Cut Drying Time In Half

[autowasherfreak]

Saw a commercial a little while ago that said if you place a dry towel in with your wet clothes it will cut your drying time in half. Does it confuse the sensors by making it seem like the clothes are drier than they really are?

 

[wayupnorth]

I have heard that old wives tale and dont believe it. I always stop my dryer about half way thru, clean the lint screen and restart on the less dry automatic cycle. When the buzzer sounds, the lint screen is full again and the load is dry. So thats my method of cutting the time in half.

 

[danemodsandy]

I've Never Tried....

....Tim's method, but I'm in complete agreement that keeping your lint filter really clean is the best way of keeping overall drying time and costs as low as possible. Cleaning the exhaust duct twice a year is also important.

My own laundry routine includes cleaning both machines' filters as soon as I'm through with each load - that way, both washer and dryer are totally ready to go again.

I've never understood people who won't keep up with the lint filter on a dryer. It took a long time to break my late partner of his habit of pulling it out, looking at it, and deciding it could "go a while longer." I finally got through to him by telling him that a filter that was 25% clogged was costing him something like 25% more in increased drying time.

P.S.: As hard-headed as he was, my partner tested my statement before buying into it, finding that I was right. Pissed him off fierce, let me tell you.

 

[gusherb]

I clean the filter before every single use (usually have to, there are people in this house that will go 2-3 loads and never clean the damn thing!!) and use time dry. Auto dry seems to take too long. I can get a mid-sized load of towels bone dry in 45 minutes in the Samsung-Tag.

 

[davetranter]

Add a towel??

As I understand it, the towel should absorb some of the water from the wet load and provide more surface area for evaporation during the drying cycle. No idea if it works, never tried it...

Theoretically it should help (at least a little) IF there is sufficient throughput of air in the drum (i.e. clean filter/exhaust, etc.)

Not using the dryer here atm, trying to line dry as much as possible while the weather remains dry.

All best

Dave T

 

[superelectronic]

I've heard adding a dry towel or two to the load is useful when your load is very small, helping to prevent disproportionately long drying times. Other than that, surely adding unnecessary bulk would just encourage creasing?

 

[DADoES]

 
Adding a couple towels to a very small load can help the drying process by promoting tumbling.  A single item or several small/lightweight items may otherwise tend to sit on bottom of the drum, sliding around the baffles instead of being lifted and tumbled through the heated air.

I'm not a physicist but seems unlikely that adding a dry towel to an average or large load would result in faster drying.  Drying depends on the moisture in the items being evaporated by the heat and moved out of the drying chamber by airflow.  A dry towel may absorb some small amount of the moisture, but said moisture is still inside the drum environment until transported out by the airflow.  All the items, including the extra towel, are inside that environment and would presumably be largely at a similar (decreasing) moisture content throughout the drying process ... individual variations in fabric weight and natural characteristics of moisture retention/release notwithstanding.

Yes?

 

[tomturbomatic]

I have found that my heavy, but small, chenille bath rugs dry faster when they are in the dryer with other things because the other items mix up the heated air stream and certainly help the tumbling. The only dryers where this is not as much of a critical factor would be older Hamiltons and the Filtrators since the drum tends to carry the items past the heating elements and drying does not depend so much on the stream of heated air.

 

[wayupnorth]

This is why I dry my way

I actually read my owners manual, which so many people dont and kept it and if you read down as to how to use your new Maytag dryer the first time, I set it exactly as in the pix it worked fine. EXCEPT the lint screen was overflowing, so thats why I clean it before the indicator moves with very linty stuff like towels. But at that setting, auto dry has worked perfect for nearly 30 years. Why people will set it on timed for an hour and auto can do it in half the time is beyond me.

 

[DADoES]

 
The filter on my dryer cleans itself (self-scrapes) continuously, drops little lint balls into a collection bucket.