Heatpump clothes dryer

[begreen]

Does anyone have a heatpump dryer in the house? Our 16 yr old dryer's electronics just blew out and the part appears to be hard to get (still looking). If we are replacing, I'm considering a heat pump dryer and wondering whether it's worth the extra cost. How noisy are they? Do they blow cool air into the room? Reliability?

 

[mellow]

I had looked at them earlier this year but did not move forward after seeing how long they may take to dry a full load. Our family of 4 would be screaming because everyone waits till the last minute to wash/dry. Maybe for someone that can let it run overnight it would be better suited for.

 

[begreen]

Not a problem for us. We never run our dryer on high heat and now there are only two of us using a jumbo dryer. We have lots of extra towels, sheets, etc.

 

[gthomas785]

I do not have one but am considering switching over just for the energy savings. We do enough laundry in our house that the payback would be pretty quick. I have read that the downsides are longer cycle times and the occasional need for deep cleaning to keep it running efficiently.

 

[EbS-P]

From the reviews I’ve watched is the temps aren’t as high so when clothes come out they might feel a bit damp.
Do you due diligence on vented versus non vented. I’ll look up consumer reports and post back.

Technology is mature enough. Find the best/ most reliable model is probably the most important aspect.

 

[John Galt]

We have been using a Whirlpool WED99HEDWO for two years. The pump went out within the first few cycles but was under warranty. The pump is accessible from the back, no need to pull the drum and dismantle the whole thing. Cleaning the coil does require the drum to be pulled, I haven't done that yet. The noise is the same as a regular dryer - motor, drum, belt. The pump comes on every 10 minutes (ish) and runs for 15 seconds and isn't too loud. Maybe the same as a cordless drill? The washing machine is louder when it drains than the dryer.

The air movement is like a computer fan, you won't notice it.

The damp feeling isn't really damp, things just are not scalding hot when you pull things out, sucking the moisture from your skin.

The extra time is true. Anywhere from 1 to 1 1/2 hours. That's how long our washer takes so no big deal. Just the two of us so we're not trying to pump out 6 loads in a day.

I bought it for the wattage during use. I don't remember the numbers it pulls but it's under 2k (might be 800) vs 4.5k a traditional dryer uses. I only have 8800W at a time, with the HP dryer I don't worry if the well or septic pumps start up. Same reason I got the HP water heater.

 

[John Galt]

The Miele is a sturdy little machine but much smaller. Uses 110V if I remember correctly.

 

[semipro]

We've had the LG HP dryer for a few years and are very happy with it.
Before that, we had two Bosch HP dryers that were not good. They required quite a bit of maintenance (cleaning the heat exchanger) and had common design flaws in the drum that required their ultimate replacement.
Our LG is very quiet and has required zero maintenance thus far, other than cleaning the lint screens, which is quite easy. The heat exchanger is self-cleaning. The unit actually adds heat to our utility room, since it doesn't vent externally (thermodynamics and all that you know).

 

[DBoon]

I have a condensing dryer. It uses about half the electricity of a conventional dryer (and twice that of a heat pump clothes dryer), and takes twice as long to dry clothes. It works great. It throws a little heat into the house (no big deal - mostly used in winter when I am not drying on a clothesline), less complicated than a heat pump clothes dryer.

I think the energy consumption estimates on the yellow tags were something like 600 kWh/year for regular dryer, 300 kWh/year for condensing dryer, 150 kWh/year for heat pump clothes dryer. For two people who use a dryer, I'd say that is probably reasonable consumption estimates.

Cost for heat pump clothes dryer was about $500 more than a condensing dryer. It was not worth it to pay more to use that little less electricity. I wanted at least a condensing clothes dryer because I have an airtight house and didn't want the wall penetration for conventional dryer exhaust, nor did I want the extra negative pressure (when dryer is running) given that I burn with wood in the winter.

 

[semipro]

We've had the LG HP dryer for a few years and are very happy with it.
Before that, we had two Bosch HP dryers that were not good. They required quite a bit of maintenance (cleaning the heat exchanger) and had common design flaws in the drum that required their ultimate replacement.
Our LG is very quiet and has required zero maintenance thus far, other than cleaning the lint screens, which is quite easy. The heat exchanger is self-cleaning. The unit actually adds heat to our utility room, since it doesn't vent externally (thermodynamics and all that you know).

The LG model we have is WM4000HBA.ABLEUUS
The Bosch units we had were condensing dryers, not HP as I mentioned above