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The laboratory where I test all the heated clothes airers is about 30 m². Not a small room, admittedly, but I would typically have four heated clothes airers running at any given time. But the savings reduce dramatically for larger laundry loads, where you'd need to use the heated airer multiple times to dry a load that could fit in the tumble dryer in one go. If you don’t have a garden in which to put up a clothesline - or the space inside the home for a tumble dryer - you’ll need the best clothes airer you can find to dry your washing. Another concertina design, gated airers are even more simple than tiered airers. They pull out to create a long zigzag with spacious rungs. Thanks to their fuss-free design, gated airers are popular among students as they tend to be the cheapest option available and fold down to just a few centimetres wide, meaning they can easily be stored behind a bed or wardrobe. Winged The best clothes airer for you will vary depending on the space you have available at home, and the washing you tend to do. In terms of shape, here are the different styles available and the best uses for each: Tiered
Standing clothes airer. Another popular clothes dryer, the standing airer is basically a frame made of metal that you can unfold to offer a broad and long series of metal poles where you can hang your clothes. Lookout for designs that can be unfolded easily that comes with a couple of separate sections at its end for added drying space. Since it’s foldable, you can easily store it when not in use. There are also standing electric clothes airer that’s very convenient during rainy or winter seasons. Manufacturers don’t recommend leaving any electric heated products unattended but in practice, this is how most people use them. Most come with timers and thermostats to choose lower temperatures for longer drying periods. How much do heated air dryers cost to run?It’s effectively a fan on detachable tripod feet with a pole, at the top of which there are six spokes designed to hold up to 12 hangers of spin-dried or well-wrung damp clothing (up to 10kg). It’s particularly useful for shirts and blouses, since being able to hang T-shirts in this way means they dry straight with minimal creases, meaning less ironing. But it’s less useful for drying, say, towels. Like most things in life, it depends. In this case: on the amount of clothes you need to dry and how fast you want them to dry. Tiered airers have several levels, four feet and a signature concertina criss-cross look. They’re assembled in one swift pulling motion and pushed down to revert them to folded. These multi-level airers come in different sizes but they tend to have enough space to hang an everyday load of washing including hand towels, T-shirts, shorts, trousers and delicates. Gated The best heated airers and drying pods dried small loads in a comparable time to tumble dryers; the worst took over six hours. Energy use Finding the best heated clothes airer may not sound like the most exciting of pursuits. But as a means of drying your clothes in winter, these gadgets are hard to beat. Not only is a heated airer far kinder to your treasured garments than tumble drying (it adds years to the lifespan of your clothes), it’s also better for the environment. It eliminates that damp washing smell and is a good way of minimising crinkles, so you might not need to invest in an iron or a steamer. Most heated airers also fold up compactly for storage.
Have a window open. Perhaps obvious, but it's also free, which the other methods aren't. It clears the 'wet' air out and let fresh air in. OK to do on milder days, but I know most of us don't want the windows flung open on the cold winter months, so instead you could... The best heated airers cost as little as 6p per hour to run, while the most costly came in at around 32p an hour. Stability Heated bar clothes airers use (as the name suggests) heated bars to dry clothes, with each one acting like a mini radiator. Made from light yet robust aluminium, this Dry:Soon3-Tier Standard Heated Airer is easy to move around and folds down to 8cm or less deep for storage, ready to be pressed into action throughout the winter months, or whenever the weather isn't cooperating. Which? Recommended Heated Clothes Airers Hanging corners: These are a great addition to provide extra space for items to dry – some airers can hold up to four items on each corner.
Our Dry:Soon heated clothes airers cost just pennies to run*. They're much kinder to clothes than tumble drying and they're neater and more efficient than laying laundry over your radiators, especially in those warm but rainy months. Versatile Tiered: These collapsible airers fold out to form a cross-like structure that can support heavier weighted clothes whilst taking up very little floor space. They’re compact, sturdy, and (depending on the number of tiers) can hold a whole family wash. We took each airer's capacity into account to also calculate the cost of drying a large cotton load.
There are no heated airers I've seen that let you only turn on a few of the bars at a time, so if you don’t fill it up you’ll have empty bars heating up but drying nothing, and therefore wasting money. All heated airers are stable enough to hold a full load of washing, but some were more flexible and easy to topple than our top recommendations. Ease of use Every airer I’ve tested simply turns on and off, so it costs the same per hour to run whether you’ve got a item of clothing on every bar or not.There are two main types of heated clothes airer: heated bar clothes airers and drying pods. Both work very differently. I don't own a tumble dryer and, honestly, I'm still not sure I'd get one. I have a traditional clothes horse, leave the clothes to dry overnight, and use my trusty window vac to deal with any condensation. Accessories available separately include: Dry:Soon 3-Tier Standard Heated Airer Cover to keep the heat in and speed up drying, which also doubles as a storage bag for the folded airer; and the Mesh Shelf Duo, a pair of mesh shelves for laying delicate and smaller items flat rather than hanging them over the bars. About Dry:Soon Heated Airers Gated: Aptly named, these airers resemble fences and fold out to stand in a concertina. These are normally the cheapest clothes airers and are popular with students because they’re functional and don’t take up much space in storage. However, this design hasn’t made it into our best buy roundup because they tend to be flimsy and unstable.
Fold down dimensions and floor space: Keep in mind the size of the airer when it’s folded down so that you have room to store it. That said, most are compact and will take up minimal space. How we test clothes airers I've only tested heated airers that come with plastic covers. The plastic doesn't let moisture through, so the clothes takes longer to dry - more than six hours for a cotton load.Einstein said doing the same thing again and again, and expecting different results, is the definition of insanity. If that's true then I've well and truly gone loopy. I found the Dry:Soon took around four to five hours to dry lighter materials; and closer to 10-12 for heavier jumpers and the like. In the world of heated clothes airers, that’s really pretty good – the cover certainly does its job. Heated airers can look pretty same-y but this John Lewis option stands out from the crowd thanks to one small thing: shoe dryers. If you’ve been caught out in a storm and had to stuff your shoes full of old newspapers of kitchen towels to dry them, only to find them still slightly soggy the next day, this is for you. However, here are some more specific figures from my hours of measuring heated airer running costs to help you decide if one is cost-effective for you:
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