Heated airer Vs Tumble Dryer

[QueenStevie]

Thinking about a heated airer as we are becoming a bit over reliant on the tumble dryer and we have to get our energy bill down.
Please can anyone who has gone from tumble dryer to heated airer tell me if it has saved you much money? And was it worth it I overall (obviously have to factor in the initial purchase cost).

The savings are not as much as you’d think over a year. That’s because a tumble dryer is much quicker than a heated airer to get to a fully dry load, so comparing the hourly cost is a red herring. You’re not comparing like for like.
A heated airer takes up space - do you have room for it and do you want to be staring at your laundry for days on end over winter? Unless you use a dehumidifier or have the room it’s in heated whilst it’s in use, it can cause excessive humidity to build up leading to damp.
A heated airer takes much longer. If you are someone who likes to do all your laundry on one particular day you would have piles of wet washing hanging about the house unless you bought more than one.
I decided not to replace my dryer with an airer as I wanted the convenience of a tumble dryer and calculated the cost difference to be fairly minimal.

I meant to add, the best way we have found to get out energy costs down was to use an air fryer rather than the oven - we use the oven maybe once a month now whereas before we would use it almost daily.

That's kind of reinforced what I was thinking. We do tend to blitz the laundry at the weekend so it is convenient to just put one load in and one load out of the washing machine and rumble dryer. We're not very good at one load a day over the week! Also, we already have a regular airer and a dehumidifier in the kitchen for the things that can't be tumble dried and that seems to work well.

Ive got a heated dryer. It's obviously not as fast as a tumble dryer and I'm not sure how much energy you save as you have to leave it on all day. I've moved it into the kitchen though so it doubles up as a heater.

We replaced our broken tumble dryer with a heated airer for the same reasons, only lasted a few weeks as it just took too long to dry everything! Plus, it took up more space than the tumble dryer. Ended up selling it for pretty much what we paid for it (got discount) and purchased a new tumble dryer instead!

We have a dehumififier next to our ordinary airer, (instead of heated airer,) costs 7p per hour to run in laundry mode. (as only 240 watts and electric rate of 27 p per kilowatt). With heated airer, the moisture is going into your home........ So will increase condensation and risk of mould.
You do have to have it on 6 hours maybe to dry a load, you do have to turn the washing round as it dries, and it would be best to use a high spin speed 1500 rpm or above.
Theres only two of us so i do a wash every 3 days.
Mine is an ecoair dc12 (not purchased at currys!) but have had it 10 years, still effective, need to keep filter clean, just wash with old toothbrush, and empty tank every couple of dryings. It has a 2 hrs and 4 hrs timer button. I use the 4 sometimes or just leave it on till i see if dry.

See here
https://www.currys.co.uk/techtalk/kitchen-and-home/heated-airer-vs-dehumidifier.html

Need to get the whole load on the airer really or if you dry in a small room and shut the door, that would work.
Not as convenient as a tumble drier, for sure but we dont have a suitable space for that.

If you have room to install a pulley maid (ceiling mounted airer) it solves a lot of problems. You’re not tripping over it, it’s out of sight and mind and you can leave the stuff there until your next washing day. It uses rising warm air at no cost and if necessary I can have stuff turned around in less than a day.
A high speed spin in the washing machine is what gets your clothes dry. 1400 rpm is the minimum IMO. I haven’t had a tumble dryer for 6 years (low humidity makes a difference).
Heated airers? I had one and draped a sheet over the top to keep the heat in, whereas you angle a standard airer for breeze circulation. My verdict? Benefits not worth the effort.
(DH is an engineer, so we analyse these things.)

I’ve got the famous Lakeland heated airer and I found it wasn’t brilliant tbh. Even with a cover on like they recommended. Just took ages and ages to get anything properly dry, so your 10p an hour cost would just mount up. I mainly now use mine switched off in the summer as a normal clothes horse.

I use a dehumidifier and a double over the radiator rack thing in my utility room to dry in winter. Put most stuff on clothes hangers. Never use the tumble dryer - should get rid of it really!

When our vented tumble dryer broke we bought a heated airer instead. Big mistake, it took up far more space (small house) took ages to dry even with a sheet over it and window open and you had to spend ages placing everything really carefully on the rails to get it to dry. We caved in and bought a heat pump tumble dryer and according to the smart meter the running costs per load are about the same plus we get our space back and ease of use. If we had added a dehumidifier to the room with the heated airer that would have cost more than the TD. It takes longer than the vented one (approx 3 hours per load) but at least you can get more than one load a day done, we are a family of four adults with outdoor work and sporting hobbies in the mix so need that at times in winter.

I also agree about the ceiling pulley airers being good if you have space, we had one in our old house and it was brilliant but nowhere to put it here (well, it's in the garden shed and I occasionally use it on wet days in summer).

It’s good for things that can’t be tumble dried but I would t say you could have it instead. Things have to be v close to the heated bars to dry any faster than a normal
airer

We just stand the normal airer in front of a radiator, then just use the tumble dryer for an hour or so until it's a bit damp then hang it over to finish off. I have found with the tumble dryer that it is the last bit from damp to dry which takes forever so use the normal airer for that bit, the heating is on anyway.

Just see you wash all at once so airer isn't really practical in that case, we do washing every 2 days so airer to finish off is fine for us

Like @Yourcousinrachel suggested. I use a regular airer with a dehumidifier. Works out cheaper.

This is rubbish.

You hang the washing out, leave overnight and it’s dry by morning.

You can’t put most things in driers because they shrink and ruin certain fabrics.

That’s not how it works.

The heat is there to provide circulation and help with evaporation. Clothes don’t need to be touching

I agree with those saying get a dehumidifier instead.

How about drying your laundry outside on the washing line and finishing it off in the tumble dryer? I did that on Friday. My clothes had to go in the tumble dryer for 20 minutes. Would have taken at least a couple of hours if I had put them straight in the dryer.

We also do all the washing at the weekend. In the room that doubles up as DH's office I have the heated airer, a normal airer and a rail for hanging clothes on hangers.

The heated airer warms the room up, so everything dries a bit quicker. There is a dehumidifier in there as well.

I only tumble dry sheets and towels.

Its winter.Cold wind rain,moisture overnight??

@dizzydizzydizzy it was -3 here and we had snow overnight, now we have heavy rain. Send some nicer weather in this direction, I have to go out later and will get wet.

We still just use the tumble dryer for all the reasons @Soontobe60 listed with space and taking a long time. My washing machine and tumble dryer are both 9kg, the washing machine has a 1600 spin and to tumble dry a load it takes about an hour. It is a condenser sensor dryer so stops when it senses the clothes are dry.

As I live in Nerdville we have energy monitor plugs on the machines. We are a house of 4 adults. Ds2 is away at uni but home for holidays. The plugs are Tapo bought from Amazon and the app is free. The plugs are both timer plugs and energy monitor plugs. It might be worth plugging your tumble dryer into one to see exactly what it does use rather than guess.

Last year according to my energy monitor, I used 711kwh for the tumble dryer, which equates to £180.08 (kw price plus 5% VAT) or £3.46 a week. Less than a cup of coffee from Starbucks per week. Completely worth it for me.

Changing over to an air fryer has made a massive difference to us as we no longer heat up an entire oven to cook one baking tray of food every night.

I must admit, we gave away our heated air dryer thing because it just didn’t hit the spot
A more expensive option but far more effective is a normal air dryer with a dehumidifier underneath it
I don’t like to tumble dry everything

"A high speed spin in the washing machine is what gets your clothes dry. 1400 rpm is the minimum IMO. I haven’t had a tumble dryer for 6 years (low humidity makes a difference)."

I'd second this, but add that IMO 1600 rpm is what really makes the dryer unnecessary. We just use a simple clothes airer and everything is dry overnight, if not sooner.

I have both. I bought the heated airer from Lakeland, completely sucked in by the hype when they were that year’s thing. Complete waste of money.

To get a full load properly dry takes 10-12 hours, even then there’s a lot of admin, moving stuff around, repositioning. That’s 3.6kw. I can do the same load in my ancient tumble dryer in 70 mins. About 2.5kw.

We have a 1400 spin washer

snd a heated airer in a room with extractor fan

we use it 2 hrs over night which is 14p for us and it’s basically ready the next morning ( since we also wash overnight it has 24hrs hanging, heater for 2)

because we don’t do more than a load a day it’s simple - before we had clothes and towels especially drying for days
in the winter

It’s a decade since we had a tumble drier - between then failing readily, costing lots to run and the amount of stuff that could not go in…

@itsthetea You’d probably find the washing would dry even if you didn’t bother switching the heated airer on for two hours.