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German average was 29 Euro Cents in 2016.
German average was 29 Euro Cents in 2016.
Whirlpool compact heatpump dryers
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warmsecondrinse
Well-known member
EXACTLY: "It certainly would have increased their sales as far more persons in urban and other situations have access to 120v power over 208v-240v." AND lack venting.
My thinking is that since there're 120v combos using condenser drying available, Why are there no dryer only units available? One would think that the extra space made available by the lack of washing machinery would allow for either increased drying capacity and/or a larger drum. Either way throughput would increase.
I'm still not clear on why a 120v Heat Pump dryer is a no go, but that's MY lack of tech background, lol.
I understand the tech aspects of efficiency, cost, payoff period. HOWEVER, the market for 120v ventless dryers of ANY type are in a much different situation (as stated but not elaborated above). The relevant factors are:
- time & energy cost of having to leave the home to do laundry.
- monetary cost of driving to the laundromat and paying for the machines.
- prob some other factors that escape me at the moment.
------------
I realize that I'm probably the only person to own an Equator 3600 that actually performed as advertised (monthly cleaning aside), however I never noticed a decrease in performance due to warmer, more humid weather. OTOH, that might've been because whenever heat+humidity= >75F I had the a/c running.
Jim
My thinking is that since there're 120v combos using condenser drying available, Why are there no dryer only units available? One would think that the extra space made available by the lack of washing machinery would allow for either increased drying capacity and/or a larger drum. Either way throughput would increase.
I'm still not clear on why a 120v Heat Pump dryer is a no go, but that's MY lack of tech background, lol.
I understand the tech aspects of efficiency, cost, payoff period. HOWEVER, the market for 120v ventless dryers of ANY type are in a much different situation (as stated but not elaborated above). The relevant factors are:
- time & energy cost of having to leave the home to do laundry.
- monetary cost of driving to the laundromat and paying for the machines.
- prob some other factors that escape me at the moment.
------------
I realize that I'm probably the only person to own an Equator 3600 that actually performed as advertised (monthly cleaning aside), however I never noticed a decrease in performance due to warmer, more humid weather. OTOH, that might've been because whenever heat+humidity= >75F I had the a/c running.
Jim
Don't mix up things
First off, with condensers, you have to view the air stream that drys your laundry as seperated from your surrounding air. 2 seperared systems without mass exchange, only energy.
Your combo is a condenser using water to cool the condensing system.
Weather does not affect these.
The problem with these is a) they are slow due to low heating powers and b) because they use a water flow directly exposed to the hot air stream that is supposed to dry your load to condense water out of that exact air stream, condensing efficency is pretty bad. You basicly "dry" the air with water. More water stays in the air, you try to dry your load with more humid air.
Air cooled condenser dryers use the surrounding air to cool your condenser.
These are affected by surrounding temperatures. The hotter the air is that is used to cool the condenser, the less efficent is that condensing system. Thus, drying takes longer.
These dryers need heaters of 2kW or more to be abled to keep the temperture inside the dryer up enough to keep the condensing system efficent enough to dry laundry. And 2kW is to much for US 120V lines by my understanding.
Basicly, the bigger the temperature difference between outside and inside of the dryer, the better the drying results.
Heatpump dryers *should* work on 120V.
They are only affected by temperatures like any other appliance, most comparable, fridges.
They create the needed temperature gradient by the same method a AC unit does, only that they pump the heat they took out of the system right back into it.
Point I try to make: Traditional combo units with water cooled condensers don't work as well by design. Air cooled condensers need a "lot" of power and depend on the surrounding enviroment. Heatpumps solve all these problems, only that they are more complicated and expensive.
First off, with condensers, you have to view the air stream that drys your laundry as seperated from your surrounding air. 2 seperared systems without mass exchange, only energy.
Your combo is a condenser using water to cool the condensing system.
Weather does not affect these.
The problem with these is a) they are slow due to low heating powers and b) because they use a water flow directly exposed to the hot air stream that is supposed to dry your load to condense water out of that exact air stream, condensing efficency is pretty bad. You basicly "dry" the air with water. More water stays in the air, you try to dry your load with more humid air.
Air cooled condenser dryers use the surrounding air to cool your condenser.
These are affected by surrounding temperatures. The hotter the air is that is used to cool the condenser, the less efficent is that condensing system. Thus, drying takes longer.
These dryers need heaters of 2kW or more to be abled to keep the temperture inside the dryer up enough to keep the condensing system efficent enough to dry laundry. And 2kW is to much for US 120V lines by my understanding.
Basicly, the bigger the temperature difference between outside and inside of the dryer, the better the drying results.
Heatpump dryers *should* work on 120V.
They are only affected by temperatures like any other appliance, most comparable, fridges.
They create the needed temperature gradient by the same method a AC unit does, only that they pump the heat they took out of the system right back into it.
Point I try to make: Traditional combo units with water cooled condensers don't work as well by design. Air cooled condensers need a "lot" of power and depend on the surrounding enviroment. Heatpumps solve all these problems, only that they are more complicated and expensive.
warmsecondrinse
Well-known member
@ Reply #32
Thanks for the explanation. You should be a tech writer.
I actually read up on the Equator quite a bit before buying it. I recall the emphasis the colder the water drawn during the dry cycle the quicker drying will be. In NYC the ground water is pretty cold year round so that helped. Another point was not to open the dryer unless necessary. IIRC, the heat lost by having the door open for 30 seconds would take a good bit longer than 30 seconds to rebuild. Therefore temp differential at the condenser lessens therefore efficiency drops therefore drying time increases... and probably by more than 30 seconds.
On a more abstract level, where on earth (literally) are condenser dryers used? If I understand your explanation correctly they'd only be effective housed in an extremely arid area with temps as low as the machinery could stand (below freezing?).
Thanks again,
Jim
Thanks for the explanation. You should be a tech writer.
I actually read up on the Equator quite a bit before buying it. I recall the emphasis the colder the water drawn during the dry cycle the quicker drying will be. In NYC the ground water is pretty cold year round so that helped. Another point was not to open the dryer unless necessary. IIRC, the heat lost by having the door open for 30 seconds would take a good bit longer than 30 seconds to rebuild. Therefore temp differential at the condenser lessens therefore efficiency drops therefore drying time increases... and probably by more than 30 seconds.
On a more abstract level, where on earth (literally) are condenser dryers used? If I understand your explanation correctly they'd only be effective housed in an extremely arid area with temps as low as the machinery could stand (below freezing?).
Thanks again,
Jim
Imagine a bucket inside a bigger bucket. The inner bucket is your drum in the dryer, the outer one is the room the dryer is set up in.
With condensers, no moisture is supposed to be exchange.
If you pour water into your inner bucket, it won't fill the outer one, or vise versa.
So, it really dosen't matter much how humid the air in the room you set it up in is as there is no exchange of moisture (or matter at all, for that point).
Now, if you dump hot water into the outer bucket, there still is no exchange of water between the inner one and the outer one.
However, you do feel the inside of the inner bucked becomeing warm.
That is the idea of the heat exchanger: Allowing heat to travel while no matter is exchanged.
Now, different new picture: Imagine a white board with a line drawn in the middle. The left side is the room you set the dryer up in, the right one is the inside of your dryer.
A dot in each half represents the temperature level of the system.
You now can see that if these 2 dots are on about the same level, and draw a line conecting these two dots, the slope you see is rather flat.
If the difference is higher, the slope is steaper.
The steaper a slope is, the quicker things move from the upper position on the slope to the slower position.
Now, what runs down that slope is the heat in the heat exchanger. You want to move heat as quickly as possibly from the inside of the dryer to the outside.
The greater the temperature difference is, the quicker heat is exchanged and the more efficent the condensation process is.
This also shows you that as soons as room and dryer would reach equilibrium (the same temperature level), there would be no heatexchange anymore and thus no condensation.
The lower the room temperature is, the better the heatexchange works and the more efficent the condensing is.
That is basicly infinetly true: Cooler room, better heat exchange, quicker drying.
The only limit would be that at a certain point, the water that condenses onto the heatexchanger would freeze to its surface, which would highly inhibit the heat exchange. But before that, the heater would be to weak to keep the laundry at an acceptable temperature.
Notes their: Because normal air cooled condensers have to work across a range of ambient temperature, they usually run at 75-80C (165-175F), so the temperature difference between dryer and room always stays at a good level, independent of the room you set them up in.
Where they would be used: Europe, mainly. Most people have their dryers either in a basement (which is cooler by nature), the bathroom (during winter, the exhausted heat aids in keeping the room warm; in summer, you could struggle) or in the kitchen.
Australia does have normal condenser dryers with an aircooled condenser, but their wheather highly favors vented dryers (they do have a quite lofty way of living anyway, so air cexchanges between inside and outside most of the time anyway and because the air entering the machine is warm already, heating takes lees power) or heatpump dryers (though some models are more sensitive about ambient temperature then others).
You don't need extreme conditions go get a good condenser dryer result. Keeping this in a healthy balance however is necessary. Again, in cooler rooms like basements you won't have to worry as much.
But since the aircooled condenser dryers are just huge hot air blowers in a certain way and pump out 2-2,5kW of heat, they can be considered a spaceheater if you think about where to place it.
Bathrooms should be cosy and warm, your bedroom not. Putting up a spaceheater as the AC is running is just plain waste of energy, so running the AC while a condense dryer runs nearby is just as well.
With condensers, no moisture is supposed to be exchange.
If you pour water into your inner bucket, it won't fill the outer one, or vise versa.
So, it really dosen't matter much how humid the air in the room you set it up in is as there is no exchange of moisture (or matter at all, for that point).
Now, if you dump hot water into the outer bucket, there still is no exchange of water between the inner one and the outer one.
However, you do feel the inside of the inner bucked becomeing warm.
That is the idea of the heat exchanger: Allowing heat to travel while no matter is exchanged.
Now, different new picture: Imagine a white board with a line drawn in the middle. The left side is the room you set the dryer up in, the right one is the inside of your dryer.
A dot in each half represents the temperature level of the system.
You now can see that if these 2 dots are on about the same level, and draw a line conecting these two dots, the slope you see is rather flat.
If the difference is higher, the slope is steaper.
The steaper a slope is, the quicker things move from the upper position on the slope to the slower position.
Now, what runs down that slope is the heat in the heat exchanger. You want to move heat as quickly as possibly from the inside of the dryer to the outside.
The greater the temperature difference is, the quicker heat is exchanged and the more efficent the condensation process is.
This also shows you that as soons as room and dryer would reach equilibrium (the same temperature level), there would be no heatexchange anymore and thus no condensation.
The lower the room temperature is, the better the heatexchange works and the more efficent the condensing is.
That is basicly infinetly true: Cooler room, better heat exchange, quicker drying.
The only limit would be that at a certain point, the water that condenses onto the heatexchanger would freeze to its surface, which would highly inhibit the heat exchange. But before that, the heater would be to weak to keep the laundry at an acceptable temperature.
Notes their: Because normal air cooled condensers have to work across a range of ambient temperature, they usually run at 75-80C (165-175F), so the temperature difference between dryer and room always stays at a good level, independent of the room you set them up in.
Where they would be used: Europe, mainly. Most people have their dryers either in a basement (which is cooler by nature), the bathroom (during winter, the exhausted heat aids in keeping the room warm; in summer, you could struggle) or in the kitchen.
Australia does have normal condenser dryers with an aircooled condenser, but their wheather highly favors vented dryers (they do have a quite lofty way of living anyway, so air cexchanges between inside and outside most of the time anyway and because the air entering the machine is warm already, heating takes lees power) or heatpump dryers (though some models are more sensitive about ambient temperature then others).
You don't need extreme conditions go get a good condenser dryer result. Keeping this in a healthy balance however is necessary. Again, in cooler rooms like basements you won't have to worry as much.
But since the aircooled condenser dryers are just huge hot air blowers in a certain way and pump out 2-2,5kW of heat, they can be considered a spaceheater if you think about where to place it.
Bathrooms should be cosy and warm, your bedroom not. Putting up a spaceheater as the AC is running is just plain waste of energy, so running the AC while a condense dryer runs nearby is just as well.
launderess
Well-known member
While yes, in general you don't want to open the doors of a condenser dryer while it is running a cycle more than necessary (read try not to at all); my AEG Lavatherm has no problems recovering, long as door isn't opened for too long. The problems with Equator likely would have more to do with using 120v power which means heating is going to be rather puny.
As for where condenser dryers are mostly sold/used; we've said; northern European countries or parts of such as UK, Scandinavia, Germany, France, Poland, etc... Any place where it is mostly cool or cold for large parts of the year. Though IIRC at least one country has banned all sales of condenser ventless dryers in favor of heat pump only.
Vented or ventless will come down to what persons can install. However overall line/hang drying remains quite popular in Europe, especially in the southern/warmer areas.
https://erikras.com/2011/04/12/domestic-appliances-in-the-us-and-europe/
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Americ...ry-their-clothes-even-in-the-middle-of-summer
As for where condenser dryers are mostly sold/used; we've said; northern European countries or parts of such as UK, Scandinavia, Germany, France, Poland, etc... Any place where it is mostly cool or cold for large parts of the year. Though IIRC at least one country has banned all sales of condenser ventless dryers in favor of heat pump only.
Vented or ventless will come down to what persons can install. However overall line/hang drying remains quite popular in Europe, especially in the southern/warmer areas.
https://erikras.com/2011/04/12/domestic-appliances-in-the-us-and-europe/
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-Americ...ry-their-clothes-even-in-the-middle-of-summer
launderess
Well-known member
Swiss
In Switzerland, all dryers intended for use in a non commercial enviroment have to meet the EU Energy Label requirements for a A-rating or better. That is something like less then 0.4kWh per kilogramm of laundry with a residual moisture content of 60% dried on the label cycle.
The only dryers that can do that are heatpump dryers or that one A-labled Crosslee vented drier that has a 8h cold air only cycle.
But I think the latter is only avaible in the UK.
In Switzerland, all dryers intended for use in a non commercial enviroment have to meet the EU Energy Label requirements for a A-rating or better. That is something like less then 0.4kWh per kilogramm of laundry with a residual moisture content of 60% dried on the label cycle.
The only dryers that can do that are heatpump dryers or that one A-labled Crosslee vented drier that has a 8h cold air only cycle.
But I think the latter is only avaible in the UK.
launderess
Well-known member
"8h cold air only cycle"
Mind boggles as to why there is such a thing.
http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/new...ss-12-million-at-crosslee-this-year-1-4393086
Mind boggles as to why there is such a thing.
http://www.halifaxcourier.co.uk/new...ss-12-million-at-crosslee-this-year-1-4393086
Well, it's a cheap way to make a efficent dryer.
I think sometimes they marketed that as over-night dry cycle. As it was vented, the high airflow and constant tumbling allowed for laundry that is softer then just line dried. Especially towels, I guess. And the long tumbling should reduce wrinkels. All that while only using about 1.5-2kWh. And as that cycle was sensor assisted, you were sure you'd have dry laundry in the morning.
I mean, I can see it working in certain situations. Like Whirlpools overnight Wash&Dry, it uses time that would otherwise be "wasted" as everyone sleeps.
And given that the cheapest heatpump dryers in the UK are still priced 100+£ over that dryer, they appeal as cheap and efficent.
Oh, and, it still can be used like a normal vented dryer with quick & less efficent drying if needed. Heatpump dryers (with a few exceptions) are always going to be equally efficent and slow with only a few using inverter heatpumps that would allow you to crank up the drying speed.
I think sometimes they marketed that as over-night dry cycle. As it was vented, the high airflow and constant tumbling allowed for laundry that is softer then just line dried. Especially towels, I guess. And the long tumbling should reduce wrinkels. All that while only using about 1.5-2kWh. And as that cycle was sensor assisted, you were sure you'd have dry laundry in the morning.
I mean, I can see it working in certain situations. Like Whirlpools overnight Wash&Dry, it uses time that would otherwise be "wasted" as everyone sleeps.
And given that the cheapest heatpump dryers in the UK are still priced 100+£ over that dryer, they appeal as cheap and efficent.
Oh, and, it still can be used like a normal vented dryer with quick & less efficent drying if needed. Heatpump dryers (with a few exceptions) are always going to be equally efficent and slow with only a few using inverter heatpumps that would allow you to crank up the drying speed.
launderess
Well-known member
Well one could simply hang washing to dry, then bung it into the dryer with a damp towel for ten or so minutes, and still pretty much effects along with energy savings.
Perhaps it is just one, but never go to sleep or even out of the house leaving major electrical appliances running. The air conditioner is the one obvious exception.
Perhaps it is just one, but never go to sleep or even out of the house leaving major electrical appliances running. The air conditioner is the one obvious exception.
I've heared of quite a few people who have that mind set about applainces, but honestly, the worst that happend to me in that fieled was a sheet of backing paper igniting because it touched the ovens broil element.
While I get the idea, I just always remember myself that microwave, oven, fridge, freezer and our WiFi-router are all still plugged in an pose a simmilar hazzard of fire as my alarm clock does: Barely any.
I think the only applainces that I would never have running without me around would be the oven and hoob, simply because even if you attend them, a lot can go wrong.
In terms of floods due to defect machines I guess I understand why everybody is so carefull there, water is awesome at ruining living spaces.
In Germany, however, if I got that right, every property that is rented out has to be insured against flooding damage. These policies require the use of those burst-safe hoses and that instalations are done by professionals.
But I trust my aplainces there that they don't destroy my flat... Maybe a bit much...
While I get the idea, I just always remember myself that microwave, oven, fridge, freezer and our WiFi-router are all still plugged in an pose a simmilar hazzard of fire as my alarm clock does: Barely any.
I think the only applainces that I would never have running without me around would be the oven and hoob, simply because even if you attend them, a lot can go wrong.
In terms of floods due to defect machines I guess I understand why everybody is so carefull there, water is awesome at ruining living spaces.
In Germany, however, if I got that right, every property that is rented out has to be insured against flooding damage. These policies require the use of those burst-safe hoses and that instalations are done by professionals.
But I trust my aplainces there that they don't destroy my flat... Maybe a bit much...
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