How to Choose a Heat-Pump Tumble Dryer

If you’re replacing a tumble dryer, the single biggest decision is the drying technology, not the brand. It determines both the sticker price and what you’ll actually pay to run the thing for the next decade.

The three types, in plain terms

Vented dryers blow hot, moist air straight outside through a duct. They’re the cheapest to buy and the fastest to dry a load, but they use the most energy and need an exterior wall or window vent, which rules them out for a lot of flats and internal utility rooms.

Condenser dryers don’t need venting, they collect moisture in a tank or drain it away, and cool it back to water inside the machine. They’re more flexible to install than vented dryers but land in the middle on running cost.

Heat-pump dryers use a refrigerant circuit to recycle heat rather than generating it fresh each cycle, similar in principle to a fridge working in reverse. That’s what gets them onto the top of the EU energy label. They cost more to buy, dry more slowly, but use meaningfully less electricity per load.

What to actually compare

Once you’ve decided on heat-pump, the differences between models come down to a short list of numbers, all of which you’ll find on each model’s tumble dryer spec page:

• Capacity (kg). Match this to your washing machine’s capacity, or slightly below it, drying a full washer load in one dryer cycle is the most efficient way to use either machine.
• Energy per cycle (kWh). This is the number that actually determines your electricity bill, not the letter class alone. Since 1 July 2025 dryers carry the rescaled A-G label, see our rescale check for why an older “A+++” badge can be unverified or already out of date. Two heat-pump dryers with the same current energy class can still differ by 20% or more on energy per cycle.
• Condensation class. This measures how well the dryer keeps moisture out of the room, rather than the energy label, which measures electricity use. Look for A-rated condensation if the dryer sits in a bedroom or living space.
• Sensor drying. Worth having on almost any budget, it stops the cycle the moment clothes are dry instead of running a fixed timer, saving both energy and unnecessary wear on fabric.
• Refrigerant type. Newer models increasingly use R290, a lower-global-warming-potential refrigerant than older R134a designs, if that matters to you, it’s usually stated in the spec sheet.

What the numbers look like in practice

The specs above are easy to compare on paper. In practice, they don’t always move together, and a couple of real examples from our own dataset are worth knowing before you shortlist anything.

A higher energy class doesn’t guarantee a quieter machine, or a payback that’s worth chasing. Across Siemens’s own four 9kg heat-pump dryers, the class-A flagship is actually a decibel louder than the class-B model one rung below it, and it costs more to buy. Moving up one energy-class letter isn’t free either: in that lineup, the jump from class C to class B pays for itself in a few years of typical use, but the next jump, from B to A, costs more upfront and saves so little per year that it doesn’t pay back within a dryer’s realistic working life. See our full breakdown of Siemens’s quietest 9kg dryer for the numbers. The lesson generalises: check noise and price alongside the energy label, don’t assume the priciest, highest-lettered model is automatically the best buy for your situation.

Published pricing is patchy across this category, so budget for legwork. Manufacturers are consistent about publishing energy class and capacity, less consistent about publishing a price you can actually compare. In our own heat-pump dryer set, most models require a direct check with a retailer rather than offering a manufacturer-quoted price outright, so treat any price you see during your shortlist stage as a starting point to confirm, not a final number. See our price-transparency check across heat-pump dryers for what we found when we looked.

Washer-dryer combo vs. separate dryer

If you’re short on space or plumbing, it’s worth ruling out a 2-in-1 washer-dryer combo before committing to a standalone heat-pump dryer. A combo washes and dries in the same drum, one machine instead of two, and it’s usually cheaper to buy than a separate washing machine plus a dedicated dryer bought new. The trade-off is real, though: washing and drying in one drum uses meaningfully more electricity per kilogram actually dried than a dedicated heat-pump dryer built for that job alone, and a combo’s dry capacity per cycle is typically smaller than what it just washed, so you may need to run it more than once to fully dry a full wash load. See our comparison of a wash-dryer combo against buying separately for the actual figures. If you have room for two machines, a separate heat-pump dryer chosen using the criteria above will almost always cost less to run over its lifetime; a combo earns its place mainly when space or plumbing genuinely won’t allow a second machine.

A sensible shortlist process

Filter the tumble dryer category by capacity and dryer type, sort by energy per cycle, and shortlist three or four models within your budget. From there, use the compare tool to put your finalists side by side, every spec, one table, and the running-cost calculator to translate the energy figures into an actual annual cost based on your own electricity tariff.

Work through the shortlist in this order and you’ll avoid most of the mistakes above:

1. Set your capacity first, matched to your washing machine, so you’re not comparing dryers that can’t actually handle a full wash load in one go.
2. Filter to heat-pump only, then sort by energy per cycle rather than by the badge alone, since two models in the same class can still differ meaningfully on this number.
3. Check the current EPREL registration for any model still showing an old-style “A+++” badge, using the rescale check above, before you let that badge push the price up in your mind.
4. Cross-check noise and warranty, not just efficiency, the way the class-A and class-B Siemens comparison above shows why. A machine that runs a decibel or two louder can matter more day to day than a fraction of a euro in annual running cost.
5. Confirm the price directly, since a meaningful share of heat-pump dryers don’t publish one, then run the final number through the running-cost calculator so you’re comparing total cost of ownership, not just the sticker price.

None of this takes long once you’ve narrowed to heat-pump models in your capacity range, and it’s the difference between paying for a badge and paying for a dryer that’s actually going to be cheap to run for the next decade.