Bosch EcoLogixx 7 Heatpump Dryer - Tangles, tangles and more tangles!

[iej]

I am absolutely frustrated with this Bosch EcoLogixx 7 heat pump dryer.

I put two duvet covers into it 4 hours ago and they're still not dry, not because of the heat pump technology but because the machine tangled them into a tight ball. I unravelled them and it did it all over again. All the buttons were closed too.

They were washed and spun in a Miele W1 at 1600 so they really shouldn't take very much time to dry at all. At this stage, I'd nearly have dried them faster by just hanging them up indoors.

They were so tightly tangled that it actually took considerable effort to untwist them and they're a wrinkled mess now too.

I've had to resort to drying them on radiators.
It was an expensive dryer and I didn't even think about the fact that it mightn't have a reverse.

To make matters worse, the door handle broke off in normal use and I had to replace it.

It's an absolutely useless dryer and am at the stage that I'm considering just giving it away. It's put me off buying any more Bosch appliances.

It's only OK when it's drying a normal load, but overall an extremely disappointing and very expensive appliance. It almost looks like Bosch didn't even test how it might work in the real world.

I'm extremely unimpressed.

What's the point of a tumble dryer that can't even dry a relatively small load of bed linen !? Useless heap of junk!

To make maters worse, it also now regularly stops to report the fluff filter as full when it's completely clean so I can only assume that the condenser is blocked up and I have no idea how you access it as it's supposedly self-cleaning!
From what I've read online it may involve stripping down the entire dryer!
[this post was last edited: 10/23/2014-14:06]

 

[henene4]

We owned a Siemens non HP dryer for 2 ½ years and yah, tangeling is bad. It was trashed with a faulty PCB.
For drying bedding: Dry BIGGER loads. Sounds stupid, but worked for me. I always had to wash 4 sheets so I started drying them in one load which caused creasing but everything got dry enough.
Adding 3-4 tennis balls can help as well by adding some agitating action.
Cleaning the condensor is hard. You have to take out the whole heatpump and then rinse the condensor (which would of course be still connected to the compressor).
We now have a WP build Bauknecht HP dryer. For the 2 months we have it: quite good. We got a model without interior light, but the Reverse+ option. I can dry all bedding at once, the drum is huge and the temperature is darn low. Though you have to clean the filter every 5 loads, the Reverse+ never tangeld any bedding. And the moisture sensing is way more advanced as it's based on air humidity in the system, everything gets dry through out. So far, better than any dryer we owned.

 

[iej]

I'm tempted to just buy a Miele vented dryer again.
We have the duct work already in place, it's a bit more power hungry but the comparison between our old Miele which sadly died after 22 years (well became uneconomic to replace a part in ... we probably should have in hindsight!) and this heap of junk is like night and day.

Put clothes in Miele - they came out dry and fluffy and very much non-tangled all in very reasonable time.

I'm just very surprised at Bosch though. You'd expect a lot more reliability and design sense from them than this!

 

[aquarius1984]

iej didn't you have another profile here a while back? mrx?

 

[aegokocarat]

We have a similar issue with a Siemens IQ700, its fine with clothes, but sheets it knots up (only does it to a bad extent when mum uses it (confused) and its had 2 call outs, both for the same fault: blocked condensate pump and pipes.
First engineer cleaned the pipes out, he gave mum for using dryer sheets with no evidence (We never use them and even showed him!) and left, mum called BSH again because it kept showing the same symptom (tank full flashing on the screen and the condensate pump activating as soon as you turned the dryer on)the woman in the call centre couldn't believe what we told her, she said she'd make sure someone else came out to look at it, he came, looked at it, pulled the pump out and said it should have been replaced to begin with and he tested all the functions on it and they were all fine.
Since then its been working fine with no real problems
Tom

 

[logixx]

There is apparently some sort of chip (or something) that can be implanted into the dryer to make it reverse. Some guy who sells appliances (mostly commercial units) said it on Bosch's facebook page. With that being said, I have not further researched this and am not willing to potentially break the dryer. But yes - BSH dryers do ssem to love to tangle large, thin items like sheets, bed spreads etc. Been there, done that.

 

As for preventing clogging the heat pump - there is a trick. Let the condensate tank fill up before you empty it out. The more water is in there, the more forcefully it can flush down the fins of the condenser.

 

[aegokocarat]

We were doing that anyway Logixx, it was getting beyond annoying because literally within the space of 5 months, the fault occurred again
The first engineer was really harsh to speak to, the second one was really helpful though and was friendly
Tom

 

[aegokocarat]

In my first post, I meant "he gave mum what-for" lol sorry for any confusion

 

[iej]

It looks to me like they just never tested them in 'real world' environments.
If you did a focus group of consumers in Britain or Ireland for a few weeks, you'd have identified this as a huge issue.

They're fine if you're just drying small items, but once you throw anything like a sheet in it just rolls it into a tight ball.

It's actually quite impressive how tightly wound up it is! I've had sheets come out like a tightly wound beachball!

I wouldn't suggest 'hacking' the dryer with anything that reverses the mechanism as there's a risk you could cause fluff to be forced back through the hot side of the heat pump. Reversing the blower would cause it to suck air through the back of the drum instead of through the filters.

Miele and other machines would be designed to reverse while keeping the air flow moving the correct direction.

I'm just amazed that they put so much R&D into the heat pump and got these things so badly wrong.

The condenser should also be easily cleanable. I had my doubts that this automatic cleaning system would work perfectly!

Has anyone any experience of the Miele T1 or any of their heat pump dryers?

While it'd be nice to get a matching dryer to go with my W1, I'm a little concerned that this heat pump technology isn't really all that wonderful after my Bosch experience and I am not keen on buying another expensive dryer and discovering that I have blocking condensers.

Miele uses a 3rd fine filter right? How does that perform ?

I know the Miele vented dryers are absolutely excellent, but I'm just a little nervous about spending a grand+ on another heat pump machine and then being driven nuts by stuff like this again.

There's not much point in having a dryer if you have to finish off half the clothes on a washing line!

 

[BoschExxcel]

My bosch sometimes tangles sheets, but generally it's a great dryer!

 

[iej]

Is your Bosch a heat pump though ?

This one suffers from tangling and often less than stellar results in drying too.

 

[BoschExxcel]

No ours is a normal one. It's a Black Edition.

 

[dave886]

I have a LG RC7066A2Z its not a half bad tumble dryer, it does a good job with sheets and bulky items, but i do find that i get better results drying larger loads of bedding. What i do to combat the creasing is to leave at lease some moisture in the load and give them a quick press with the iron and hang them up for about a hour, and straight into the draws they go.

 

[chrisjayuk]

Hi
I have a Samsung Heat Pump dryer and its excellent, it dries quickly and very evenly. The plus point is it reverses too. Maintenance is easy.
Great buy at John Lewis - sale, had £155 off.
Chris

 

[iej]

Yeah I saw those in Harvey Norman here recently. They look very good.

I think I'll probably go with the match for the W1 though for the sake od stacking options.