Driers? Worth getting?

[ian]

Actually, it says 46% in the kitchen this morning, but the window is open and it's been raining all night. I should close it, it's chilly in there. The piano is electric so doesn't care about either.

[The French Tandem]

From an environmental stand point, I'd say not a good idea.

J

From an energy consumption stand point, they are exactly neutral during the cold season. Every Joule spent in the drier is a Joule that would have been spent by the heating system of your house, have you chosen to let your clothes dry indoor naturally.

A

[ian]

Not if you're venting it outside.

(plus the efficiency of energy conversion in the drier).

[grams]

Not if you're venting it outside.

Or condensing it and sending it down the drain.

(plus the efficiency of energy conversion in the drier).

All energy consumed by an appliance is converted to heat with 100% efficiency. It's just that heat might not end up where you want it to be.

[Diver300]

Not if you're venting it outside.

Or condensing it and sending it down the drain.

If the condenser is air cooled, either directly or part of a heat-pump system, the heat doesn't go down the drain with the condensed water, as the water ends up near room temperature. The large amount of energy that is needed to make the water evaporate, the latent heat of evaporation, is recovered from the water into whatever it condenses on.

If a condensing tumble dryer is air cooled and not vented, all the electricity it uses will end up as heat in the room, which can be considered useful heat, but that will have come from electricity, which means more cost and usually more CO2 emissions than if the same amount of heat were generated by gas.

A vented or water cooled tumble drier will loose most of to the vent or the drain, so there will be little useful heat, and a vented one will be sucking room air out, which will be replaced by cold outside air.

[ian]

Is it, therefore, more efficient to simply turn up the heating and go naked? We're all in the lockdown and shouldn't be socializing anyway plus the postie has probably seen it all before.

[Diver300]

Is it, therefore, more efficient to simply turn up the heating and go naked? We're all in the lockdown and shouldn't be socializing anyway plus the postie has probably seen it all before.

Almost certainly not. Even if you can heat a room rather than a house, there will be a lot of heat loss. Heating a room will reduce the humidity, but you need some ventilation to actually get rid of the water.

[mcshroom]

Back to the OP, I never used a dryer until we got one last winter. Whether they are environmentally good or not, it's definitely convenient

[geraldc]

Dryers are good if you live alone and only do your own clothes. If you also do other people's clothes you have to have self discipline, and don't do things half arsed. I specialise in doing things half arsed so they're now a nightmare for me. You really have to make sure you read labels, separate things properly, dry things with sticky out zips in pillow cases, delicate net things in pillow cases etc, and make sure you empty pockets. The biggest bollockings I've had from the other half were the times I put an expensive wool thing in the tumble dryer, and the numerous times rogue tissues have found their way into the dryer. When I was young and single, a dryer was what I used to dry t shirts and jeans, socks and pants, now older and married, a dryer to me is a machine for turning a pile of wet clothes into a pile of of warm damaged clothes covered in fluff and a quick way of a getting a bollocking.

[rafletcher]

Be thankful they've moved on a bit since the Zanussi washer / dryer that came with a flat I bought  some 40 (gulp!) years ago.  That could (and unfortunately did) get hot enough to scorch shirts! I rarely used it.

[velosam]

I am now thinking a heated clothes airer instead of a dryer - thoughts?

[ian]

All that moisture has to go somewhere.

[phantasmagoriana]

We run a dehumidifier in our flat for about 1/3 of the time over the winter. That costs us about £50 or so in electricity[1], plus any spare heat it outputs is not wasted as that just means the heating needs to do less work.

Living in a house converted into flats means the ventilation is nowhere near good enough. Such flats weren't designed to have clothes dried inside and the ventilation routes that would have been present in the original house all get blocked up as the place is partitioned up. Even without clothes drying inside the flat we often get condensation on the windows just from the 3 of us that live here.

Same here (albeit only two of us). The dehumidifer runs year-round for drying purposes (because Scotland). All of our fireplaces have been bricked up at some point in the past, which doesn't help - I have considered getting vents put in.

We had a washer-dryer but replaced it when it died last year with a standard washer, because we didn't use the dryer often. However, I've since realised that it did have its uses: towels are never fluffy any more, and I'm scared of washing my down jackets and sleeping bag these days.

[Paul H]

I am now thinking a heated clothes airer instead of a dryer - thoughts?

I have a Lakeland one, used mostly without the heating, it's a decent airer in itself. the heating is pretty useless if you're hoping to dry stuff quickly straight out of the machine, but helps things along when they're almost dry. Even then it needs the cover to be effective. 
I'd also put in a good word for an old fashioned spinner the sort that'll dance across the floor if you don't hold it down, doesn't need plumbing in, so you can stick it away when not in use. I've never had a washing machine that could spin stuff that dry, I'm not sure if such thing exists.  If in doubt, try one at a laundrette.
My washing routine, for most stuff (I don't have many heavy cottons) -  Wash and spin in the morning, leave on the airer all day, cover and heat overnight (Window ajar) and ready to put away in the morning.
I've never had a tumble drier, though I've used plenty of laundrettes, I've never felt the need, though there is something nice about a pile of warm clothes. 
I like the idea of a dehumidifier, I might look into that.
 

[Jurek]

[snip]
 All of our fireplaces have been bricked up at some point in the past, which doesn't help - I have considered getting vents put in.

[/snip]

If your fireplaces have been bricked up, with no air brick put in, they've been done by cowboys.
Put in an air brick.

[Kim]

The efficacy of a clothes airer can be greatly increased by pointing a fan at it, even without heat.  A technique I've used to good effect in hotel rooms for drying kit overnight.

As ian says, the moisture has to go somewhere.

[Canardly]

[snip]
 All of our fireplaces have been bricked up at some point in the past, which doesn't help - I have considered getting vents put in.

[/snip]

If your fireplaces have been bricked up, with no air brick put in, they've been done by cowboys.
Put in an air brick.

You should have the air bricks in any event as you can get interstitial condensation in the flue.

[drossall]

We've always chosen a separate washer and drier over a dishwasher (given space for only two machines), for 35 years. We dry clothes outside in the garden whenever possible, but with two children (originally) and now three adults in the house, we'd struggle when it's wet. Our current drier has lasted forever, although I had to replace the main bearings a couple of years ago. I found quite an alarming build-up of fluff - important to watch that, as it's a fire risk. I think it was the cause of the bearings drying out and making an horrendous noise.