Comment by rsynnott
1 day ago
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.
Ah, right. After having had a washer-dryer for about 15 years (they're very common in apartments and small houses in Ireland), would never have one again; when the existing one finally died I replaced with a separate washer and dryer.
I'm somewhat surprised anyone makes a vented washer-dryer at all.
I really like the extra space and not needing to transfer clothes when drying. To each their own though. Only Samsung is making a vented combo so far, and it’s a beast to install and drag up three stories of stairs.
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