Whirlpool compact heatpump dryers

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Following is a pretty decent review along with comments on the WP heat pump dryers:

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/guest-blogs/heat-pump-clothes-dryers

Cannot find mention of it in owner's manual, but apparently it does seem that the WP dryers do allow for faster drying using a some sort of different method than heat pump. Another review stated on "quick" the dryer did a full load in about 45 minutes. That kind of speed simply cannot come from a pure condenser/heat pump drying system alone, especially one that handles large loads as the WP units. This tells one that there is some sort of resistance heating elements that can be used to crank up the heat where necessary. That would explain the 30amp requirements.

Furthermore WP like most others hailing heat pump technology makes much noise about heated or cooled air not being vented out of the home. Well there are great periods of the year when neither the heating nor air conditioning systems are running for most of the USA. Today for instance here in NYC the boilers didn't come on and we certainly didn't run the AC, this was with outdoor temps in the low 60's (F).

http://www.trustedreviews.com/whirlpool-hscx10431-review#disqus_thread
 
NYC Steam Heat

Complicating factors:

A dearth landlords/supers/etc. who know enough about steam heat to think that those who are cold might have radiator valves that are clogged and those who have too much heat might have too fast a valve on theirs. I'm sorry, but there's a serious problem going on when *I* know more about these one-pipe steam systems than the supposed experts. Pressurtrol set at 10psi in a pre-WWI 3-family house..... Seriously?

As a result of the Spanish flu epidemic (~1918) all new construction had to have heating sufficiently strong to keep living areas at 'X' temperature (65F?) with one window opened 'Y'(3?) inches with an outside temperature of 'Z'(15F?).
My exact numbers might be wrong (corrections, please!) but my point is not.

After the energy crisis hit in '73 the USA went on a binge of insulating, caulking, and replacing single glaze windows with double. Result? Oversized heating systems.

Jim
 
"I'm surprised to see Whirlpool kept the Warm Rinse option on these"

In some parts of the USA tap cold water can be quite cold indeed, especially during the colder months of the year. For such instances you want or need "warm" water for rinsing.

The SQ washing machines at local laundromat use a mixture of hot and cold water during the final rinse. That is hot water comes down through the fabric softener dispenser and cold on the other side. Am guessing this is to prevent FS from being a congealed mess and thus not dispense properly during cold weather.
 
So funktioniert der Miele Wärmepumpentrockner Miele

How the Miele heat pump dryer works:



What you notice at once is why these heat pump dryers are more maintenance intensive then the already so condenser dryers.

In a normal condenser dryer one removes the "condenser" to clean. With a heat pump dryer since the thing is mated to a refrigerant system, that is not possible. Hence there needs to be a good number of filters in place to keep the condenser clean.
 
True about the warm rinse - but how many current US front loaders offer this option? LG and Whirlpool in Europe have it, so I was surprised to see that Whirlpool didn't remove this feature for the Americanized version.

That Miele video is pretty old. Back then, every filter was two-layered, meaning you had to clean up to six filters (periodically). Today's dryers have reduced the number of filters.

 
I guess for people without a natural gas option and venting, this may be considered, but I can't be sure the complexity of the machine would justify buying it.  Having natural gas I just can't see the benefit of switching to this.  

 

I looked at the users manual for the Bloomberg machine.  Cottons regular dry time is 145 minutes, Extra dry time is 155 minutes, Synthetics regular dry is 55 minutes - I can hang them on an upper floor in my house and dry them faster than this. 

 

I can dry a load of heavy towels(802 Gram)  in less than 45 minutes, a regular load of cottons in 25-30 minutes, and Synthetics in 20 minutes.  

 

How does humid air affect these machines, does it increase or decrease drying times?
 
Read the owner's manual for Miele heat pump dryer

It only cautions not to place the thing in an area that is too warm/hot or cold.

As for being "worth it", well we must remember like other condenser dryers the answer isn't always cut and dry.

Condenser/vent-less dryers are meant to provide a solution to a problem; how to have a tumble dryer where venting does not allow. When compared to vented a condenser dryer of any sort including heat pump will be slower on average. Yes, there are tons of various "savings" supposedly coming from energy use, reduced wear upon textiles, environment, and so forth, but there you are.

Everything one has read so far on these heap pump dryers clearly says one would need to own the things for a very long time *and* do large amounts of laundry to make the them even remotely pay off. That is if you line dry most washing and only use any sort of dryer when weather is bad or need things in a hurry, then it could take ages before you've gotten your money back in whatever savings from these heat pump dryers.

http://www.ukwhitegoods.co.uk/help/buying-advice/tumble-dryers/3845-are-heat-pump-dryers-worth-it

My AEG Oko-Lavamat can take one hour to almost three to do a load of washing. A full load of terry bath linen will dry in the AEG Oko-Lavatherm in about two hours or so (give or take). In the small Whilrpool compact same load would dry in about one and one half hours. Faster if one breaks up the load into two smaller batches.

Heat pump dryers are taking condenser drying to the next level. That is they deal with the problems of such dryers very reliant upon the air/weather conditions surrounding in order to work properly. Condenser dryers are popular in northern Europe, and they would be wouldn't they? Temps are often cool to cold if not usually damp. As anyone in a more temperate climate such s South of France or even New York City during a good part of the year can tell you, a condenser dryer just won't work when weather is very warm to hot and humid. Only way around this is to create the same northern European environment; that is turn on the AC.
 
Where ever you can set up a fridge and it works, you can set up a heatpump dryer and it should work. Their drying system is designed to be as self contained as possible, so the only thing the surrounding could do is being to hot so the compressor it self overheats or to cold which can affect the heatpump as well.

"One would have to do a lot of laundry":
When we bought our HP dryer (which is fairly simmilar to this one, just the previous generation), we did some rough cut calculation. With our usage pattern (I think we estimated 200-250 loads a year) and a rough estimate of savings (about 2kWh per load) and our electricity rates (about 0.3€/kWh), we estimated we would save about 150€ a year.
The same dryer with normal condesing system was 399€ at that time, the heatpump 599€ or 699€, can't remeber.
So 2 years was all it takes to clear the cut there.

With higher unit prices and lower energy rates, this period can get far greater.

And on the topic of drying times: I think they just copied the EU verdions of those too, and there again we talk 18lbs loads in a 4ft³ dryer.
 
Our area is currently around

Nineteen cents per kWh:
https://www.bls.gov/regions/new-york-new-jersey/news-release/averageenergyprices_newyorkarea.htm

However your dryer usage is far greater than ours. If the Whirlpool is used every other week or two for one or maybe two loads that is saying something. As for the AEG Oko-Lavatherm it sees only a handful of action per year. Much of this is simply due to the climate/weather. NYC is simply too warm or even hot much of the year to make a condenser dryer work.

Linens and shirts are ironed so that takes them out of the equation.

Heavy and thick things like blankets while washed at home are taken round to the local launderette and bunged into their huge gas dryers. Some blankets are simply air dried over horses.
 
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
 
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.
 
@ 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
 
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.
 
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
 
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.
 
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.
 

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