Endurism Spotlight: The Heat-Pump Dryer

A budget tumble dryer sells for €299. Over ten years it burns about €1.848 of electricity. The price on the box is the small number. The number on your energy bill is the real one. It arrives every single week.

The money

A heat-pump dryer recycles its own warm air instead of heating cold air from scratch. It runs on about a third of the power of a cheap condenser dryer. The Miele TEA 528 WP EcoSpeed costs €1.149. Miele runs this series through five thousand drying cycles on the bench before it ships. That is twenty years of normal use. The wearing parts are stocked and replaceable. A technician services it rather than condemning it.

The math

Put the two machines side by side. The cheap condenser draws about 3,5 kWh per load. The Miele draws about 1,1. At 160 loads a year and €0,33 per kWh, that is €185 against €58. The gap is €127 a year, on electricity alone.

Ten years in, the cheap dryer has cost €2.147 and is near the end of its life. The Miele has cost €1.730 and is built to run for a decade more. The cheaper machine is the more expensive one. That holds before you have replaced it once.

A budget heat-pump dryer now sells for around €439. It closes most of the electricity gap. Against that machine the Miele wins on the twenty-year bench test and on resale. Against the cheap condenser it wins on both.

Ownership

A dryer does not age into character. It earns its keep by still working on the day the cheap one quits. A used Miele dryer holds €300 to €600 on Marktplaats years after it sold new. The budget machine leaves on the kerb with its cord wrapped around it and a resale value of nothing. One of these is an asset you can sell. The other is a cost you absorb.

The cheap dryer costs you every week for a decade. Buy the one you buy once.