Are clothes dryers common in the UK? After moving to Japan it took me a few weeks to get used to not using one, and now looking back I can't help but think of what an enormously stupid waste of energy they are.

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radu_floricica 19 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Not sure how you can call it stupid. They perform a role which is valued by a lot of people, especially those living in apartments.

That's exactly why we convert things to money - so we don't use arbitrary measurements. An energy use is not "wasteful", it can only be expensive. Which is worth or not, depending on particular conditions.

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shoobiedoo 19 hours ago | parent [-]

I guess I'm just an oddball. Spending 5 minutes to hang my clothes seems like a tiny price to pay to save a ton of energy the way the rest of most of the world does. But I guess the HN crowd are mostly gated community techies who can't be bothered to walk three blocks to a supermarket, either. So I'm yelling at clouds here

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317070 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I moved to the UK, and also got a dryer at that point.

The weather in the UK can be very humid, and if you don't have much of a garden, it can be impossible to dry your clothes at times. We've had times where our living room was full of clothes for more than a few days, and it wouldn't matter because it wouldn't really dry anyway.

So we've invested in dehumidifiers and a dryer, and it made our life a lot more comfortable.

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radu_floricica 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Like others said, weather and conditions. During summers here clothes dry in an hour during the day, and they're half ironed to boot. In the winters however... I still remember bringing my jeans back inside as a slab of ice, and having foggy windows due to drying indoors.

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forgotusername6 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The UK has huge problems with mould growth caused by damp. Drying clothes indoors is one of the causes. Energy is expensive so people don't heat their homes properly. Those two things combined cause mould which leads to severe health problems.

	▲	cirrhosis 9 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		A dehumidifier solves both problems. Put your damp clothes in a room with a dehumidifier and they're dry by the morning. You can also use it when it's wet to keep the room humidity down to 50%.
	▲	alt227 13 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Dryers output heat, so it is possible to kill 2 birds with one stone here. I know several people who use dryers at strategic times to heat their house.

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alexey-salmin a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They are a stupid waste of energy if you live alone and want to suffer for the sake of environment.

If you have a family of four, the clothes dryer is an ENORMOUS time-saver. I'll never voluntarily live in an apartment that doesn't have one. No way I'm sacrificing my quality of life.

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hobo123 12 hours ago | parent [-]

I don't really mind hanging clothes, it doesn't take that long. You still have to fold and stash away clothes, and often they are crinkly out of the dryer, and don't last as long.

What it does save is space that you need to hang clothes.

During winter I also like that it provides some moisture so the air won't get too dry.

edit: so basically we only use our dryer if there's a ton of laundry to hang, plus sometimes for towels or bed sheets/blankets.

	▲	anthonypasq 10 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Whats so bizarre about non-americans is just how beaten down you are about these types of topics. You are post rationalizing why you shouldnt have access to modern technology. Youre so defeated you just cant understand how insane you sound. > I don't really mind hanging clothes, it doesn't take that long. I mean sure, but i still would rather not do it. I could wash my dishes by hand too, its not reallly that big of a deal, but i dont because we have technology. We have solutions to all these things, and your politicians have somehow convinced you that its fine that you cant use them. Bizzaro.

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oconnor663 a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Spending time in Japan was how I learned that I don't want to live without a clothes dryer.

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domh 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Fairly common in houses with the space for them, but they often come in washer/dryer combos if you don't have the space. These are about as effective as using a hairdryer to dry your clothes and take about 3hrs after the initial wash.

The tumble dryer I had in the US could do a full load dry in about 25-30 mins. Maybe it was significantly more wasteful in terms of energy.

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ChrisRR 18 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

They're not really. I only live with my partner and don't have kids, and even then we've got to have clothes airers around the house all the time. If we had kids then it'd become unfeasible to have that much washing blocking the house

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rsynnott 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Modern dryers are also far more efficient than the old ones; a heat pump dryer uses about a third the power of a conventional condenser, and even less than that of a vented.

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gib444 16 hours ago | parent [-]

And heat pump ones take twice as long, so the savings aren't huge. They also lie about your clothes being dry, so thrice as long perhaps

	▲	rsynnott 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Eh, I dunno, I've heard a lot of moaning about them on the internet, but my low-end Bosch one is way better than any condenser I've ever had. Only complaint is that, while it's not _louder_ than my old condenser, the noise it makes is certainly more annoying, particularly for the first five minutes. Oh, also, it has a particularly bad touch interface. I miss proper buttons on appliances. I do think maybe the worst heat pump driers are worse than the worst condensers and vented dryers. General rule seems to be, Miele best (but you'll pay for it), Bosch/Siemens/Neff are good (these are all the same company, and nothing much to do with the Siemens that makes turbines and medical equipment these days), Zanussi/Electrolux/AEG (same company) and LG and Samsung are fine, Hotpoint/Whirlpool/Indesit (also all the same company; appliance companies love doing this) are bloody awful.

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JBits a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Does the famously damp UK climate make a difference here?

	▲	dofm a day ago \| parent [-]
		To drying clothes!? No, we're much more likely to dry clothes outside than Americans. They dry just fine outside even in mid October; a bit more slowly than that after that, but when I was a kid I remember washing going on the line on warm days in early December. We do have electric tumble dryers, condenser dryers, washer dryers. (Indeed, the progressive switch to condensers may be part of power consumption dropping.) AFAIK The UK's climate is about equivalent to New York State.