Dehumidifier hack is useless?

[PlinkPlonkFizz]

There have been lots of money saving tips being discussed. One that sounded good was using a dehumidifier to dry clothes rather than the tumbler.

I tried it out yesterday using the box room. The clothes were on a clothes horse, dehumidifier pointing at th and the door kept shut all day.

8 hours later I checked them....not dry but damp. Too damp to iron.

So the 350kw dehumidifier running for 10 hours (guessing it would need another 2 hours to dry them) surely amounts to roughly the same cost as 1 hour in the tumble dryer?

Not quite. First variable is dessicant v compressor, then rate of water extraction (which will normally be budget dependant), followed by energy efficiency, specialist settings etc.

You can get a high end one that doesn't work very well if it isn't suited to your needs.

It’s 34p per KWh for electricity

That sounds a terribly long time..Humans shed skin microscopically, surely that builds up?
But if it works for her, that's fine.

I do love fresh sheets, especially when they have had a blast in the sun and South Westerly wind in Summer, on the line, outdoors.
Free drying 🙂

@Tigofigo I now dry clothes in a large room with a dehumidifier. I've found it makes all the difference using a table fan to direct air at the laundry too.

When I was drying in a tiny room, the dehumidifier's own fan was enough to circulate the dry air effectively.

I appreciate that adding a table fan is extra faff. As PP have said, it's absolutely horses for courses – depends what job you're trying to do and on all the other variables of your life.

For me a dehumidifier has been the mutts nuts. I wouldn't be without one. But that's because I don't have space for tumble drier and I do have a persistent damp problem which will need building works to fix and even then will still need to be managed carefully. So a dehumidifier ticks lots of my boxes.

I have an under stair cupboard where my husband has installed a hanging rail. Tops and trousers get hung on that on coat hangers. The clothes horse is at the side with underwear towels etc on it. I put the dehumidifier in there with the vent pointing up towards the hanging clothes. I can get two loads of washing dried in there in 8 hours. Costs approximately 50p.
I found the smaller room helped, it didn't work when I had it in the utility room.

I just dry clothes on radiators - works quickly and makes the house smell nice. My skin always gets so dry in winter too, so I always thinks it helps add a bit of moisture to the air!

It's not a hack, it's just a way of preventing damp and mould if you have to air dry your clothes indoors.

Moisture in the air is how you'll get damp and mould in your home. If you need to dry clothes indoors, use an airer (radiator will send water vapour everywhere) and keep the room ventilated. A dehumidifier is good but if you can't get one, open a window. And put on the heating, even if only for an hour or so.

Moisture in the air is what causes condensation, damp and mould, though.

Dehumidifier won’t work in a cold room
the wattage is the max when fan and the compressor running the fan runs constantly but the compressor as and when so if it’s rated at 350w when it’s fan only be about 90 w

I have to use a dehumidifier because most of my clothes can’t go in the tumble dryer. (Mix of vintage, wool and stretchy stuff.) I put my skinny jeans in once and they shrunk. 😬
I only use the dryer for towels and bedding in the winter.

I remember when I was a teen mum and dad got a dehumidifier m. I remember it cost a fortune. I loved it because the landing (where it lived) was always warm in winter. It did help speed up drying of clothes as it was pulling the water out and it was warming up the area.

However, I don’t think it could be the same as a tumble dryer. I would rather run the tumble dryer for half the time and get the clothes out when they aren’t quite dry. Then Put in a ventilated room with the radiator on

@jtaeapa I am a wash stuff as little as possible person, mainly because my family had to hand wash everything till I was 18 when we got a twin tub. I don’t think I could manage a 3 month bed change, we do ours every three weeks.

@Barnowls My house is really dry and almost too dry in the winter but we have windows open all the time.

Well I'm confused now. I've been thinking of getting a dehumidifier because I don't have a space for a tumble dryer, and my washer dryer is great for washing but useless at drying.

But I like to keep the house at 18° when the heat is on, and let it fall to 16° at night and when we're out. So it sounds like my house is too warm for a dessicant dehumidifier but not really warm enough for a compressor dehumidifier to work effectively?

The main variable is whether you get a premium or budget one

But presumably if you get a premium one that is £££ (and even a budget one has some outlay)? When people are saying they no longer run their tumble dryer because their new dehumidifier is cheaper to run are they factoring in the cost of buying the thing in the first place? (If you are trying to choose between a dehumidifier or tumble dryer and currently have neither, that's a different decision). I couldn't make the costs of buying a dehumidifier versus airdrying most things and tumble drying the occasional thing (bearing in mind this is just for the few months when too bad to dry outside) stack up.

I did some washing yesterday and hung it on the clothes dryer thing, left it on the upstairs landing (heat rises) and this morning all pretty dry. I heat the house to 19 at the weekend.

It’s not a magic wand, you still need to keep rotating the clothes but otherwise they take days to dry.

A desiccant dehumidifier will work in very cold rooms. It is really important when buying a dehumidifier to consider what you need it for, and in what circumstances you will use it.

This is the one I've ordered - who knows when it will be arriving as they seem a popular item

www.meaco.com/products/meaco-12l-low-energy-dehumidifier-and-air-purifier

It has extraction rate data depending on room temperature and relative humidity

10°C and 60%rh 1.62 litres per day 138 watts
20°C and 60%rh 4.92 litres per day 157 watts
30°C and 60%rh 7.60 litres per day 175 watts
10°C and 80%rh 3.94 litres per day 142 watts
20°C and 80%rh 8.00 litres per day 163 watts
30°C and 80%rh 12 litres per day 200 watts

So the warmer the temperature and higher the RH, the more water extracted (and the higher the energy demand)

Lower temperature, lower RH, less water extracted, lower energy demand

An extra spin will crease your clothes.

I bought mine because the shit-for-brains couple who owned the house before us left a legacy of shit plumbing but now I mainly use it for drying. Dehumidifier goes under the clothes horse, blanket goes over the clothes horse and a full load will be dry in less than three hours.

You'd need to study the kilowatt consumption for each to be sure, but my hubby thinks, yes, it's quite possible that a tumble-dryer is ten times as greedy as a de-humidifier.

our clothe's horse fits in the airing cupboard, which gets toasty from the heating and hot water. We stick the dehimudifier on there and it gets things dry in a few hours without needing to faff around and turn the washing etc

admittedly when I tried it on our box room it didn't work so well, so I think a small, warm space is the key - we didn't have the heating on at this point

I don't use my Dehumidifier to dry clothes, i use it in a cold damp bathroom when it's too cold to open windows after showering. It doesn't heat the room, but the air is dryer and yes warmer when it's on. I have a tumble dryer but only use when really necessary. I want to upgrade my old Dehumidifier so following this with interest.