Like the Beldray model, you’ll need to hang your clothes up in this model, rather than lay them over heated rails. It allows you to hang up 12 larger items of clothing, which means it’s great for more delicate options, such as dresses, midi skirts and blazers, especially as an alternative to a tumble dryer, which is rougher on delicate clothes. Speaking of the drying capabilities, this Lakeland airer is pretty speedy - one of the fastest of all the models we tested. After just one hour with the cover on, our softer, cotton clothes were already starting to feel dry – though it took around three hours for the majority of our washing to dry during testing. That said, many heated clothes airers have safety mechanisms built in, operating on timers with auto switch-off features. We’ve highlighted these in the key specifications below. How long do clothes take to dry on a heated clothes airer? One of the most uniquely shaped heated clothes airers out there, unlike the previous models, this airer has 6 arms – instead of heated rails – which are designed to hold hangers with damp clothes on them. It was easy enough to put together, but it does come almost completely disassembled, which means it might not be the right option for those who want something that’s ready to use straight out of the box. 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.

As you'll have noticed in our above round-up of the best heated clothes airers, you’ll always pay more for a heated airer than a non-heated airer – so it’s sensible to consider whether stumping up the money for the more expensive option is worth it. Like asking whether air fryers are worth it, the answer is subjective. However, if you’re happy to wait a little longer for dry laundry, you can really up the capacity of this airer by allowing your items to hang on just one or two of the rungs, instead. The first thing we noticed when testing this airer is just how much space there is for your washing to dry on. Because this Lakeland model has multiple (30) heated bars, there’s enough space to stash your smaller items and larger pieces like dresses and trousers, too. There’s also plenty of room to lay these bigger items out flat too, which only helps them to dry faster.

Are heated clothes airers cheap to run?

There are six settings on the machine that allow you to customise your drying time, which we found very useful to guarantee you don't forget its on. You can choose to have it on for 30 minutes up to 180 minutes; though we’d urge that 30 minutes probably won’t make much of an impact unless your clothes are already mostly dry. Drying abilities: Finally, and most importantly, we made note of how long each heated airer took to dry clothes during testing, from smaller garments to larger items like towels. We also looked at how thoroughly it did the job; were there any remaining wet patches on the items? When winter comes around and hanging your clothes outside to dry is no longer an option, the best heated clothes airers can be a laundry lifesaver. Taking a simple concept that’s been around for centuries and adding a mains-powered heating element is a simple solution to an evergreen problem, and it can potentially save you money on your energy bills to boot. One huge highlight of using this airer is that the drying didn’t cost much at all – based on current energy prices, the airer costs less than 7p per hour to run, meaning three hours of almost dry laundry, at an estimate, costs just 21p. This affordable running cost is another reason why this is a great choice for those on a budget. If you have a 220W winged heated clothes dryer, such as the Robert Dyas heated clothes airer, it should cost less than 50p to dry a load of laundry in eight hours.

Following the energy price cap announcement in October the average unit price for electricity has been capped at 27p per kWh, so we have used this figure to illustrate the average amount it could cost to run a heated clothes airer. 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. 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.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. It is also worth calculating how much it costs to run a dehumidifier given how much dehumidifiers can help to dry clothes indoors. Which is the cheapest to run, a tumble dryer or a heated airer? Style and storage: How does each heated airer look in the home? Were any of them stylish, or are they all purely functional? We also analysed how easy each model is to store away when not in use – a major factor to consider to keep homes clutter-free. Though this may put some people off (it’s fairly loud, but you can still easily hold a conversation over it), we don’t think it should if you’re looking for a fast way to dry your more delicate items.

Just like its Heated Cabinet product, Dry:Soon’s Drying Pod uses a fan heater to warm its enclosure. The main difference here is that the Drying Pod is a far more compact alternative, so is ideal for those looking to save space at home. Value-for-money: The best heated clothes airers vary hugely in price, so during testing we made sure to consider how much the consumer is being asked to pay, for how well each airer dried our clothes. We also made note of whether we thought you could get a better experience for a more affordable price – or, if you have to pay more for a better drying experience. Ease of use: How easy was it to set each heated clothes airer up, and how easy was it to understand the functionality? We looked at how technical (or not) each product was.We found 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. Heated clothes airers inevitably use some electricity – however, it's probably not as much as you think, as heating expert Peter Clayton from Trade Plumbing explains. To work out how much it will cost to run a heated dryer in your own home you will need to know how much you pay for one unit of energy (1kw). You should be able to find this on your energy bill. But we would argue that upon testing – despite having a similar capacity and design – this model doesn’t feel quite as premium as the Lakeland Dry:Soon Deluxe airer, or even the less expensive Dry:Soon model. However, this is reflected in the more affordable price, which we'd argue is the biggest draw of this 3-tier model – in fact, it's one of the most affordable 3-tier models we've seen on the market. Measuring in at 70 x 74 x 132.5 cm when fully open, it is sizeable, which may put some people off. But given that it is larger vertically than it is horizontally, it doesn’t actually take up that much floor space. Plus, this Lakeland airer can also fold down to just 8cm wide for storage, and you can also customise its usable size by pulling certain rails up or down if you ever want an airer that is more compact.

However, this was fairly impressive, as we tested the model by drying a couple of pairs of jeans which, in winter especially, are infamous for drying slowly. Set-up of this airer was incredibly easy; all you need to do is pull out the legs and the heated rails from the base. However, the rails feel quite stiff when pulling them down, and the structure of the airer feels a little off – the rails and base aren't completely level with one another. This isn’t too much of an issue when hanging your clothes though. Heated clothes dryers will always show how much power they use in watts or kilowatts per hour. However, since most heated airers take 8 to 12 hours to fully dry a load of washing you will need to take this into account. We loved that the Aldi heated airer comes with foldable wings, which makes it much more compact if you don’t want to put it away after every use, given that you'll need to take the legs off each time. This is also a plus as the airer does take up a fair amount of floor space when fully laid out.He continues, explaining, "Heated airers can be a more cost-efficient way to dry washing during winter, given that a 9kg heat pump tumble dryer – one of the most cost-effective types–uses 2.16 kWh for a full load. As a result, you’ll be spending 59p per cycle. A 300-watt heated airer, on the other hand, would cost 41p to use for five hours under the current energy price cap." So, if you’re after a savvy laundry drying solution that can be cheaper to run than a tumble dryer (or putting the heating on), and speedier than air drying, look no further than a heated clothes airer.