Why is my tumble drier CHEAPER than our heated airer???

[FusionChefGeoff]

What are we doing wrong???

Smart meter experiment last week:

Tumble dryer load - 1.5 hrs, total 77p
Heated airer took 8 hours and not even all dry, total nearly a quid!!

We have a sheet as a cover, we lay flat on bars, and admittedly it's in a very airless utility room.

Should we move it into the living space?? Open the door into the garage when it's on to improve airflow??

I noticed this too. When I stopped putting on my tumble dryer and used the dehumidifier instead the bill went up.

What type of dryer do you have? It seems like a heat pump, so yes, it will likely be cheaper, faster more efficient and more effective at drying than a heated airer.
My heat pump dried a large load in a similar time and used 1.3kwh.

Our tumble dryer costs even less than that! It must be different makes and models or something as I've been really surprised at some of the costs mentioned here.

It's a sensor condenser rated B so not that revolutionary?? But the literature says a half load would be done in 2.5kwh

Yes, to dry a load my dehumidifier cost similar to my dryer, but took hours longer.

I have both and td is cheaper. About 70p a load and it's done and put away. Heated dryer with a duvet over it takes all day and costs more. My TD is AAA plus rates so very economical. Most modern appliances cost very little. We tested everyone in our house for an hour over Christmas and there was nothing we could cut back on, all very efficient.

Our tumble dryer is the same, very economical, very convenient. No damp laundry around the place.

We only hear our airer for a couple of hours

It's in a well vented room

We don't expect things to be dry till about 24 hrs later

It's not a tumble dryer replacement ( we don't have one btw)

It's a step up from the unheated airer which we used to have where things could take days to dry , we always had to have the heavy things one at a time on the radiator

This way we can keep up with the washing

I use my heat pump dryer to dry bed sheets, nursery clothes etc but the heated airer goes on for things that shrink or I want to keep nice at least for a few washes.

The dryer is horrendous for removing half of the clothing (if the filter fluff is anything to go by)

We've moved to a house twice the size and our electricity consumption has dropped by 25%.

Two major differences - we're using a (brand new, so latest model) heat pump dryer rather than a dehumidifier and we now have a gas rather than an electric oven (I know the oven is a very high user, but we really didn't use our oven very much at all).

My vented tumble dryer uses up to 2.6 kw per hour, and the Dry Soon heated airer uses 0.3kw per hour. So my TD uses the same electricity in one hour as that heated airer in 8 hours 40 minutes. I read that vented tumble dryers were the least efficient, so for other types the heated airer would need to dry laundry quicker than 8 hours and 40 minutes to be the cheaper method.

It's probably relevant that my tumble dryer dries full loads in an hour or less, I should have included that.

I don't have a smart meter but crunched numbers and worked out that my tumble dryer would be cheaper too.

We have a lot of laundry (5 of us) so the heated airer would always be full. Even with the cover I had to leave it on for 12 hours for everything to dry.

Who di I complain to at MNHQ to get my money back

At the time it seemed like EVERYONE on here was switching to heated airers as FACT cheaper so I generally go with the majority!!!

Teach me to do my own research I guess.

Damn it should have spend the money on an air fryer instead!!