Our last tumble dryer was purchased just over 8 years ago and was getting totally useless. Recently it had been taking forever, well, at least 2 hours to get any size of laundry load dried. This,  on top of the fact, that from day one, it has been noisy and had an awful loud triple beep to inform you that the drying cycle was ending, which could not be turned off,  finally drove me to look into getting a replacement.

As our family has grown to 5 kids and 2 adults, I have gotten more dependant on using a tumble dryer. These days it is used very frequently, that is, at least twice a day and often more than that.

My main criteria for a new tumble dryer were:

• that it could dry a large amount of clothes at one time.
• that it was quiet
• that it didnt have a “helpful” buzzer to signal when the dry cycle was ending.
• that it wasn’t overly expensive.

I finally purchased the bosch WTV74104 as it was mid-price range (€435 including delivery) and  I have been very happy with it.

It can hold up to 7kg. Instead of the old method of specifying the amount of time you wish the drying program to last, on this machine you specify how dry you want the clothes to be. Eg “iron dry”, “cupboard dry” or “very dry”. The dryer then finishes its cycle when it senses that this level of moisture has been reached. It then goes into an “anti crease” cycle which does what it says, that is, it intermittently tumbles until you remove the laundry or 60 minutes is up, whichever is sooner.

I have found that the clothes take a very short time to dry using this method and it is more economical for me as the precise drying time is used instead of my guessing at the amount of drying time needed and over compensating.

It also has a “low heat” option which I haven’t needed to use as yet. The controls on front of it are very self explanatory and easy to use.

The only very minor improvement I would like to see, is some sort of child lock.

Overall I am definitely happy with this purchase and would recommend.