One machine that washes and dries! Washer dryer combos sound perfect. But are they worth it?
You can use the combo machine just as a washer or a dryer as you need.
Most clothes dryers are vented and the vaporised water is simple pushed out of the machine. Combo washer dryers use a totally different system. Instead of venting the hot moist air, they condense the water out of it. Older washer dryer combo machines use cold water to condense out the moisture. So, they use much more water to dry your clothes. Newer and of course more expensive machines use a heat pump system similar to an air conditioner.
- Space saving
- Non vented dryer
- Gentle on clothes
- All the advantages of a front loader
- Expensive to buy
- Expensive to repair
- Heavy
- Smaller washing capacity
- Much smaller drying capacity
- Less water efficient
- Very lengthy cycles
Performance
Combo washer dryer machines wash as well as a front loading washing machine, but the drying is not as effective nor as efficient, although that is improving with newer technology. The whole wash dry cycle can be very long, so you won’t run through several loads in a day. Of course the idea is that you can put a load in the machine forget it.
Unfortunately, most machines can only dry half of the capacity that they can wash. Therefore, if you are going to set and forget, you need to put in a half sized load. For a full sized load, you will need to remove half before the drying cycle. Some machines keep the clothes gently rotating until you get them out to keep the clothes fresh and wrinkle free.
Water Efficiency
Unless you get the newer heat pump type of machine, they use a lot more water than other machines
Energy Efficiency
The newer heat pump technology is providing improvement in the energy efficiency of combo machines.
Should You Buy A Washer Dryer Combo?
- Certainly the main advantage of washer dryer combos is the compactness, and for a small households could be ideal. However, unless you buy the newer and more expensive models, they are not very water nor energy efficient.
- Because of their smaller capacity, especially when drying, and their long cycle time, they are not really suitable for larger households.
- Combo washer dryer machines are expensive, and, if something breaks you may have to replace the whole unit, not just a washer or a dryer.