Anybody got a heat pump tumble dryer?

These seem to be the next Big Thing. It seems they work like a room dehumidifier keeping the same air within the drum rather than blowing it out over a chiller, which makes the room steamy and hot. They get a A++ rating for energy although they are quite expensive.

I’ve got one, uses about 2/3 the power of my old type. It takes longer to dry stuff and it comes out not as dry but ok. It’s gentler on clothes but the big thing for me is, it doesn’t work very well in the garage when its really cold – if you’re putting it in an ambient place it’ll be fine.

We have a bosch one in the kitchen. It def takes longer than normal ones and the clothes seem to come out dry.
not really got an idea on energy usage as we haven’t used it much

We’ve got one. It seems to do the job of drying clothes as well as any other we’ve had, which admittedly is approximately one. Not measured its use of leccy but we bought it for this reason. I think it does take a long time but in our use case that doesn’t matter and I hadn’t thought about it til reading comments above.

On reliability, it went wrong in the first year, which was crap and made me wonder about the wisdom of buying it, but well backed up and replaced under warranty by Panasonic. About 5 years later the identical replacement is still good. So take what you want from that on reliability, on a sample size of, er, I suppose two!

I did the maths on the extra cost of one vs a vented dryer. It costs more.

Mrs_OAB ignored the fact it would cost more overall, bought a Hotpoint heatpump one. After the second one also filled the room with moisture and fried it’s own circuits due to the damp within a fortnight, we got a refund.

Now running an as efficient as we can vented one, as little as we can.

Have had a Bosch one for a few years and agree with everything said above with one proviso, I wouldn’t buy another one that doesn’t have an easily removable heat exchanger.  Despite having a double filter system and a ‘self-cleaning’ heat exchanger it has gotten clogged up with lint over the years and now takes about twice as long to dry as before, a load of towels is up to 5-6 hours. The heat exchanger on my model cannot be removed without completely dismantling the machine which I will have to do at some point.

Further research has shown that most have the same problem hence I would only consider one where the heat exchanger can be pulled out and rinsed easily.

We have a Bosch one. It does take longer but it also heats things up much less. We use it a lot as my wife has bad hayfever and anything dried outside picks up pollen. It’s quite satisfying to empty the water (approaching one litre) and think “the old drier evaporated all this”. I was amazed how much it’s reduced our electricity bill but have realised that’s partly because we have solar PV. The old drier drew a lot of power, more than the PV provided, so it cost us. The heat pump uses less overall, and spreads it over a longer period, so for most of the year the PV provides most of what it uses.

Yep we have one, seems to work OK and doesn’t use anything like as much electricty as a hot air blower one.

We rarely use it as we mostly dry stuff on a line or in a spare bedroom with a stand alone duhimidifier in the room. The drier just gets used for big loads of towels or bedding if we can’t use the line.

What hIgHlAnDeR said +1
Our Zanussi one works well, but the heat exchanger bit is not removable without breaking into the refrigerant circuit. So it slowly clogs up despite the filters, you can only pick so much out of it with a bent spoke :(

Have had one for over 15 years as a washer dryer. As said above, takes longer to dry than a vented one. Also doesn’t get towels quite as dry (no problem with anything shy of towels).

The heat exchanger on my model cannot be removed without completely dismantling the machine which I will have to do at some point.

This isn’t unique to heat exchange models i just had to reduce mine to an empty shell to get the capacitor out.

Also doesn’t get towels quite as dry (no problem with anything shy of towels).

Ours can get them bone dry, but the auto hunidity sensor seems to always stop early, so if I want them really dry I have to stick it on again for a set time eg an extra 30 mins.

The unspoken thing in all of this is that calculations of efficiency don’t take into account the fact that energy (heat) from the tumble drier isn’t ‘wasted’, it warms the house. That may not be desirable in summer, or if your drier lives in the garage, but in winter we use the (old fashioned) drier quite a bit and it warms the house. YMMV

We got a John Lewis branded AEG about 8 years ago, they still make the 7000 series and it’s practically unchanged from ours. The motor went recently (magnets delaminated from the armature) and I would like to say what an utter delight it was to disassemble the dryer with only two different screw types (and it was ridiculously simple too). Excellent parts coverage and £120 for the new motor wasn’t bad next to another £650 for a new dryer.

Our filters got clogged up as well, I’ve found since ditching softener and using white vinegar this has been less of an issue (easy check is to run it under water and if you can pool water it’s needing a good scrub). Ours get cleaned after every use and it’s been behaving since the secondary filter got completely choked a while back.

Further research has shown that most have the same problem hence I would only consider one where the heat exchanger can be pulled out and rinsed easily.

As said that heat exchanger has the refrigerant circuit built in, it’s going nowhere.

It’s quite satisfying to empty the water (approaching one litre) and think “the old drier evaporated all this”

Condenser dryers do the same. Even better is plumbing it into the drain so you never have to empty it again!

My last conventional dryer sent all the heat out of the vent, no useful warm air came out into my icehouse kitchen.

Said this before but is gas an option? Ours uses a tiny bit of electric and a sip of gas. Our flue goes out via the cloak room so warms that up nicely.
Not much to go wrong, regular bayonet fixing for the gas regular 3pin plug. Only faf is you need gas.

My last conventional dryer sent all the heat out of the vent, no useful warm air came out into my icehouse kitchen.

Fair enough. Obviously my drier is different – it isn’t plumbed in. It just has a water tank to empty every 2-3 loads. You can plumb it in but it’s only a small (20mm?) waste pipe not one of those huge hoses. So there’s nowhere for the heat to go except through the house.

Edit: apparently mine is a condenser drier.

We have one of those John Lewis ones already mentioned.

takes longer than our old Miele condenser to dry things. Some things are slightly damp after the sensor stops the cycle. Big towels and too-big loads of bedding. A short ‘air’ over the banister sorts that out.

runs a lot cooler and quieter than the Miele did. Uses a lot less electricity.

It’s plumbed in like the Miele was so no need for manual emptying

I would not hesitate to get another if I needed it.

What a dull thread I thought.

Then my 25yr old tumble drier stopped working and now I’ve got a sexy new AEG T7DBK841N on its way. Livin the lockdown dream!