The new EU energy label for dryers - coming mid 2025

[maytag85]

“What put me off line drying was birds splattering on the washing”

That’s something else I forgot to mention in reply #14. There’s some benefits to line drying but let’s face it, it ain’t 1955 anymore, it’s 2024. As a compromise, shorts and shirts will be dried for 20 minutes on the ‘damp dry’ of the timed drying section on my Maytag DE806, everything else will be dried to completion on the auto dry.

Honestly, damp dry is probably all I’ll need on my DE806 for shorts and shirts since I washed 7 pairs of shorts, dried them on damp dry, pretty much were dry with some dampness. Hung them up to dry the rest of the way and were ready to be put away in a hour or so.

 

[launderess]

Six pins Dolores, you know that's the way I like it.

Six pins Dolores; not five!

post was last edited: 5/16/2024-19:48]

 

[launderess]

Europeans just aren't into clothes dryers, gas or electric, vented or condenser, to extent of Americans. It's just a mixture of cultural and other differences.

https://www.realsimple.com/home-organizing/cleaning/laundry/why-americans-use-clothes-dryers

https://english.elpais.com/society/...ne-culture-war-between-the-us-and-europe.html

It's worth noting that clothes driers only really took off in USA post 1960's. By 1980's fewer than half American homes had clothes dryers. That number hit nearly 80% by 2009.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-daum-right-to-dry-20151015-column.html

Where heat pump dryers seem to have it over typical vented (gas or electric) versions is the lower energy use.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willia...yers-consume-half-as-much-energy-as-americas/

People can rant and rave or otherwise debate pluses or minuses of such schemes, but bottom line is just as across Europe increasingly decision regarding gas or electric vented dryers is being made elsewhere.

 

[maytag85]

“By the 1980’s fewer than half of American homes had clothes dryers. The number hit nearly 80% by 2009”

If you ask anyone who lived in and through the 80’s, you more than likely will get a response “we had a dryer, so did family and others I knew”

Since I grew up in the 2000’s, never knew of anyone who didn’t have a dryer. We for sure had a dryer for sure and made use for it.

Don’t necessarily buy the claim “The number hit nearly 80% by 2009”, that may have been true 20 years earlier in the early 1980’s, but never knew of anyone who didn’t have a dryer back in the 2000’s.

 

[DADoES]

 
The rental house into which I was born had the washer in a kitchen closet, no provision for a dryer.  House the parents built in 1964 had an electric dryer circuit, the dryer was added a year later.

Paternal grandparents got a dryer in the late 1960s.

Maternal grandmother in 1972.

Everyone else I knew as a youngster had a dryer from the time I became aware of machinery.

The exception being granny's sister/bro-in-law who never had one for their entire lives.  She died in 2003.  They lived a (distressingly) austere lifestyle, by choice not necessity.  The washer was in the one-car garage, one window unit in the bedroom that they rarely ran.

 

[maytag85]

I think the whole reason why dryers became popular from the 60’s/70’s and on is it allowed you to get things dried rain or shine without a hassle, along with homes that had a hookup for both and washer and a dryer in the 60’s and 70’s. Some people liked line drying stuff in the 70’s, but knew the dryer would have to be used when the weather didn’t permit to dry things outside.

Not sure of what the nostalgia was like for the mid 50’s back in the 70’s, but people probably reminisced of a time that was a little simpler, but at the same time didn’t miss when you literally had to devote hours of time or a day just to do laundry. People probably figured it was easier to do a load of laundry every couple of days rather than trying to do close to a dozen loads on wash day.

Another reason why dryers caught on is people who used or seen a dryer for the first time while visiting friends, family, neighbors in the 50’s and 60’s probably were sold on the fact that you didn’t have to lug baskets outside full of wet and heavy laundry, especially if you had to walk up steps. Another thing that sold people on dryers was the amount of time they saved, especially if you had a Kenmore high speed dryer in gas which would dry in about 30 minutes time.

 

[lavamat_jon]

“ Line drying is all fun in games until it rains, gets dust and pollen especially during the spring months, takes away time from doing other things in life”

It’s not fun and games - it’s just part of everyday life here. Dust and pollen isn’t a problem (if it was, as somebody who is fastidious about cleanliness I wouldn’t do it, and I suffer from hayfever whether I hang out the washing or not). It takes 5 minutes at most to hang a large load of washing out - whilst at the same time you can enjoy some fresh air, admire the nature or a fine day, or a chat to your neighbour. Not to mention the lovely line dried smell it leaves, and how laundry is left crease free and keeps its shape etc. It takes 10 seconds to check the forecast on your phone, if it’s not good weather you just dry indoors - simple. It’s a warm day here today (forecast to reach 21°), I’ve just looked out and already before 11am 3 neighbours as well as us have got a line of washing out. It’s just how things are done here.

In terms of percentage of dryers, whilst they are more popular than they were not everybody I know has one (even if they had the room). Plenty of families manage here and across Europe without a tumble dryer - whether that is because of space, cost, concern for the environment, wanting to be kinder to clothes or just not seeing a use or need for one. And not everybody dries naturally here either - of course there are households here who use the dryer regularly if not all the time, and some will have good reason to. When they do that’s where the concern for energy efficient dryers come in, both to be as environmentally friendly and cost effective as possible.

My original point wasn’t to start a debate about whether you should use a dryer or not (and apologies if it has), just making a point of how things are done here (where the new energy regulations will apply, which this thread is about), and also that however you prefer to dry laundry, drying laundry naturally is obviously the most resource efficient considering no natural resources are used at all.

“…but let’s face it, it ain’t 1955 anymore, it’s 2024”

I’m not sure if you meant it to be, but that just comes across plainly rude and ignorant. Considering our daily driver washing machines, dishwasher and dryer sends a notification to our phones when it’s finished we most certainly are living in 2024 .

Let’s just leave it at that and get back to the thread subject…

 

[Marky_Mark]

Around 85% of American homes have a washer and 80% have a dryer.  The rest are using shared/public laundry facilities.

Around 97% of British homes have a washer and 65% have a dryer.

 

So anytime you see a washer in the US, there will almost certainly be a dryer there too.  It's an "all or nothing" approach.  This does mean that 15% of Americans have no washer or dryer.  Some buildings in the US do not allow them.  Whereas virtually every home in the UK has a washing machine, probably because they are always allowed and Euro machines are smaller and easier to accommodate even in small apartments.

 

 

 

 

[appnut]

My parents bought their first dryer in 1954, a Norge Timeline gas dryer. They also acquired a big Norge chest deep freezer. I found out from my dad before he passed away that at some point during my mom's pregnancy with me she was put on 100% in bed in attempt to keep the pregnancy going. Dad made the comment he became like Mr. Mom for my sisters getting them to ballet, brownies, school... with help of friends and him still working. I figured out the freezer and dryer were acquired to help him with managing the household. Dryer's control panel was consistent with what Norge had on the market in the 1953/1954 time frame.

 

[qsd-dan]

My guess is that the depression era and older folks saw dryers as an incredible waste of energy when the air and sun outside is free. Dryers were also an expensive investment back then. Most eventually gave in and bought one. Also, more women entering the workforce by the late 60's/early 70's probably helped sales. They are convenient, especially in frigid areas.

When I was a kid and lived way up in northern CA, the 50's house we were in had a washer in the kitchen and a dryer in a detached garage. That dryer was very rarely used. This was through the mid 80's. I remember my mother hanging clothes in the Livingroom during the winter months which were dried by the heat of the woodstove, which was our one and only heating source. Winters are very harsh in northern Plumas county, at least for California.

 

[launderess]

You have to give people points for creativeness.

I tried the bed sheet hack to dry my laundry without a tumble dryer

Drying clothes is a tricky business in the autumn and winter months, particularly with the cost of living soaring through the roof and energy bills at an all time high. After spotting a bed sheet hack on TikTok that came with claims to dry clothes quickly, I knew I had to put it to the test.

www.express.co.uk