I am an employee of Whirlpool Corporation and these are my personal opinions which do not reflect the opinion of Whirlpool Corporation.
After a very lucky raffle at work, I got one of these beauties delivered straight from the factory to my basement! I am absolutely in love with this machine! Being a Heat Pump dryer, there are some expected changes in how it's used and how it operates.
1) It does take longer than a regular vented dryer. Previously, I dried this very load of towels in my vented electric dryer on low heat and it would take about 1 hour and 30 minutes to fully dry the load. The HybridCare, in Eco Mode takes about 3 hours and 26 minutes to dry this load of towels. The load consists of 7 thick bath towels and 7 thick hand towels. It's a full load in my 4.5 cubic foot Fusion-Oasis washer. Most other loads take less than two hours on Eco Mode. I could make the dryer run faster by using Balanced Mode or Speed Mode... But I prefer the lower temperatures of Eco Mode. Even on the high heat setting, in Eco Mode, the dryer still runs cooler than the low heat setting on my vented dryer.
2) There are 2 filters to clean. The main filter which I clean after each load and the HybridCare filter located on the bottom front right corner. That one only needs to be cleaned every 5 loads or so. The dryer will tell me when it needs to be cleaned.
I put together a quick video showing the machine's operation... It is slightly louder than a regular vented dryer, but the sound level varies depending on what it's doing. There are multiple fans (at least 2, but there may be more... I'm not sure) that do different things. The main fan seems to be attached to the motor that turns the drum like a normal dryer but it also seems to move more air (possibly spinning faster?) while it's running. There is a fan on the back of the machine near the bottom, about where you'd expect a vent to be on a regular dryer. I'm not entirely sure what this one does. It turns on and off periodically throughout the cycle and blows air out of the back of the unit. I can also hear the compressor come on once the dryer has heated up. The compressor running is hard to pick up, it's pretty quiet. The main blower and the fan on the back are the most prominent sounds from the machine. Certainly not unpleasantly loud.
I'm thinking of getting some cheapy towels and maybe some cheapy t-shirts to do some comparisons between Eco Mode and Speed Mode. I don't want to put any of my stuff through the Speed Mode or Balanced Mode because I like drying everything on really low temps. I've never used anything above low heat on any dryer for almost as long as I can remember.
I'd recommend cranking up the quality of the video, you can see the console more clearly. At 0:42 you can hear the compressor (barely) and the main blower. The fan at the back is not running at this point in the cycle (though it did come on when the dryer first started running). At 1:03 the compressor has shut off and the fan at the back is running again.
After a very lucky raffle at work, I got one of these beauties delivered straight from the factory to my basement! I am absolutely in love with this machine! Being a Heat Pump dryer, there are some expected changes in how it's used and how it operates.
1) It does take longer than a regular vented dryer. Previously, I dried this very load of towels in my vented electric dryer on low heat and it would take about 1 hour and 30 minutes to fully dry the load. The HybridCare, in Eco Mode takes about 3 hours and 26 minutes to dry this load of towels. The load consists of 7 thick bath towels and 7 thick hand towels. It's a full load in my 4.5 cubic foot Fusion-Oasis washer. Most other loads take less than two hours on Eco Mode. I could make the dryer run faster by using Balanced Mode or Speed Mode... But I prefer the lower temperatures of Eco Mode. Even on the high heat setting, in Eco Mode, the dryer still runs cooler than the low heat setting on my vented dryer.
2) There are 2 filters to clean. The main filter which I clean after each load and the HybridCare filter located on the bottom front right corner. That one only needs to be cleaned every 5 loads or so. The dryer will tell me when it needs to be cleaned.
I put together a quick video showing the machine's operation... It is slightly louder than a regular vented dryer, but the sound level varies depending on what it's doing. There are multiple fans (at least 2, but there may be more... I'm not sure) that do different things. The main fan seems to be attached to the motor that turns the drum like a normal dryer but it also seems to move more air (possibly spinning faster?) while it's running. There is a fan on the back of the machine near the bottom, about where you'd expect a vent to be on a regular dryer. I'm not entirely sure what this one does. It turns on and off periodically throughout the cycle and blows air out of the back of the unit. I can also hear the compressor come on once the dryer has heated up. The compressor running is hard to pick up, it's pretty quiet. The main blower and the fan on the back are the most prominent sounds from the machine. Certainly not unpleasantly loud.
I'm thinking of getting some cheapy towels and maybe some cheapy t-shirts to do some comparisons between Eco Mode and Speed Mode. I don't want to put any of my stuff through the Speed Mode or Balanced Mode because I like drying everything on really low temps. I've never used anything above low heat on any dryer for almost as long as I can remember.
I'd recommend cranking up the quality of the video, you can see the console more clearly. At 0:42 you can hear the compressor (barely) and the main blower. The fan at the back is not running at this point in the cycle (though it did come on when the dryer first started running). At 1:03 the compressor has shut off and the fan at the back is running again.
