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With the cost of gas and electricity increasing and the current cost-of-living crisis, we’re all looking at ways to save money or, more accurately, be more efficient with the money we spend. This is ever more apparent during the winter when we’re not able to hang clothes outside to air dry or simply don’t have the ideal space to hang clothes inside.
The indoor options available, such as tumble dryers are expensive, aren’t the most environmentally friendly machines and you really don’t want to dry clothes on radiators as it’s extremely expensive.
One of the best and most popular and, dare I say it, economical solutions available is an electrically powered heated airer. In fact, these devices are becoming so popular this winter that they are more than often, sold out.
Among these hard-to-source products, particularly for larger families, is the Dry:Soon Deluxe 3-Tier Heated Airer from Lakeland. We managed to get hold of one and put it to the test.
Here are our thoughts.
Here is a quick and overall summary of the Dry:Soon Deluxe 3-Tier Heated Airer.
It’s a great and well made product and whilst it isn’t the cheapest we believe its well worth the money, particularly as it will save you money and be more efficient in the long-term than the other options available.
Whilst the package was quite large the box was efficiently packed with the heated airer in a clear plastic cover and the User Guide. Simple and basic, yet effective. It does what it says on the box!
The User Guide provided simple and clear instructions on how to set up the airer, how to look after the airer and safety instructions. As far as User Guides are concerned, it was one of the best we’ve seen with super simple step-by-step instructions, supported by extremely easy-to-follow diagrams.
Setting up the airer for it’s first use was super easy and really just involved unclipping and folding out the leg supports out and then folding out the heated bars. The heated bars rest on a small plastic clip on the leg supports to give it some sturdiness. This process is extremely intuitive and only take a minute or two.
A couple of things to remember are that the unit should be placed on a hard even surface and you can use half, ie, one side of the unit, if you have a smaller load. We placed the unit on both a hard wood floor and a carpeted floor and both worked well.
The plug is located in a convenient holder at the top of the unit and the cable is long enough to stretch a couple of metres. In our view, it would be nice if the cable was a metre or two longer to make locating the airer even more flexible. But, that’s certainly a nice to have and not a must have. Once plugged in the LED lights up and the heating bars gently warm up.
Once set up and plugged in, it’s simply a case of laying your clothes on the heated bars. For our first load we hung each item from the bars, this giving the ability to add virtually a full load to the airer. This certainly wasn’t the most efficient set up as the clothes took around 10 hours to dry, simply because not enough of the garment was being impacted by the hot bars.
For the second load of drying we reduced the number of clothes with each garment being hung over two or 3 of the heated bars. This worked well with the overall drying time of the load, bearing in mind we swapped the clothes after 3 or so hours, being around around 7 hours.
For the third load we followed the User Guide which states “FOR OPTIMUM RESULTS, LAY LAUNDRY FLAT FOR FASTER DRYING” and placed garments over as many hot bars as possible. This significantly reduced the drying time, but obviously meant you had to regular replace the garments. Not necessarily a problem, but it does mean you can’t simply leave the garments to dry without rotating them.
Overall, we felt the performance of the device was great and met our expectations. You can simply place a washing load and leave if you have more time, or rotate if you need your clothes to dry more quickly.
The key thing is to manage your expectation with one of these devices. The simply won’t dry clothes as quickly as a dryer, hanging outside or placing on radiators. BUT, it will be more efficient, use less power, and ultimately save money. That’s a big positive in our view.
One of the advantageous features of the Dry:Soon Deluxe is the timer setting. It has a couple of nice elements to manage time and manage when the airer is on. The options available are:
Setting the timer for all options was pretty straightforward and can be done with just a few pushes of the control buttons. The digital display was clear and the details of the timer made sense. The User Guide also does a good job of clearly presenting the instructions should you need a bit of extra help.
The Dry:Soon Deluxe folds really neatly down to be easily stored, just remember to turn it off before doing so. The folding leg supports clip into a holder keeping them in place and the plug is stored neatly in a plug holder at the top of the unit.
The footprint when folded is relatively small (75cm x 10cm) so the unit can be store easel in a cupboard or such like.
Firstly, let’s set the scene. The estimated costs of drying a single washing load in a tumble dryer is £2.80. The approximate cost of heating one load of laundry on a radiator is £1.32, but that doesn’t take into account the inefficiency this causes due to the fact that the clothes will take all the heat away from the rest of your home. And, let’s face it a radiator isn’t meant for heating clothes, it’s meant to keep your house warm.
So, what does that mean for the Dry:Soon 3-Tier Heater Airer?
The power output for the unit is 300W, and with an estimated cost of around 10 pence per hour the overall cost will be around £0.60 per hour assuming you rotate the load as per our example above. That’s a significant saving compared to other options for drying clothes during winter.
We used the Sust-it electricity cost calculator to work out these numbers and remember these are only a broad guide.
Yes, it absolutely is. If you have a large family and have a enough room to place a unit the Dry:Soon Deluxe is a great option, even if it isn’t the cheapest on the market. For the extra cost, you do get a well made, sturdy product.
It took us a few goes to get the most efficient number of clothes and their positioning to achieve the most efficient drying time, but with a bit of trial and error it worked well.
We didn’t purchase the Cover option, but will do as soon as it becomes available as we believe it will significantly reduce drying time. When we’ve tried it out, we’ll update this article.
If you're still undecided, take a look at our guide to the best heated airers available today.
Our editors have independently selected and reviewed all of the products you see here. The reviews can contain links from affiliates, which means we may receive a small commission on editorially chosen products purchased through our links.
