Tumble Dryer Reviews

Tumble Dryers are appliances that remove moisture from clothes, usually after they've been washed. These machines are well suited for the fall, or for people having busy schedules, with no time to spare for hanging out clothes on the line or ironing them. A typical tumble dryer consists of a drum, called the tumbler, into which the clothes are put. This tumbler is rotated and hot air is passed through for drying the clothes.

There are many ways to classify tumble driers. You can get either a vented or a ventless dryer. A vented tumble dryer, needs a vent (like a window) to expel out the hot humid air from the tumbler. It employs a simple design and is less costlier than a ventless one. Ventless tumble dryers, on the other hand, incorporate certain methods to remove water from the air from the tumbler. Some of them re-use this hot air.

Then again the ventless tumble drier can be of many types – condenser dryer, dehumidifier dryer and heat-pump dryer. A condenser dryer, allows condensing of the humidity in the hot air from the tumbler, and then collects the water in a collection tank. The hot air is circulated back into the tumbler. A dehumidifier dryer makes for faster evaporation of the moisture in the clothes, without the need to heat the air to high temperatures. A heat-pump dryer passes the hot humid air from the tumbler into a heat pump. The moisture in the air condenses on the cold side. The air itself gets heated up by the hot side and is passed back into the tumbler. The condensed water is collected in a tank for emptying. Certain machines integrate the functionality of both washing machine and tumble dryer. These are called Washer dryers. They can save space and can also work out to be more cost effective than buying a separate washing machine and a tumble dryer. These appliances can further be categorised based on their capacities as well.

Another important aspect about these clothes dryers is their eco-friendliness. These appliances are rated based on their energy efficiency. The rating can range from A+ to G [A, B, C, D, E, F, G], with the A+ indicating high energy efficiency. Some of them are equipped with sensors (Sensor dryers), which sense the dryness of the clothes, and switch off the dryers automatically.

Some of the popular UK Tumble Dryer makers are – Bosch, AEG, Hoover, Whirlpool, Zanussi, Creda, Indesit, Servis and White Knight.