Comment by rsynnott
2 days ago
> my laundry room has a vent and I’ve heard that heat pump tech still isn’t good enough
Heat pump dryers are in a slightly weird place in that they're boring old tech in Europe (they've been common for over a decade), and exciting new tech in the US. This means that dryers made for US preferences (physically larger, either three phase or <1500W, etc) are generally first or second models (and thus unreliable) while those made for European preferences are mature designs (and thus reliable).
I thought Europe used condensation and heat pump tech was still a new thing? Ok, 1997 with wide adoption around 2007 according to Google. I really wanted to give it a try, but with a vent right there it just didn’t seem worth it.
Really depends on how expensive your electricity is; a modern heat pump dryer consumes about 1kWh to dry an 8kg load, vs 2-3kWh for either vented or conventional condenser. Though, also depends on what's available to you and at what cost; my impression is that decent heat pump dryers are still very expensive in the US. My fairly high end Bosch one cost about 550eur this year; looking at Bosch's US website the roughly equivalent US model seems to cost $1500, somehow. That's around what they cost here 10-15 years ago.
The other advantage of heat pump dryers is that they operate at lower temperatures than the other types (so damage clothes less); on the negative side, they're slower.
Electricity is cheap here, 12 cents/KwH. I more liked the not ruining clothes aspect and not using the vent means I can get the unit closer to the wall. But I was worried about the smell complaints, my wife is really strict on that, also we have a combo so we can’t pipeline loads anymore. The drawback is that only Samsung makes a vented combo, an Samsung doesn’t have the best reputation. Heat pump was cheaper than vented in a combo at least, but only by 1-2 hundred bucks.
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