BLACK+DECKER BXAR0002GB Extendable Compact Clothes Airer, Cool Grey, 7.5M Drying Space

Product Information

We used a force gauge to determine how much force is needed to topple over each heated airer, as well as the flexibility of each airer's bars. I found the Dry:Soon took around four to five hours to dry lighter materials; and closer to 10-12 for heavier jumpers and the like. In the world of heated clothes airers, that’s really pretty good – the cover certainly does its job. Heat-up times are also worth considering as they can extend the drying time if they take a while to get to temperature. We’ve listed how long each took on test below. Is it safe to leave a heated airer on? The longer they take to dry items, the more they’ll ultimately end up costing, but even if you use them to start the drying process, they should make a noticeable difference to your laundry pile.

Key specs – Open dimensions: 152 x 71.5 x 45cm (HWD); Closed dimensions: 152 x 71.5 x 45cm (HWD); Drying capacity: 10kg of clothing; Weight: 4.6kg; Guarantee: 3 years; Wattage: 1,200W

While heated airers use less electricity per hour than a tumble dryer, they take longer to dry the clothes. So, if you're drying big loads regularly, it will cost you more to run a heated airer annually than a tumble dryer. Reviewer Laura Cooke lives in a four-bedroom house in Sussex with her husband and two kids, aged four and six. Some look like a tower, which typically affords more drying space for the room they take up, but they can be less accommodating of larger items such as dresses, towels and bedsheets. Tumble dryers might be the fastest way of drying your clothes, but not all garments can withstand that level of heat without shrinkage or damage – and other items can lose years of their life. Instead, heated airers offer a solution that is kinder to both your clothes and the environment. They provide room for airflow like regular clothes airers or clothes horses except with a bit of extra heat to speed the process up. Where a tumble dryer consumes around 4.5kWh per cycle, heated clothes airers often use less than 0.3kWh and rarely higher than 1.2kWh, so even though they’re slower than a tumble dryer, they will cost you less in the long run.

The best heated airers cost as little as 6p per hour to run, while the most costly came in at around 31p an hour. Stability Looking ahead over the next few months, we're bound to see a lot of one thing: rain. The good ol' British weather never fails us, particularly during the colder seasons, which can make getting your washing dry a bit of a tough job. A typical drying pod will do a cotton load in a couple of hours, and a tumble dryer will take anywhere from one to three hours to do a big load of laundry. It's faster than air-drying indoors, but a heated clothes airer is still the slowest of the three. Heated airers can look pretty same-y but this John Lewis option stands out from the crowd thanks to one small thing: shoe dryers. If you’ve been caught out in a storm and had to stuff your shoes full of old newspapers of kitchen towels to dry them, only to find them still slightly soggy the next day, this is for you. To find the very best heated clothes airers for your home, our experts at the Good Housekeeping Institute start by timing how long each dryer takes to preheat. They then wash and dry various loads of laundry, including clothes and bedsheets, and time how long it takes until each load has finished drying.It’s effectively a fan on detachable tripod feet with a pole, at the top of which there are six spokes designed to hold up to 12 hangers of spin-dried or well-wrung damp clothing (up to 10kg). It’s particularly useful for shirts and blouses, since being able to hang T-shirts in this way means they dry straight with minimal creases, meaning less ironing. But it’s less useful for drying, say, towels. There are two main types of heated clothes airer: heated bar clothes airers and drying pods. Both work very differently.

The best heated airers and drying pods dried small loads in a comparable time to tumble dryers; the worst took over six hours. Energy use Our team of reviewers tested a host of bestselling heated clothes airers to compile this guide. We compared assembly and set-up, design, ease of use, performance, capacity, energy efficiency, and price point to find the best heated clothes airers for various needs and budgets. The heated airer was tested on its ability to dry clothes, bath towels and bedding. The clothes were dried laying flat on the shelf, draped over a single heated bar and on the hanging rail. The airer was also tested on how easy it was to set up, use and put away afterwards. About the author Like most things in life, it depends. In this case: on the amount of clothes you need to dry and how fast you want them to dry. Closely resembling traditional clothes horses, heated clothes airers have heating elements within their rails to warm your washing and speed up the drying process.Read next: John Lewis 3-Tier Heated Indoor Clothes Airer review: the perfect indoor drying solution for city living How we tested If you already have a tumble dryer and are thinking of making a swap, it will also depend on what type of tumble dryer you already own.

Laura started writing Swears By articles for Mumsnet in 2021 and has recently taken over responsibility for laundry content. She writes buyers' guides, including how to care for jumpers and knitwear, cleaning articles and tests products, including the Wilton London laundry range, to help Mumsnetters make informed choices when it comes to parting with their pennies. Rather than heated rungs, this variation on the heated airer features a 70C fan. It circulates hot air around your clothes, which are encased in a tent-like, ventilated outer cover. This means it dries clothes faster than other airers. The DriBUDDi can also hold more washing, offering space for 18 coat hangers as opposed to the Dry:Soon Drying Pod's capacity for just 12 items. Both models require clothes to be spread out evenly so that the weight of the washing is well distributed for stability, but when clothes weren't well positioned, we found this model the more stable of the two on its feet.They come in all shapes and sizes, and once plugged in, their electric rails will heat your washing, meaning your towels, sheets and clothes are ready to be put away in no time. Not to mention, you can bid farewell to that classic musty smell that comes from slow winter drying. We paid for every airer and drying pod we test, and don't accept free samples, so you can have complete confidence in our recommendations. Drying speed Easy to use, it arrives assembled, simply fold out, plug in and switch on. Ideal for winter months as a perfect alternative to outdoor drying. Features and Benefits We found that there wasn’t a lot of difference between the heated airers when it came to their energy consumption, with the models we tested using between 0.09 kilowatt hours (kWh) and 0.91 kWh – that’s between two and 23 pence of electricity an hour. Metres of Drying Space - It has 21 metres of drying space spread across 3 tiers for all clothing types and full load capacity.