Tumble Dryer. What am I doing wrong?

[OhWifey]

I keep seeing on here that people chuck everything into the tumble dryer / couldn't live without it / would sooner give up the dishwasher etc.
I didn't have a tumble dryer growing up and only bought one two years ago after the birth of my second child. At first I loved it but then I realised it was shrinking and / or fading a lot of stuff. I always run it on the lowest heat and on the correct setting for the garments. What am I doing wrong? Is this just a fact of tumble dryer life that stuff will fade or shrink? Or am I doing something wrong?
It's a Hotpoint, but not a recalled one.

I do not notice this at all, but maybe instead of getting steadily fatter my clothes have been shrinking!

If I pull trousers straight out of the tumble dryer and hang out I don't need to iron them. Same with school uniforms

Love mine.
Candy.
Never shrunk anything and never had to iron.

I don't even own an iron. Into the washing machine, straight into tumble drier, sitting in massive pile on spare bed until one of us cba to put it away, into wardrobe and drawers. Job done. Laundry is not something I want to take any longer than it has to!

I have a washer dryer and tbh it's shit. I couldn't live without it and it gets used a lot in the winter months for one simple reason..flat gets awfully damp and then mouldy and drying things inside only makes it worse. I use it for everything except DD's school jumpers which are ridiculous fir shrinking.

I think combined washer dryers are a bit shit tbh.

But for stuff like school uniform trousers, if you give them a shake and put them on a hanger, they'll be dry in a few hours and not need ironing, even if they don't go in the tumble dryer.

I went years without one.
Once I got my condenser I was horrified by the amount of water that I poured away because that was basically floating round my house every week.

I wash about 8 pairs of school trousers, ten shirts and jumpers per week so I couldn't be bothered hanging that lot up.
Used to have one of those ceiling racks and did more of that then.

But for stuff like school uniform trousers, if you give them a shake and put them on a hanger, they'll be dry in a few hours and not need ironing, even if they don't go in the tumble dryer.

Yes but what about the rest of the load of washing? Lots of stuff takes longer than that to dry, and hangs around making your house damp.

M&S Tops & T Shirts with cotton or lycra shrink 2 sizes although the label says ok to tumble.

Another dryer goddess here I often line dry clothes a couple of times when they’re new as it seems to minimise shrinkage when I let them loose in the dryer. I also have some wool tumble dryer balls which massively reduce drying time.

Couldn't do without ours, but we hardly every dry actual clothes in it.

Clothes in winter we hang on a rack indoors to dry, dh sometimes bungs his basic tshirts or thick non-wool jumpers in the machine.

But we would struggle to dry towels and bedding indoors in the winter as it would all literally be hung off doors wet for ages. We have a lot of guests also so usually extra bedding regularly. It is -20 here in winter, so outside in a no no.

Cold snowy winters here too. Hanging out washing in winter here is like this...

We have a washer/dryer and I do love it because would struggle to dry everything otherwise, especially in the winter as we live in the rainy NW. But lots of things say they can't be tumble dried, and ime even things that can still shrink. We keep different laundry baskets at home - 1 for me and DH's clothes that we tumble-dry which is mainly just underwear (not bras or anything fancy obviously), old t-shirts, PJs etc, 1 for bedding and towels which also all gets tumble dried except for fleece sofa covers (would shrink) and elastic mattress protectors (elastic would ruin), 1 for DD's clothes that can be tumble-dried which is most of her stuff (she's 15m - some of it does shrink but she's never in clothes sizes long enough for it to be a real issue yet), and a separate bag for everything else, that can't be tumble-dried. Phew.

not sure what you are doing.

my latest dryer I've had 6 years, and all I've ever done is bung in washing, turn a dial and bobs your uncle. it has settings, I just never got round to finding out what they do. everything comes out fine though.

My dryer has loads of settings and I use quite a few of them. The denim setting turns out perfect jeans. The iron dry setting is just that - ready to iron. The cupboard dry setting - you can put the washing straight in the cupboard. Nothing shrinks. However it’s a Miele so I think I’ve got what I paid for. Perfection!

I prefer to line dry then finish off drying in the tumble dryer but we have a building site nearby now. The dust from that means I’ve dried everything indoors all the summer. Dreadful waste of electricity but I’m very glad we have the dryer.