Miele T8966WP Heat Pump dryer or Bosch WTP86560?

[MrX]

I am not entirely sure why gas dryers aren't more popular in Europe. They are available here in Ireland, including some 230V Speed Queens that run on either natural gas or LPG in rural areas.

There's really no issue with lack of availability of natural gas in Europe. It's available in almost ever urban area, big or small and bulk LPG is available in rural areas anywhere I've ever been.

For some reason the appliance manufacturers in general haven't marketed them much.

WhiteKnight's version was/is popular enough in the UK and Ireland.

The SpeedQueen dryers on that site are insanely expensive though.

€1389 which translates as US$ 1801 !!

http://www.thegascompany.ie/iopen24/tumble-dryers-dryers-c-1820_1821_1295_1681.html

 

[niania]

Thanks Logixx. Thank you Mieleforever! I've lost my heart to Miele I am so glad to hear back from an actual user, thank you so much for your input. It is indeed the T8822C. Yes I am hoping it will be forever and forever, Amen

I have no idea about gas dryers so am afraid I cannot contribute anything to the above discussion. We do not have gas access in our apartment, although there are plenty of buildings that do. For our purpose and all practical purposes I think Miele would be the best choice.

Thank you everyone for your responses. I sincerely appreciate you taking the time. It has been crucial to our decision. Thank you once again.

Warm regards
Nia

 

[MrX]

Natural gas consumption in the EU:

USA : 683,300,000,000 cubic meters per year
EU: 515,000,000,000 cubic meters per year.
China : 129,000,000,000 cubic meters per year
Australia: 29,400,000,000
Canada: 92,900,000,000

So, ehmmm the EU consumes a hell of a lot of natural gas (2nd largest gas user on the planet) using 16% of the gas burnt in the world every year.

USA uses 21%

The major reasons for a difference in this would be two fold.
Climatic - Europe's population centres are much milder than their North American equivalents so most European households do not need as much heating and cooling as their US counterparts.
Energy efficiency - European homes and offices tend to be more efficient.
Alternatives: A lot more of Europe's electricity production's met by nuclear power than the USA. I'm not arguing that's good / bad, but it's fact.

USA 19% nuclear from 104 reactors.
EU : 29.5% nuclear from 132 reactors.

There is also more focus on renewables in the EU.

EU: 834.5 TWh/year
USA: 436.4 TWh/year
China: 764.5 TWh/year

All that being said, using natural gas to heat a dryer in your laundry room is still less environmentally unfriendly than burning that gas in a power plant and suffering all the generation and transmission losses then using the remaining energy to heat your dryer. Although, it depends on the fuel mix being used to produce that electricity.

But, I do think that natural gas dryers should be more common place in the EU. It's surprising that they weren't pushed more by manufactures.

They are definitely available here in Ireland and were marketed heavily by the gas utilities in the past, but you are limited to a handful of manufactures and models compared to electric counterparts.

Miele briefly had a gas dryer on the market and withdrew it, again I am not sure why that was the case.

 

[chris74]

Gas use in the EU

I think the greater part is used in the industry, not in common households. Don't think the continental wheather of Europe is any milder than the US', we just use other sources to heat/cool our flats...

 

[MrX]

On average, EU climates are drastically milder in the most populated areas of Europe. I've read studies to that effect.

Other than California, most of the other very populated areas of the United States experience much more regular very cold winters and much warmer summers than the equivalent areas of Western Europe which results in a lot more heat and A/C use.

I realise that parts of Europe also experience extreme weather, but not the most populated areas. It's mostly either continental temperate (most of Northern Europe), Maritime temperate (All of Western Europe's countries with coasts and Ireland and Britain) or Mediterranean (most of Southern Europe).

It's a far less harsh climate than that experienced by a lot of American states.

In terms of natural gas usage in the home, it varies perhaps from country to country in the EU, but it's a dominant form of heating in most of Western Europe, certainly where there was proximity to off-shore gas.

80% of homes in the UK, over 90% in the Netherlands, etc are connected to a natural gas supply.

Here in Ireland, it's less than that because we only found gas off reserves off the coast in the late 1970s and they only came on stream in the 80s, but even in that time, over 35% of homes use natural gas as their main source of heating.

So really there should be a major market for gas tumble dryers, especially in the UK, NL, Belgium, France etc all of which have very high levels of natural gas usage in domestic premises.

Pressure-jet oil systems remain quite popular, especially in houses built before the 1980s and rural areas.

A lot of rural homes do however use LPG for cooking because some people prefer gas cookers.

In the USA approximately 50% of homes have access to natural gas.

A very large % of gas in Europe and the USA gets used in electricity generation btw.

 

[foraloysius]

As I said, you find dryers often in bathrooms here. And open gas appliances (those than don't take the air in from outside) are forbidden in bathrooms here. Therefor the market in the Netherlands is not as big as you would think based on our percentage of houses connected to gas.

 

[Philip0603]

I have what is now an over 10 year old Miele W377 with matching T270 blow through dryer. The washer spins at 1600 rpm and has the added bonus of weighing the washing as it is put into the drum. Thus what goes in the washer goes in the dryer. The dryer takes between 30 and 40 minutes to dry a full load depending on atmospherics. I has the opportunity to buy the condenser model of dryer, but went for the vented model as it was cheaper to run and quicker to dry. I also have an Indesit top loader for washing the dog stuff & a small 2800 rpm spin dryer. The phrase 'Chinese laundry' springs to mind on wash day.

I am still not convinced that putting a dehumidifier into a dryer is a good idea, both practically and from a maintenance point of view. The best dryer I have come across with a heat pump is the VZug. A truly awesome machine that eclipses Miele both on quality & price!!

 

[Iowegian]

@MrX:

Interesting stats on natural gas consumption, thanks for sharing that.

In the U.S., recent discovery of large volumes of natural gas via new methods of drilling and production (i.e., fracking) have really sent the other electricity generation and home heat fuel sources on their ear - it's really disrupting the wind, solar and nuclear industries.

And since the U.S. has never had a comprehensive energy policy, everyone here is just along for the ride...

 

[chris74]

Thanks for sharing your knowledge

I would be interrested in the figures for Germany because I don't know anybody with a gas access...