are washer/dryers any good?

[zookeeper]

I'm thinking of getting a washer dryer instead of a washing machine and tumble dryer to save space in my new kitchen. Are they any good?

Nope.

one wash gives you two drying loads, unless they have dramatically improved on capacity

In my tumble dryer i can get a load of towels dry in an hour, in my washer dryer it took 2 hours to make a poly cotton duvet cover slightly less damp and JUST a bit warm.

My washer dryer days were 20 ish years ago, but i seriously doubt they have improved much.

mines fab, mainly use to dry dcs clothes. will forward brand when I get a chance

No - my experience of them is they end up doing two jobs badly.

Mines good and getting on a bit now.
I chose one with a large drum capacity after reading reviews on Which.

The thing is, not all clothes are tumble dry-able so once you remove them you can tumble the rest no problem.
I have an AEG.

Thank you everyone; it,s not looking good so far! Any more comments?

It's an LG f1480rd. also considered the john lewis own brands but out of stock at the time

Love mine. Big capacity, programmes take from between 30 mins and 3 hours depending on what you're doing / how eco you want to be. Just leave it on overnight and it's washed and dried by morning. What's not to like?!

It's a Hotpoint. Recommended by Which and Ideal Home!

No. IME they are neither use nor ornament.

I was advised by an engineer to never buy one again. He said they account for a huge percentage of his call outs.

If something goes wrong, that's it, you can't wash or dry.

At best you would have an ok washing machine and a poor dryer.

I'd prefer a good machine and good dryer ( actually I wouldn't settle for anything less than excellent in both)

I've always had one, due to lack of space. But, we actually do most of our drying on racks so it only gets used as a drier occasionaly. For that, it is fine. But if you plan to dry stuff regularly in it, I'd definitely recommend separate if that is practical. We used to dry far more, and it meant a lot of callouts to the engineer - basically they have to fit two sets of 'works' into the machine, giving twice as much to go wrong before you even think about all the wires and stuff being squashed in to try to save space.

They're not great. I had one for a while and it never went wrong but it doesn't dry much in one go. I would only get one if you really have no space for two machines and nowhere else to dry clothes - I ended up using drying racks mostly, but I know in some houses that's not an option because of condensation problems.

The one we got for my mum is absolutely brilliant. It's a Bosch, but it was incredibly expensive.

I had a Hotpoint, which was rubbish (no ability to clean the filter - it was a sealed unit; so once it was blocked the dryer was unusable). They've changed the design now, but I would never buy another Hotpoint.

I now have a Zanussi, which is much better. We only use the dryer occasionally. It does dry a smaller load than it washes, so you need to split the drying loads. That works fine for us. E.g. after an undies wash, socks and his underwear are tumbled, my lacy bits and tights are not; if we wash a sheet and a couple of towels together, we tumble the towels and stick the sheet over the rack.

I've seen on other websites/reviews that the Samsung ecobubble is very good, has anybody got one and can recommend it?

We have one, although the dryer has died due to a faulty control - think it's telling that we've not rushed out to fix it.

It takes ages to wash & dry; the drier doesn't seem hugely efficient or controllable so was only really good for undies and towels. The drum was small so bedding got v creased. The other drawback (suspect it was the model rather than washer driers in general) is that there's no fast wash so it takes aaaaaggggeeess.

Would definitely get a "proper" tumble drier though, but will wait until we do the kitchen.

Dolly - what make was your washer/drier?

It's an Indesit IWDC6125. We got it about 4.5 / 5 years ago, though think they still make them. Still washes fine!

No, just sold ours. I bought a spin dryer instead and everything dries overnight on clothes horses.

It's not for everyone though.

No

We had two - both fairly good makes, and neither lasted very long, and often had to be repaired. Basically they can't cope with both jobs, so break under the strain (unless it was just my laundry!!) Washing was OK, but drying hopeless - could only dry half a washload, so it took twice as long., Get two separate machines, even if it means, as we have, one is in the garage! Not ideal, but much better and more reliable than a washer dryer

I had an AEG w/d years ago - thought it was useless. I now have a totally brilliant AEG washing machine and a little tumble drier plus a heated airer.

I wanted the Samsung Ecobubble, but it is quite deep and would have jutted out past all the cupboards, so we went for the Zanussi instead.

ao.com has a lot of reviews on it for all the popular models.

Our crappy Indesit washer dryer just gave up the ghost so we decided to just go for a Bosch washing machine and do without a dryer for now.

I rarely used the dryer bit anyway, as it seemed to dry stuff really crispy and I hate tumble drying things like jeans, jumpers and shirts so it was only every used for underwear and kids clothes.

I haven't missed it, and knowing I haven't had the fall back of a dryer has just made me really efficient at doing one load of washing per day and getting it hung up. With the heating on stuff is drying in a day and I'd rather utilise the heat we're already paying for than spend extra money on drying clothes.

No. They are shite.

We just have a washer now. And a Lakeland heated airer.

Basically, they are a compromise on both functions (mostly on the drying, which as others have said is slow and a small load).

But more importantly than that, the compromises undermine the life span of the machine. So it is likely to last less time and break down more than either a single washer or a single dryer. This has been repeated to me by three different washing machine engineers. Including one who advised me to go down the current route- just a washer if no space for both.

We have a Miele one. It's a great washer but I never use the drier as it can only dry half a load & takes ages. It cost £1K 5 years ago so I will own it forever.

We had one fitted and have only used the drier cycle a couple of times. It's a condenser type by Zanussi and simply takes forever to dry anything. Luckily, we kept the tumble drier and use that all the time now.