Cheapest way to dry laundry

[Sparkle900429]

I live in a flat so NO outdoor space whatsoever.

Heating is storage heaters which are not great and super expensive and my electric bills are HUGE.

Already own a good quality dehumidifier but without the heating on still takes a while to dry things (small room with door closed)

Have heard mixed reviews re heated airers and would still need dehumidifier I presume? What would the cost of that be?!

Would you just give up and buy a tumble dryer? I had one previously and it cost around £1.50 per cycle (I think) but I did end up shrinking a few things but I did put everything on extra dry!.
Think this may potentially still be the cheapest option though even though people seem to say tumble dryers are the devil! (Must admit I do also worry about the fire risk).

Have tackled my problem with overspending on food shopping - next is my extortionate electric bills!.

What would you suggest?!.

I put my clothes on hangers and hang them off my curtain rails & I've also got 4 extension rods on my stairs to hang clothes to dry on. Clothes hung on the curtain rails are dry within a day, clothes on the stairs depend how warm the house get

Edited to add: I leave the windows slightly ajar when drying clothes

have just checked and with a heat pump it would be about 70-80p a cycle, that seems much more cost effective.

I've got a large A frame heated drier and I've always found it wonderful. I can fit two or three loads on it at a time and I've never used a humidifier or opened a window. It folds to a kit 4" deep when it's not in use.

We also have an AEG heat pump dryer and it’s really good-much kinder to clothes than the old condenser we had. It was expensive to buy, but with much cheaper running costs, we reckon we’ll be ahead inside 3 years

OP how many clothes horses are you using?

I worked out decades ago that I needed to use a minimum of two per wash to ensure my clothes dried quickly. So I used to move around with two clothes horses.

I now use a refrigerant dehumidifier, which has outlasted the more expensive (desiccant) meaco one I had to dry clothes with them.

The condensor one I had previously shrunk clothes but also things like T-shirts needed replacing quite often as they seemed to get small holes in them - have you had any issues with the one you have?! Happy to spend a bit more initially if needed, the Beko one I think is about £380 not sure if that’s quite cheap for a heat pump though!.

2 - but I’ve noticed socks/pants don’t seem to dry well and neither do things that aren’t on the outside bars.

do try to leave a space so not every bar has something on it but maybe it still needs more space?!

I’ve got a Hotpoint heat pump tumble dryer. It’s really good and I can dry everything in it, including jumpers. I don’t put pure wool ones in although it says you can, I’m not that brave. I’m yet to shrink anything.

I line dry when it’s nice, though, I appreciate you can’t do that.

This is my dryer.

Are you claiming your HMRC rebate for washing uniform? £125 a year would probably cover any additional costs associated with tumble drying.

No idea how this compares price-wise but I'm sure the details are somewhere. I desperately wanted a tumble dryer but we've got no room.

Instead, I got a Minky SureDri Heat Pod -. Just a fan heater thing with a cover to go over any standard airer, though I bought the Minky airer to go with it. Things like t shirts dry in three hours, thicker stuff tends to take more like 5-6 hours. Depends how full you stuff the airer - the less you put in, the quicker it takes.

Anyway, I wouldn't be without it now!

That is a very good point - Thankyou!, I’ll check.

If you can afford the outlay for a heat pump drier absolutely go for it. I put off getting a tumble drier for so long but I think now that I have it I love it more than almost as much as my husband.

I think that your problem is using the dehumidifier in a bathroom. It is going to pull water from the loo and drain holes as well as from the wet clothes. Therefore it will take longer to dry the clothes.
I use a dehumidifier, having got rid of a useless heated dryer. The dehumidifier, in the spare room, is fabulous.

Thankyou, this one seems to have good reviews! If it’s just that it takes longer than a condensor I wouldn’t mind, it’s still a lot shorter than an airer and is in a machine so isn’t exactly in the way.

next place I move to I’m definitely looking for somewhere with outdoor space!

I guess environmentally it’s not great using a tumble dryer either but not really sure what choice some people have.

my landlord is excellent so would hate to cause any condensation issues because of how I chose to dry laundry!.

😂😂😂

Really? That has never even crossed my mind! I do have a room where the washing machine is (and where the tumble dryer would go) that is reasonably large and could probably have upto 3 airers but given the size the dehumidifier in that room doesn’t really seem to speed up the drying so I moved it to the bathroom.

A couple of extra spins after the washing machine cycle gets a lot of water out.

Not relevant to your decision, but it means my clothes dry in about 24 hours on a full clothes horse. No dehumidifier

We found the same, we’ve had this one about 18months and I can say hand on heart there’s no difference to the clothes compared to drying on the line outside, no shrinkage, no damage, no crispiness!

Edit-ours was ridiculously expensive at about £1200, but as per Sod’s Law, they started coming down in price almost as soon as we got it🙄. I’ve seen AEG for £500-£600 recently

Double spin clothes here.
Hang on clotheshorse/airer infront of window/radiator and have dehumidifier on. (However my heating is only on for an hour in the evening - they get heat from sunlight by being by window)

Get a tumble dryer. Game changer.
You won't have laundry hanging around the place, your home won't get damp and it'll save you many woman hours.
Nowadays they're a kow fire risk (keep the filter clean) and are an absolute boon.

I double spin the clothes, put them on hanger and hang in the hot press/boiler cupboard and leave the door slightly open. Cloths are dry overnight and the remaining clothes go on the clothes horse in the kitchen.

Thanks everyone ☺️.

Bring back laundries !

Hopefully the weather will improve soon so things will dry quicker with the window slightly open and no/minimal heating.

Plus if one of your rooms gets the sun while you're at work if you plan to leave your washing in that room it will probably be just about dry by the time you get home.

Also agree about making sure things are well spun, that will probably make a huge difference. If you ever have to replace your washing machine look for one with a good spin efficiency. But make sure you give everything a good shake before you hang it up. Spinning clothes and especially socks and pants squashes them together and reduces air flow while drying.

If your uniform is light cotton or polyester it shouldn't that long to dry really.

For socks and pants, we use an ikea soctopus and hang it on the curtain rail and they dry in well under a day.

but they are soooo expensive.
and a bit yuk - round here dog and horse owners seem to use them to wash smelly, hairy animal items