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

 

[Highbeam]

Due to the new Washington energy code, the new apartment buildings in my city are required to use ventless dryers. The technology either has become or will be mature quickly.

 

[semipro]

Due to the new Washington energy code, the new apartment buildings in my city are required to use ventless dryers. The technology either has become or will be mature quickly.

I suspect that one major motivation for the move to ventless dryers is that many home fires originate in lint-filled dryer vents. I was surprised to read that NFPA reports that 92% of home fires involve clothes dryers, and 27% of those are attributable to dirty vents.

Home fires involving clothes dryers and washing machines | NFPA Research

An overview of home structure fires involving dryers and washing machines, including factor contributing to ignition, item first ignited and area of origin.

www.nfpa.org

 

[bogieb]

I suspect that one major motivation for the move to ventless dryers is that many home fires originate in lint-filled dryer vents. I was surprised to read that NFPA reports that 92% of home fires involve clothes dryers, and 27% of those are attributable to dirty vents.

Home fires involving clothes dryers and washing machines | NFPA Research

An overview of home structure fires involving dryers and washing machines, including factor contributing to ignition, item first ignited and area of origin.

www.nfpa.org

So, I was like, "What? 92% of house fires involve the dryers? I find that hard to believe."

The article was not well written. It's actually conveying that out of the nearly 16,000 house fires each year that involve the drier or washing machine, 92% of those are from the drier. That, I can believe. It doesn't help that those stats are old (2010-2014) so may be out of date.

92% of 16,000 (to make it easier), is 14,720. They said 27% were from dust, fiber, or lint (let's just call it all lint for short). So that is 3,974 fires that are caused by lint. They don't say whether it is lint in the exhaust, or lint in the inside of the drier (at the lint screen), or a combination - so one cannot say it is due to dirty vents from the information given, it is just to basic maintenance.

26%, or 3,710 were from the clothes catching fire. My assumption is that those clothes were inside the drier.

From Consumer affairs, only about 4% of house fires are caused by dryers and washers.

And clothes washer/driers are on the very low end of cause of fire

 

[Highbeam]

I suspect that one major motivation for the move to ventless dryers is that many home fires originate in lint-filled dryer vents. I was surprised to read that NFPA reports that 92% of home fires involve clothes dryers, and 27% of those are attributable to dirty vents.

Home fires involving clothes dryers and washing machines | NFPA Research

An overview of home structure fires involving dryers and washing machines, including factor contributing to ignition, item first ignited and area of origin.

www.nfpa.org

In the case of WA I am confident that it’s all about their climate change agenda. Myself, I don’t care about that but reducing fire risk and increasing efficiency by huge percentages are good enough reasons if the technology is dependable and maintainable.

 

[Highbeam]

So, I was like, "What? 92% of house fires involve the dryers? I find that hard to believe."

The article was not well written. It's actually conveying that out of the nearly 16,000 house fires each year that involve the drier or washing machine, 92% of those are from the drier. That, I can believe. It doesn't help that those stats are old (2010-2014) so may be out of date.

92% of 16,000 (to make it easier), is 14,720. They said 27% were from dust, fiber, or lint (let's just call it all lint for short). So that is 3,974 fires that are caused by lint. They don't say whether it is lint in the exhaust, or lint in the inside of the drier (at the lint screen), or a combination - so one cannot say it is due to dirty vents from the information given, it is just to basic maintenance.

26%, or 3,710 were from the clothes catching fire. My assumption is that those clothes were inside the drier.

From Consumer affairs, only about 4% of house fires are caused by dryers and washers.

View attachment 340370
And clothes washer/driers are on the very low end of cause of fire

View attachment 340371

This is why we can’t trust “science” from biased sources. You have to a skeptic about all such science.

 

[EbS-P]

to read that NFPA reports that 92% of home fires involve clothes dryers,

Reading closer… it’s 92% of the fires caused by washer or dryers are caused by dryers.

Dryers account for 4% of home fires.

https://content.nfpa.org/-/media/Project/Storefront/Catalog/Files/Research/NFPA-Research/US-Fire-Problem/osdryer.pdf?rev=6e5e44af45a54ee38ab86a33bef98e86&hash=639DD7887A6C083F71E4FD34726B1197

 

[begreen]

We decided to get another conventional dryer. They were on sale as a pair. At over twice the price of a conventional unit, it was hard to justify the cost. The dryer is only used part of the year and only on low heat. I'll clean out or replace the dryer vent line before installing next weekend.

 

[semipro]

Reading closer… it’s 92% of the fires caused by washer or dryers are caused by dryers.

Dryers account for 4% of home fires.

https://content.nfpa.org/-/media/Project/Storefront/Catalog/Files/Research/NFPA-Research/US-Fire-Problem/osdryer.pdf?rev=6e5e44af45a54ee38ab86a33bef98e86&hash=639DD7887A6C083F71E4FD34726B1197

My bad all. I wasn't trying to mislead. I should have dug deeper. I'm grateful for those that did.

 

[EbS-P]

My bad all. I wasn't trying to mislead. I should have dug deeper. I'm grateful for those that

It was poorly written.

 

[bogieb]

It was poorly written.

Definitely.

 

[bigealta]

I find great deals on washers and dryers on marketplace or ksl (in Utah).
Got a LG washer for $75 or $100 that just needed a new $25 pump which was easy to replace. Washer was maybe 3 or 4 years and was in like new condition.
Got a matching electric LG Dryer for $40, it was pristine and also maybe 3-4 years old. Also it came with a like new pedestal.

I won't buy new again if it's up to me.

I use a spackel bucket as a lint trap. It works great, so much better than those small ones sold in box stores (they don't work well for me).
In dry Utah the added moisture is not a problem.