When we move to Taipei we plan to buy a clothes dryer. In the US, the option is natural gas heating with 120V for the controls only, or 220/240V high voltage for both the drying and controls. There are no pure 120V dryers here.
In looking at apartments for rent I never see dryers, only washers, so I assume their is no “hookup” installed for dryers like in the US.
If I buy a full size dryer there, will I be able to get 120V electric models that I can simply plug in the wall in any room and vent it out the window or set it on the balcony? Or will I have to pay someone to install a 220/240V line or gas line into the apartment/balcony to power a dryer?
If paying for a new line/outlet, has anyone done this with success and recalls about what it costs?
Obviously a 240V dryer works better/faster than 120V, but the convenience of plug and play may beat that out. Thanks!
I have a dryer that plugs into a regular outlet (120 V). Waste of money. Clothes are dry in about 4-5 hours. I’d rather hang them inside with the dehumidifier running.
The up side is that there’s no need to vent to the outside. It only gets as warm as an electric heater. In other words, warm… not hot.
I now use it as a coffee table. It works very well for that purpose.
They do exist. The ball’n’chain insisted on buying one. As @Caspian said, complete waste of time and money, except possibly for a month in winter when it takes 36 hours for clothes to dry outside instead of 6.
A 110V outlet is limited to about 1400W, which is adequate to get the job done. Electricity is so heavily subsidized here that there’s little practical difference between using electricity vs. gas.
There is also a 7kg version. I had a 7Kg TECO drier in the past and it was next to useless. Costco sell gas driers if you see yourself doing a lot of laundry and don’t have a large balcony for hanging clothes to dry.
Do you know how much sun your apartment balcony is getting? Most of the washing machines you buy here have a spin dry cycle, and when we hang clothes on our balcony after that, they’re usually dry within six or seven hours of daylight - maybe 24 hours in winter. (And about two hours on a summer morning.)
Results of course vary depending on the balcony, but I wouldn’t assume a dryer is necessary.
Again, I think it depends on the balcony. Our clothes are almost always dry within 24 hours - 48 hours would be the coldest rainiest couple of weeks in winter. But we’ve got the full sun from around 7am until noon, with no other buildings in the way.
i have a combo unit from panasonic that i have on my balcony. it does take forever to dry (3 hours typically). i toss in a bounce dryer sheet when drying. the result is pretty good - not as good as the dryer i had in the states by any means, but the clothes are soft, dry and have the dryer sheet smell. i hate hang drying the clothes because the clothes are usually ‘hard’ and scratchy, and if outside, they have that dusty smell that i hate.
if you don’t mind hang dried clothes, you should do that instead (like most taiwan ppl do). but if you are too used to dryer dried clothes with that dryer sheet smell, and you have the money to spend on the electricity, getting a combo unit will work well enough.
Normally clothes will dry quickly here in Taiwan, but it depends on the season and the location. I guess most of the above commenters live in Taipei where I guess you don’t necessarily need one. But, go a little south to Taoyuan or Hsinchu and it’s a whole other ballgame. Your clothes will never get dry, no matter what you do.
We bought a second hand TECO dryer 7 years ago and in the winter it gets used a lot. With a full household we have such a lot of laundry every week that it is simple not an option to not have one. We wash, hang it out to dry and 24 hours later when it is 50-70% dry it only takes an hour or so in the dryer to get it completely dry. I think we paid NT$2000 for the TECO one and it rusts like crazy, but up till now one of the best buys we have made.
240v is best. I have a cheap second hand sampo 120v. I let clothes hang till almost dry and then toast them in the dryer. Not as easy as the US, but I have fluffy towels. I think it sanitizes my clothes but I could be mistaken.
Thanks to all for your replies and links! We hang dry about 1/2 our clothes now even in the US, to keep them nice longer. However in Taiwan we will likely have a small apartment (maybe 25 pings or so) and have minimal space for cloths hanging. Also we don’t want to be hanging up underwear and towels/sheets etc. Gotta get a dryer for those items at least
