It’s easy to get carried away during the Black Friday sales, picking up stuff on a whim simply because a few dollars have been knocked off the price tag. But it can also be a great time to pick up something you actually need, and potentially save some money in the process. For me, that’s a brand new clothes dryer.
Summer makes drying clothes a cinch, but the approach of qinter means shorter days and cooler temperatures make that a little harder. So you may need some help from an appliance, and there’s no better way to dry your clothes than one of the best clothes dryers.
Or at least that’s the logic I’m using, especially now that the amount of laundry I have to do has increased.
I’ve managed without a dryer so far, but now I'm struggling
In the past I managed to handle drying my clothes with a mix of heating, a cover and a strong dehumidifier. Which is fine for the occasional load of laundry, but since my girlfriend moved in, that combination isn’t cutting it. There’s nothing worse than leaving a bunch of laundry to dry and finding it’s still damp several hours later.
Ok so that’s a lie. There are plenty of worse things to come across in your home, like a giant spider or a flooded bathroom. But nobody likes soggy clothes, and I’m getting sick of them taking so long to fully dry.
Hence the dryer, something I’ve tended to avoid in the past. Both to avoid a spike in my electricity bills, which are high enough in winter, and thanks to flashbacks of my dad shrinking my favorite t-shirts when I was a teenager. Over 15 years later, and I’ve realized it’s something I can’t really avoid for much longer.
Also my girlfriend misses her old washer dryer and really wants a new one. My personal hang-ups aren’t going to convince her to stop asking about it.
Choosing the right dryer for me
My girlfriend had a washer/dryer combo unit in her old apartment, which was fine considering the lack of space. But my place is a lot bigger, and the negatives of buying a combo unit seemed to outweigh the benefits. Especially seeing as how the combination users we’ve seen tend to have terrible energy efficiency when drying.
Well, the ones we can afford at any rate. More efficient units are available, but we’re looking at prices so high that it would be a lot cheaper to buy separate washer and dryer units anyway.
Energy efficiency is quite key deciding factor for me, considering how much the cost of electricity has risen over the past 18 or so months. The last thing I want is a dryer that rarely gets used because it costs an absolute fortune to run.
Prioritising energy consumption at a price point I can afford also means the decision of what kind of dryer I’ve bought has essentially been made for me. It’s either a heat pump or nothing, though that suits me just fine. Heat pumps reuse heat, which saves on energy and means there’s no venting to worry about.
They’re also usually pretty quiet, which is always helpful, and the fact they run at lower temperatures should keep my clothes from shrinking. So the only thing making them feel smaller should be be getting bigger over the holiday eating period.
The only thing I really needed to consider was what level of energy efficiency We should be looking at. Dryers in the U.K. are rated on a letter scale with A+++ being the best and D being the worst. As you might imagine A+++ dryers are the most expensive, roughly $122 more than an A++.
Interestingly the difference between the two, at least on what I was looking at, seems to be about 0.5 kWh per load. That’s an extra $0.18 of power each time the dryer gets used, meaning I’d have to use the more expensive dryer at least 677 times before I’d start to see any kind of monetary saving. If the dryer gets used twice a week, it’ll be 6.5 years before I hit that point. So maybe I can let go of the efficiency obsession just this once.
Of course the final decision will eventually depend on the discounts on offer as we head towards Black Friday. There are some models I’ve had my eye on, but it’s all going to come down to which dryers have the best discounts.
Black Friday clothes dryer deals available now
If you’re in the market for a new dryer, just like I am, here are some deals that you might want to check out.
More from Tom's Guide
