I TENTATIVELY feel my jeans and I’m gutted – they’re still damp even after three days with my dehumidifier on full blast.
I’m testing to see whether you can save money by using a dehumidifier to dry your clothes.
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Experts have claimed that they could be a cheaper alternative to sticking on the heating or using a tumble dryer.
Dehumidifiers are also a good way to prevent mould and damp in homes, which as sent online searches for the appliance soaring by 200%, according to Price Runner.
I’ve been trying to avoid using my storage heaters, which cost 77p an hour to run.
If I did use them to dry my clothes, I would have them on for six hours per day, over two days, costing £9.33 in total.
Instead, I usually opt for my trusty portable fan heater which costs 51p an hour to run on its highest setting.
I leave it on for five hours at a maximum cost of £5.10 per two loads of washing.
It also takes two days to dry my clothes using this method.
But will swapping it for a dehumidifier save me any money? I put it to the test.
Choosing my dehumidifier
As I live in a damp old Victorian terrace, I was worried about getting mould by using my heating less as energy bills have soared.
I bought a dehumidifier for £49.99 from Amazon to combat the issue.
I’ve never used it to dry my clothes though – until now.
My CONOPU dehumidifier promised to remove 450ml of water from my room per day, equivalent to a bottle of water.
I wanted one with a low wattage, as the higher the wattage, the more energy it takes to run.
My dehumidifier has a wattage of 40W – in comparison, tumble dryers has a wattage ranging between 1,800W to 5,000W.
I hung up my clothes on Saturday morning, and placed my dehumidifier underneath.
I was expecting my laundry to be ready at the end of the day.
I ran my dehumidifier for around six hours per day – the same time as I would use my storage heaters and more than my portable fan heater.
I could see it filling up with water, but it felt like my clothes hadn’t dried at all a whole day later on Sunday morning.
It was only by Monday morning, before I went to work, that they were feeling a little more dry.
But I was amazed three days in, on Tuesday morning, that my clothes were still damp to touch.
My jeans and jumpers were nowhere near ready.
Running out of things to wear and worried about my clothes smelling, I gave up and used my trusty portable electric fan heater.
After a couple of hours blasting out heat, my clothes were dry.
I was disappointed – it was nowhere near the result I was expecting.
The cost
I knew my dehumidifier wouldn’t cost a lot to run, and I was right.
I asked Uswitch to crunch the numbers on running costs.
I used it six hours a day, which costs 8p.
That means over the course of the three and a half days I used it, I spent 28p.
But I considered it a waste of money using it to dry clothes – it just didn’t work.
I certainly wouldn’t swap it for my portable fan heater – but I was shocked to find out that each week I was spending £5 on drying my clothes.
I don’t have a tumbledryer, but it costs 67p per cycle – which according to Uswitch, totals £104.52 if you’re doing three loads of washing a week.
The verdict
When it comes to drying clothes, I found my dehumidifier was a real flop.
Despite it being much cheaper, it just didn’t work for me.
Some experts say that the dehumidifier needs to have a laundry drying mode, so that could be the trick to getting it to work.
Or it could be that my flat just isn’t suited to the device.
Either way, I’ll be sticking to my portable heater. It’s expensive but we rarely use it.
Other alternatives could be using a heated airer, as they cost 16p an hour to run.
