a small utility room. Clothes come straight out the washer and onto the rack. We have an extractor fan to get rid of the damp air but have never needed to turn it on as the room has no condensation to speak of. I highly recommend them.
