Best Type of Clothes Dryer: Heat Pump or Condenser? 🧺 👕 👚

Описание: Heat pump and condenser clothes dryers each have pros and cons. Here's how to decide what type of tumble dryer is the best for you.

Sustainability Victoria reports that more than half of Victorian households own a clothes dryer (also known as a tumble dryer), with tens of thousands of new dryers purchased in the state every year.

Clothes dryers are a major electricity consumer when used regularly. While having solar panels or a solar battery installed can help reduce the cost, it’s still important to understand which type of electric clothes dryer is the best choice for your household.

Most modern dryers are simple to install. If you're unsure, it's best to contact a licenced electrician or plumber.

A condenser dryer is a tumble dryer that uses high temperatures to dry your clothes. It pushes air over a heating coil, then into the tumble drum that holds your clothes. The hot air extracts moisture from clothes as vapour, which is deposited into a container and condensed into water. The water container is usually connected to plumbing via an outlet hose and automatically emptied, though older models may require manual emptying.

A heat pump dryer also extracts vapour from your clothes, but it uses a coolant on the vapour to remove the condensation and preserve the warm air. This air is reheated and recycled back into the tumble drum, making it the eco-friendlier option. Heat pump dryers cost less to run than other types of dryers, but are more expensive to purchase upfront.

When you walk into a home appliance store, you might only consider a dryer’s purchase price. Condenser dryers are cheaper to buy than heat pump dryers, making them an attractive option for lower budgets or households who will only use their dryer occasionally.

Heat pump dryers, however, are considered the more energy efficient option by energyrating.gov.au since they recycle the hot air needed to dry your laundry. Although they are more expensive to initially purchase, their running costs will be lower, saving you money on every electricity bill.

To find out exactly how much a clothes dryer will cost to run, check its Energy Rating Label. The Energy Rating label program is a joint government and industry initiative that helps consumers decide between appliances by comparing star ratings. The more star ratings an appliance has, the more energy efficient and the less it will cost to run.

For example, heat pump dryers are generally rated 7 to 10 stars for energy efficiency, while vented dryers are rarely rated higher than 3 stars (and are more likely to have a 2 star rating). The difference in star ratings can equate to hundreds of dollars in savings over the life of your machine.

If you are likely to use your dryer once a week or more, you might find that a heat pump dryer will be less expensive over its lifetime as compared to a condenser or vented dryer. Given that most large appliances have a ten-year lifespan, that's a lot of loads of washing to consider.

If you have an outdoor clothesline, dry your clothes outdoors during the dry season. Fresh air and sunlight are great at eliminating dust mites and bacteria: they can even help fade stains and save you money.

When you use your dryer, make sure to thoroughly spin-dry your laundry in the washing machine first. Spinning out water takes much less electricity than heating it out. You should also clean out the lint filter after each load to keep the dryer working as efficiently as possible and increase fire safety.

Finally, if you’re going to purchase a new dryer, look for an auto-sensing feature on the models you’re interested in. Auto-sensing means that the dryer senses when your clothes are dry and stops drying them. For example, if you have set the dryer for 60 minutes but your clothes are dry after 30 minutes, the dryer will stop at 30 minutes and save you 30 minutes of needless electricity. This feature also helps protect your clothes.

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