Heat Pump Dryer for less than 15 man yen?

Spending Wisely

Most people in Japan choose to dry their clothes by simply handing them outside and letting them dry in the sun. And why not? It’s ecologically friendly and free – until it rains. I myself have had to sit around for days waiting for the rain to end so I could wash clothes.

There are some alternatives when it’s wet outside, however:

  1. Buying a separate clothes dryer, or a washing machine with dryer functionality built in
  2. Buying a separate dehumidifier and hanging up the clothes inside to dry
  3. Using an air conditioner “dry” function and hanging up clothes inside to dry

The big disadvantage of the second two options is that you have to hang your clothes inside your house, which may be inconvenient. On the other hand, using a dryer comes with its own disadvantages:

  1. A separate clothes dryer takes up significant extra space – This is why combination machines are popular in Japan.
  2. A gas or electric dryer makes your house that much warmer since they are rarely vented in Japan. The extra warmth can be a positive in the winter, but a curse in the summer.
  3. With high temperatures comes risk of fire.
  4. A gas or electric dryer will also not be very ecologically friendly and will run up your utility bill – especially if your air conditioner has to work that much harder to compensate for all of the heat released by your dryer. Typical electric heating based units use between 3 to 9 kWh per load.
  5. Even combination washer-dryer units entail an extra cost for the dryer functionality.
  6. Most electric dryers are designed to be plugged into any normal socket, and so can’t draw more than 15 amps. This means they will take a long time to dry clothes. Gas dryers are typically much more powerful, but need to be somewhere with a gas outlet.

New Technologies

There has been a few innovations over the years, including the condenser dryers, which try to re-use the hot air inside the dryer instead releasing it into the room or outside. This is an improvement, but they weren’t particularly cheap, and still required about 2 kWh of electricity per load.

In the past few years, heat pump dryers have become available. These don’t really try to dry the clothes strictly through heating. In fact, the name is somewhat of a misnomer, as they basically work like a compressor based dehumidifier.

A compressor based dehumidifier is in fact a specialized type of heat pump. It’s like and air conditioner where the hot side and cold side are in the same room. The cold side gets cold, and the hot side gets hot. Air is pumped past the cold side, where water condenses and drips down, much like water from the air condenses on a cold glass of iced tea on a warm summer day. The air then goes past the warm side and is heated up again. The whole apparatus does make some amount of heat since it’s not perfectly efficient, but nowhere near as much as an electric heater – and hence a humidifier won’t hear your room nearly as much as a heater.

Now imagine you integrated a dehumidifier into your dryer. This would seem to be relatively straightforward. The air needs to be pumped through the drum where the clothes are, and the drum should be rotating in order to keep the clothes exposed to the air – but otherwise the remaining changes are down to how to the logistics of how fit all of this into one box.

Since you can buy a drum-type washing machine for less than 10 man, and you can buy a dehumidifier for less than 5 man, it would be reasonable to assume manufacturers should be able to make and sell a heat-pump based washer/dryer combo for less than 15 man.

Sadly, though, the price of a current model washer-dryer combo using heat-pump technology has been stuck around 25 man – 45 man (depending on brand and size) for a few years. In fact, you can buy old stock of a “new” unit that is no longer a current model on sale for as little as 12.5 man. This will be for a less popular model from a less famous manufacturer and will be a 1-2 years old model – but the point is there are deals to be found.

Still, if you wanted a new current model machine with reasonable capacity, you needed to be prepared for sticker shock – until now.

Nitori last year released a large drum style washing machine (with no dryer feature) for less than 10 man (and in fact a mini sized one for around 5.5 man). Now just a few days ago released a washer-dryer combo using heat pump technology for slightly less than 15 man.

In fact, this isn’t a bare bones model either:

  1. It has a heat pump and also an electric heater mode (You can use both at the same time for faster drying).
  2. It can handle loads of 12 Kg (wash) / 7 Kg (dry)
  3. Has “OxyWave” germ killing technology
  4. Has wrinkle reduction technology
  5. Auto-cleaning for 2 of the 4 filters. (The remaining should be checked once per week)
  6. Can dehumidify the room it is used in as well if desired.
  7. Auto Soap dispensing with large soap containers. (So you don’t need to fill it often).
  8. Low noise design with night mode.
  9. Automatic door gasket cleaning (Is this really a common problem?)
  10. Has hot water washing (to kill germs, handle cleaning, etc)
  11. It comes with a 5 year warranty

I’m not a Nitori sales person, and I am not here to extol the virtues of OxyWave or vouch for their anti-wrinkle technology. My only point it that this isn’t some super bare bones model where you need supply your own power cord and hamsters to run inside to rotate the drum. They didn’t remove all of the features just so they could say they have a sub 15 man unit, they created a 15 man unit that can actually compete with the higher end models you can find from the likes of Panasonic and Toshiba at places like Bic Camera and Yodobashi Camera.

More importantly, this isn’t some suspicious item from land fill waste vendors like wish.com or alibaba. It’s from a real company in Japan that has a brand name to protect and is known for good service. Did they actually build this washing machine? I’m sure they didn’t – but they sell it online and in their stores, which means they believe it will add value to their brand name. Perhaps more importantly, they have a 5 year warranty and reliable customer service. It doesn’t really matter who makes it, or where. What matters is who sells and supports it.

Now, having a “Support heater”, doesn’t that defeat the point? Well..

  1. “Handle It” (Standard/Hybrid) Mode – This mode uses only around half the electricity of a normal electric dryer of the same size, and takes 40 minutes less time to finish.
  2. Eco Mode – This takes much longer, but only 37% of the electricity a normal electric dryer would. (Put another way, it only uses 75% of the electricity as “handle it” mode).

So you’ll directly save money vs. a normal electric dryer on every use, and then save even more in the summer since it won’t be fighting with the air conditioner.

How much money does this actually add up to? Well if we believe Nitori’s numbers and assume a service life of 10 years and 1 load per week, we arrive at the following results:

ModePer WashPer Year (52 loads)10 Years
Standard Mode29 JPY1508 JPY15080 JPY
Eco Mode36 JPY1872 JPY18720 JPY

I checked the model they are comparing against, and it is basically the same model, just without the heat pump. Same capacity and the other features are basically the same, so it is a fair comparison. The other model is 13.3 man with shipping (if you can receive it on a weekday), so the difference in price is only about 1.7 man. This means that if it lasts 10 years or more, you can roughly expect to break even if you use the dryer feature once per week. Also, adding 1.7 man to the price to build in a dehumidifier seems very reasonable considering the price of stand alone dehumidifiers. Finally, there is the ecological benefit.

Perhaps the more important factor for many Japanese households will be the ability to dry clothes without filling the room with hot, humid air.

Only time will tell with regard to the reliability and longevity of this particular model, but the fact that a 5 year warranty is included is a good sign.

Exception or Trend?

Lately companies that traditionally didn’t offer much in the way of household appliances have began to enter this market. Muji, for example, sells things like fans, and even a low end washing machine. Ikea sells things like dish washing machines and microwave ovens. Shimachu Homes also sells air conditioners and such now. These companies often offer no-frills, but still very reliable options for reasonable prices. This means you may be able to save money without compromising on quality, so heading straight to the closest electronics retailer might not always be the best course of action.

Personal Experience

My experience with Japanese washing machines is that you can easily expect more than 10 years service life on average. My current Hitachi BigDrum BY-V1100 has been chugging along without problems since 2009 – 16 years as of now. I also have the 6 Kg drum model washing machine Nitori released last year at one of my properties and I haven’t heard any complaints so far.

Earlier this year, I went to Korea for vacation and stayed at a short term rental which had a washing machine heat pump dryer. I stayed for about a week, so I had accumulated dirty clothes by the end. I didn’t want to pack my suitcase with dirty clothes and was curious to try the machine. Not only did it work very well, but it was nearly silent. This was great since the walls were paper thin. It dried the clothes very well, but I didn’t over-dry them to the point that static electricity was a problem, and it didn’t heat up the laundry room noticeably.

Even though the Eco mode takes longer, I think I would normally use that and just dry the clothes while I sleep. Since the clothes also ended up much fluffier than line-drying, I would probably use it more often. (I only vary rarely use the electric dryer function on my current machine).

As for buying appliances from household goods companies: Besides the aforementioned 6 kg washing machine, I have also purchased LED ceiling lights from Nitori. To be sure, these are not as fancy as those from Panasonic or Hitachi, but work work perfectly and still have the 5 year warranty. This is a huge contrast from failed experiments at buying things from no-name sellers on Amazon and foreign sites.

Beware of cheap sellers/sites:

The old adage “If it’ too good to be true, it probably is” rings true. When I first moved house and needed to replace a bunch of lights at once. I bought nice fancy lights for the living room, etc., but I resorted to no-name/no-brand 3rd party sellers on Amazon, and foreign eCommerce sites with predictable results.

  1. A replacement bulb (i.e. fluorescent ring bulb shaped LED light that you can put in an existing fixture) flickered horribly, made a terrible high pitched sound, and then stopped working after a few weeks. The seller never responded to me. I ended up buying a replacement from Bic Camera.
  2. One LED light I ordered from overseas arrived physically broken, and had no standard ceiling light plug (you were expected to hard-wire it into the ceiling, I suppose). I ended up fixing this (with glue) and paying to have it installed, but I wonder how long it will last.
  3. Another LED light I ordered from overseas arrived with the fixture, and a remote control – but it was missing the other electronic parts, including the ahem… LEDs. I replaced this with the light from Nitori – which after the Tokyo Zero Emissions discount was just as cheap.

In the end, trying to save money just ended up costing me both time & money, and generating landfill waste. Just say no. What can you do to save money? Well, buy decent stuff used as opposed to cheap crap new. Also check out kakaku.com and similar sites to find out which items are cheaper now for reasons other than quality. By old stock of new merchandise, etc.

Links

Nitori Product Pages:
Heat Pump Model: https://www.nitori-net.jp/ec/product/2113400051355s/
Electric Heater Only model: https://www.nitori-net.jp/ec/product/2113400001619s/

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