My new heat pump tumble dryer

[matt8808]

Figured I'd do a little review of my swanky new tumble dryer... purely for the purposes of showing it off of course LOL

SO...

I decided my bog standard vented Hotpoint machine needed upgrading / replacing. I'd had it a year and a half and it had taken some hammering. I tumble dry EVERYTHING. Regardless of the weather.

I wanted somthing with a large capacity, sensor drying and most importanly given the high useage I wanted something that was going to be energy efficient. So this narrowed it down to a heat pump machine.

I was initially looking at buying a Miele TKB440WP as we own a Miele washing machine.
It was rated at A+ energy efficiency with an 8kg load capacity at £1099.

Then I saw the LG Hybrid RC9055BP2Z machine.
A++ energy rating, 9KG load capacity, a lot more features and only £749.

I did toy with the idea of holding on and saving the cash for the Miele, but at the end of the day the features of the LG machine appealed to me much more.

It was £749 with £50 off when you traded in your old machine. I then took out the 5 years extended warranty for £59 bringing it to a total of £758.

The first machine was a DISASTER. I can only assume the compressor for the heat pump was faulty as it wasn't removing any moisture from the items inside / wasn't condensing anything. The retailer I bought it from were very swift in collecting the faulty machine and delivering a new replacement.

Before they took the faulty machine away I had a quick look in the back. The extra heater element had 'AEG 1000W' stamped on it. So I'm assuming it is a part possibly supplied by AEG? And uses 1000W of power?

Anyway. On to the machine itself.

The eco hybrid system is simple. You can either dry in eco mode using only the heat pump - This gives you an A++ energy rating, or you can dry in speed mode using both the heat pump and a traditional heater element reducing drying times by around 30% and still giving an energy efficiency rating of 'A'.

The machine has a total input of 1800W, so assuming that the heater element itself is 1000W, running in eco mode with just the heat pump uses only 800w of power.

When you select a cycle, say cottons on eco mode, it estimates that it will take 3 hours, however the cycle usually drys a full load in around two hours. The speed mode does shorten the time, but not my a huge deal IMHO and I rarely use this mode.

I tend to dry using the mixed fabrics cycle. The basket of washing in the pictures is two loads from our 7KG Miele washing machine. As you can see the dryer swallows it nicely.
The mixed fabrics cycle has a maximim capacity of only 4KG and it estimates it will take an hour and a half to complete. I use this cycle as it barely applies any heat to the clothes, however given I've exeeded the advised loading capacity the load of washing pictured (heavy items - towels, jeans ect) actually took two and a half hours, an hour over the estimated time. Had I used the normal cotton cycle this time would of been much shorter.

I can dry a load of bedding with some bath towels ect on the cotton cycle set to eco and cupboard dry in around an hour and a half.

Build quality is superb, for example to door and hinge are VERY sturdy. There is the usual glass bowl and also a secondary plastic cover on the outside of the door to stop you being able to touch the hot glass bowl while the machine is in operation.
As this machine has a heat pump to condense the moisture there is no huge blast of hot air blown from the machine like a normal condenser machine does. Rather than having to use air from the room to cool a heat exchanger, the heat pump creates the cold surface for condensing the water. Similar to the way a fridge works - hence no blast of hot air being blown from the machine.
The machine is fully self cleaning other than the lint filter and it also come with a seperate drain hose should you wish to connect the dryer to a drain (to save you having to empty the water container).
I've included a picture of the moisture sensors in the drum, these are the two metal strips behind the filter.
Airflow through the drum looks to be very high, I've included a picture of a smaller load and as you can see, as the tea towel tumbles by the door it is partially sucked into the filter area.
I've not had any issues with small items becoming stuck to the filter as the other washing always knocks it free.
Oh and there is also a nifty drying rack included for drying delicate items and things like training shoes.
Noise is average. It sounds pretty much the same as a friends Miele condenser dryer, other than when the pump kicks in for the self cleaning mode to wash the heat exchanger - then it sounds a like a dishwasher as you can hear the water being sprayed about!
I did try looking into LG machines prior to purchase, and couldn't find a huge deal on them in this country. There were a few issues with drums on older 'normal' machines in places like America, however this machine has a totally different style of drum so hopefully it will give many years of trouble free service.

All in all I'm really pleased with it. It took a while to adjust to the longer drying times, but this is due to the superb energy efficiency.

Anyway here are a load of pictures and some links to the machine on the LG website ect ect....

Oh and please excuse the clutter around the dryer... It is located in what is essentially our 'junk room'. The dryer is also stood on the wooden plinth as the user guide says not to install it on carpeted floors.


http://www.lg.com/uk/tumble-dryers/lg-RC9055BP2Z

 

[matt8808]

Rest of the pics....

 

[matt8808]

Oh and heres a promo video on the machine from LG. All in all I'm very very impressed with it.

Mine hasn't got the steam function. I opted for a machine without this as ours isn't loacated near a water supply and I was told it would of required plumbing into mains water for the steam functon!

 

[adamthemieleman]

I rather have a soft spot for LG, obviously they are no Miele, but I think they are good value for the money
, especially compared to their Korean counterpart, and the likes of hotpoint and even bosch. LG have now introduced a five year warranty to their washers, which I assume is confidence and not sufferance like gimmicky Samsung. I told our Samsung rep exactly what I thought, the phrase all fur coat and no knickers was what I used. He was not happy!

 

[richardc1983]

Very nice. I have a beko heat pump dryer and I find whilst very good it is noisy and the compressor gives out quite a din once its started. Theres a vent on the front bottom corner that has a little cooling fan in which I assume is to cool the compressor as it only starts after about half an hour running this is where the noise comes from when the compressor starts up. Not sure why it needed the hole here as all that happens is lots of noise comes from it. Ive tried covering the vent up just to see and you then couldnt hear the metallic compressor sound. I also dont think air flow is that great either and if the airflow was higher clothes may dry quicker but im not sure.

Good video, the glass door and the self cleaning condenser are very good ideas as well and features worth having.

I have a question for you, when it goes into reverse tumble how long does this last for? On mine it is literally 3 seconds before going the usual way.

 

[dlaloum]

Install - distance from rear wall?

Hi,

Question for you - how far is your machine from the rear wall?

According to the manual, it needs to be 30cm to 50cm from the wall behind it, and if under a benchtop then it also needs 30 to 50cm on each side...

So effectively it needs to be halfway into the room ??!?!

Does it work OK closer to the wall?
Does this impact its efficiency?

thanks

 

[matt8808]

Hi guys! Sorry for the mega late reply - have only just seen your comments!

Adam - Yes I'm not a fan of Samsung appliances at all. We had one of their washers about 7 - 8 years ago maybe and it did nothing but break down. For some reason there was a fault they could never get to the bottom of. A 30 minute quick wash would take the machine about 4 hours for example and it used to refuse to spin for no reason. In the end it decided it would spin one day, and nearly demolished the kitchen units either side of the machine. We thought a car had crashed into the front of the house it was making so much noise bouncing about. Went to pull the plug out to stop it only to find the moulded plug and mains cable had started to melt! Comet soon offered us a replacement and we exchnaged it for a Bosch.

When I bought the LG dryer I breifly looked at Samsung but the build quality seeemed very poor. Interestingly we had an LG washing machine before we bought the Miele washer. The LG washer we had looked very similar to the LG dryer I've got but the water recirculation pump started to fail after about two years and we decided to just replace the full machine.... The wash performance had been OUTSTANDING on the LG washer though, hence I was willing to take a chnace on an LG dryer. A few people I used to work with at Currys got LG washers about the same time we had got ours and thiers are still going strong so thats reassuring at least.

Richard - Mine is pretty quiet I think really. The compressor is certainly no louder than most fridge freezers for example. Mine has a cooling fan with vents on the rear of the machine, but this only seems to come into operation when the machine is being used in 'Speed' mode, obviously to help deal with the extra heat created by the traditional heater unit.

Airflow on mine seems huge. Obv I've had the machine a good few months now to get used to it. I've had one incident where I was drying a small load and the machine sucked a sock into the filter area. I was alerted to this as the machine started beeping and cancelled the cycle because it thought the filter needed cleaning.

Reverse tumble is an interesting one and has really taken some figuring out.
If I set it on a manual 'Timed' cycle it doesn't seem to reverse at all.
It doesn't seem to reverse when being used in speed mode either.
On eco mode it SOMETIMES reverses on the cottons cycle - but not enough for my liking.
I tend to use 3 cycles now I've adjusted to the machine.
Mixed fabrics - reverse tumbles and dries things using what I'd class as medium heat.
Easy care - reverse tumbles and uses a very low heat. I use this for loads that contain stuff at risk of shrinking.
Bulky item - this seems to have the most reverse tumling and I use it for bedding and large loads of towels ect.

Sadly the reverse tumble is only for about 5 seconds though. Not had any issues with 'normal' loads of washing, however certain heavy bedding sets like to wrap themselves into a ball, even on the Bulky Item cycle and need some level of supervision.

Dlaloum - Mine is a good 30cm from the wall so I can't really comment. While the machine does not blow hot air into the room, it does radiate quite a bit of heat so I'd advise installing it as per the user guide. I'd imagine that if airflow around the machine was restricted then it would be at risk of overheating and possibly fire.

Well guys... I've had the machine just over 3 months now and I'm still very happy with it. I'm used to how long it takes to dry things and such like and I've got all the cycles figured out. In an ideal would the reverse tumble would be better, but thats about the only thing I would change on it. When the machine is running it will perform the 'self clean' cycle on the heat exchanger a few times per cycle. Family members will hear this and have passed comments such as 'the dryer is making a funny noise' LOL it sounds very much like a dishwasher when it starts to self clean. Time will tell how well it performs long term, however with the 5 years extended warranty I'm not too concerned. So far it has been getting an average of 6 - 7 hours use per week. Some weeks it gets 10+ hours.

Knowing what I know now, if I could go back in time I'd definately buy this machine again

 

[gus]

Good report on the dryer. Quite complete and useful, when thinking of buying a compressor dryer. Thank you for sharing this information. I wish you long years of faultless use of the machine. Gus