Comment by tempestn
6 hours ago
We somewhat accidentally ended up with a good combo: we have a ventless heat pump dryer, and a heat pump water heater, also in the laundry room. So when doing laundry, the water heater cools the room while the dryer heats it, so they roughly cancel out.
As an aside, HP dryers are really elegant tech, and it's a shame they're not more common. They use the heat pump not just to heat the air in the dryer, but also to condense the moisture back out of it, so just the water can be drained away instead of needing to exhaust the air outside. So you need much less energy overall, and you don't need a dryer vent. The only downside is they're a bit slower, but ours has a resistive backup option for when you need clothes dry asap, so really it's just price.
Heat pump dryers work at a much lower heat as well since much of the heating of a traditional dryer is lost out of the vent. The heat pump condenses the water out of the hot air so you don't lose the heat.
I've stopped needing to sort my clothes out as a result, I used to hate putting synthetics in a regular dryer because they get worn out so fast that way.
I bought a Samsung HP dryer a few years ago and it'd be great except for a terrible design flaw where lint gets trapped in its heat sink fins, turning into a soggy mess.
We have a Whirlpool that I love, but they discontinued it a couple years ago with no replacement, and I can't imagine why. I guess most people just shop on price, so it didn't sell. Like I said, a shame.