I used to have a drier from the late 90s which dried my clothing in one go. The one I have now takes 3 or 4 goes. Apparently the new one is more efficient but I don’t understand how that can be.
Wouldn’t it take up more energy due to the extra cycles?
edit- I would really appreciate it if someone explained how the drier is more efficient than my old one instead of questioning my laundering habits. I clear the lint trap and load small loads. I even switch the settings to “most dry”. I’m not the issue here. This “high efficiency” drier is.
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I have a heat pump dryer. These cost quite a bit more (my Bosch one was almost $1000 argh) but use about 1/3rd of the power of a conventional dryer. They also don’t need an external vent, which is convenient. They do need a hose for the water drain, however.
They way they work is really interesting. Internally, they have two closed heat cycles, arranged like a figure of 8.
The first cycle has a conventional fan and heating element, like any dryer, and sends hot, dry air over your clothes. After passing through the drum, the hot (and now wet) air passes over a chilling element, exactly like the chilling elements in the back of your fridge. The temperature is taken down to near freezing and almost all the water condenses out. The cold (and now dry) air is recirculated back over the heating element and into the drum again.
The clever bit is that the chiller has a corresponding heater (the heat the chiller picks up is transferred to the heating element), and this is the thing that reheats the air at the end of the air cycle.
When the dryer starts up, heat is put into the system with a regular electrical heating element to kick the process off, but after that the heating element shuts down and the same heat is cycled between the two loops by the compressor pump in the chiller. Because it’s just running the compressor and not a heating element, power use is down dramatically. Mine dries 10lbs of wet clothes with 1.2KWh of power.
(I only use it in the winter or for emergencies, drying stuff on the line outside is even cheaper, of course)
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