tumble dryer or will good dehumidifier do the job?

[Monkeyandanimal]

After last winter of trying to dry clothes mostly indoors because the weather was so rubbish the house went mouldy at the corners.....

We are having a new baby in november so i'm expecting laundry situation to get worse. I think we probably need a tumble dryer (but expensive to run), but was wondering would a good dehumidifier allow us to dry clothes indoors whilst preventing the house becoming damp? Would it be good enough? It's also not as though our house is not aired; there are draughts and the windows open every day, but it still went mouldy.
What do you think?

I have never had a tumble dryer, but have had a dehumidifier for the last 20+ years. Big towels & jeans will be dry in 12 hours. Shirts will be ironing dry (if you iron ) in about 6 hours. They also warm a room slightly & the water they produce (in the tank) is distilled so is great for ironing.

Thanks magi , could you recommend a brand? What make is yours?

Mine is a Matsui - but it is over 20 years old!!!! It had to have a new part (can't remember what) about 10 years ago!!

Just been reading another thread & found this link about the relative costs of tumble driers & dehumidifiers: (I know it's a couple of years old but the difference won't have changed):

forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=3599425&page=1

Blimey who knew :)

We used to dry laundry with a dehumidifier but I found it made my dry skin and asthma worse. We still don't have a drier but I take bedding and towels to the laundrette to use the drier after I've washed them at home. For about 8 towels and 3 lots of bedding, so 4 loads it costs around £3.50 to dry and takes half an hour. It is also great fun sitting in there waiting for it. It's like an episode of Jeremy Kyle, brightens my sad life right up ha!

Did it make your skin worse, Daddy as it doesn't dry the stuff as softly as a tumble drier??

I think it was that it took moisture from the air as well as the clothes, leaving the air very dry. It was very effective at drying the washing though! We would put it on for 8ish hours overnight and it would be bone dry by morning

Unless you have a room to devote to drying your washing, get a tumble dryer - I don't know how I managed without one. You won't believe how much washing you do (esp if you have a second child) or how much time it takes, and it is depressing to have washing draped all over the place.

Since having a baby I have considered divorcing DH so I can marry the tumble dryer...

I like the dehumidifier - I'm the opposite with my asthma. Mine is worse in damp air so drying the air out in the house helps my chest. I find the tumble drier trashes the clothes a bit - anything with elastic in, anyway.

what do you consider "expensive to run?"

If it cost you £100 a year to run a tumble drier, would you consider that too much?

TBH piglet i'm not really sure, i just know we need to try to keep our electricity bill down as we are broke! This will be baby no. 3 so i know all about the laundry draped about the house not getting any drier. With 2 DSs under 4 and a DH with a dirty outdoor job the laundry situation is already epic. i could be swayed either way on this drier v dehumidifier thing, but i know we need to do something!

My dehumidifier/ceiling airer combo was the best investment I ever made, when my twins were born our wallpaper was literally falling off the walls from the damp.

We have this one which is fab (bought from Argos but they don't seem to do it now, cost about £120-ish IIRC).

Whatever increase in electricity costs we've had were more than outweighed by how much warmer the house is, we had to turn the central heating thermostat down 2-3 degrees the first winter we had it and our gas bill dropped as a result.

I had two children with reflux so the tumble drier was a no-brainer because I needed clothes washed and dried fast.

I have an AEG condenser sensor model, ie it detects when the clothes are dry so it is only on until the clothes are dry and it has different drying settings.

For a normal 7kg wash of t shirt style clothing (pyjamas, t shirts, joggers) it only takes 1 hour to dry in the tumble drier. If there are a couple of pairs of jeans in there it takes about 1hr 25.

To cut electrical bills in our house we have installed LED bulbs in certain rooms and put low energy bulbed lamps on in the evening rather than burn several normal bulbs.

An a rated drier won't increase your bills more than approx 100 quid a year if used 3x a week according to the which report quoted on another thread. Sounds about right to me, I've never noticed big increase in electric bills and use ours a lot.

I don't want damp clothes hanging around and damp going into the house especially with a baby.

Mine is a condenser, sensor one too.

I prefer vented driers because they are simpler so more reliable and tend to be cheaper. Condensors do emit some water vapour, the cheaper ones especially, but a vent takes it all outside the house. No water to empty away.

You can get a Core Drill from a tool hire shop to make a neat round hole in a brick wall. It is quite easy but they are rather heavy and noisy.

We have a condenser drier. It is brilliant and easy to use. We don't use it all the time - if weather is nice enough we hang it outside or in the spare room with windows open. It is an absolute godsend, especially when you have more than usual to do, eg guests staying, just back from hols, sickness in the household. It is amazing, and saves time from doing it so quickly and without spending time hanging washing up.

Does anyone use one of those heated airer things eg from Lakeland instead? I am weighing up tumble dryer/dehumidifier and then saw this. Its meant to dry clothes overnight and costs 5p an hour to run. And less than 100 pounds initial cost.

Sorry can't find website/link as on phone.

There is a big thread on them atm.

It's in chat atm .I've been trying to do a link for you but failing miserably as my phone is unpredictable.

I just got my first tumble drier a few weeks ago and it is really something I couldn't do without.

I only have one DD but I have a very busy lifestyle. My house would also get very dry indoors if I used a dehumidifier and we are a family of quite bad eczema sufferers so on that basis I ruled it out.

Since having a drier I have realised just how much time I used to spend on the whole drying laundry process and it honestly would dominate all the time I had for doing things around the house. Now I can wash and dry my clothes at any time of the day or night and it has really freed up my schedule. I am also trying to keep bills down but have found that now I have more time to be out and about during the day, I am not at home consuming as much electricity as before. I also try and offset the cost by cooking cheaper meals from scratch which is easier to do now and the heat it emits means I will have the radiator switched off in the kitchen for almost the whole winter.

Personally I would get the drier and offset the cost.

I use both (family of 5) - I don't think 1 is perfect. Dehumidifier is cheAp to run and doesn't shrink / fade clothes. But drier is good for bed linen and towels.

oh dear, i'm none the wiser; you seem to be divided equally ish!

Get a tumble dryer. I use ours sparingly it is a god send - for example today ds had a nap and wet his bed that was at 3 - I'd washed and dried his bedding by 7.

Really useful for finishing stuff off and yes the house is so much tidier.