Best Dehumidifier for Drying Clothes in 2026: A £179 Meaco Dries a Load for 33p, a Condenser Dryer Costs £1.32 – and the £260 Models Don’t Earn Their Price
A condenser tumble dryer costs about £1.32 a load at the October price cap. A £179 dehumidifier drying the same wash costs roughly 33p. That gap is the whole argument for buying the best dehumidifier for drying clothes before winter, and it’s bigger than most people assume.
In This Article
- What a load of washing really costs to dry in October 2026
- The best dehumidifier for drying clothes: four that earn their place
- MeacoDry Arete Two, about £179
- Dryzone, about £149.99
- De'Longhi Tascuigo AriaDry Multi 16l, about £175
- Meaco DD8L Pro, about £194.99
- The £260 models: skip them
- The Meaco 12L Low Energy: cheap to run, awkward to live with
- Why a dehumidifier beats an airer, and where it doesn't
- Where to put it, and how to run it so it costs 33p
- Is the dehumidifier a heating decision as well?
- What I'd buy
The sums use Ofgem’s electricity cap of 26.32p per kWh, which applies from 1 October to 31 December. A 2.5kW condenser dryer running for two hours burns 5kWh. A 207W dehumidifier running for six hours burns about 1.2kWh. Same wet washing, a quarter of the electricity.
But the cheap number comes with conditions, and some of the dehumidifiers on sale don’t meet them. One of the £260 models Expert Reviews tested peaks at 650W, which makes it nearly as costly per load as a heat pump dryer. So this is a guide to which ones actually deliver the 33p, which don’t, and who should ignore the whole category.
What a load of washing really costs to dry in October 2026
Ofgem’s cap works out at 26.32p per kWh for electricity, so I’ve rounded to 26p and multiplied the rated wattage by the hours each method needs. Rated wattage is a ceiling. Real draw drops once the air in the room has dried out, so treat these as slightly pessimistic.
A vented tumble dryer at 3kW for two hours comes to about £1.58. A condenser at 2.5kW for the same time is £1.32. A heat pump dryer, at 800-1,000W for around three hours, lands near 70p. A 200W heated airer left on for eight hours is about 42p, which is why our heated airer test kept coming back to the idea that the “3p an hour” claim only survives if you stop counting after an hour.
Dehumidifiers sit at the bottom. Run for six hours, the 207W Meaco MeacoDry Arete Two is about 33p. The 290W De’Longhi Tascuigo AriaDry Multi 16l is about 46p. Household Money Saving’s own sums, at 25p a kWh, put a 280W dehumidifier at 42p, a 440W one at 66p and a 650W one at 98p for six hours. That last number is the one to remember. Pay £260 for a 650W machine and you’ve bought something that costs about as much to run as a heat pump dryer.
Run four loads a week from now until April and the maths gets concrete. Call it 100 loads. A condenser dryer costs about £132. The Meaco costs about £33. You’re £99 ahead, which means a £179 machine pays for itself in a little under two winters if it replaces the dryer, and sooner if you’d otherwise have used it for damp anyway.
Heat pump dryer owners, you can stop reading. Saving 38p a load against a machine you already own takes about 470 loads to cover a £179 purchase. Keep the dryer.
The best dehumidifier for drying clothes: four that earn their place
These are the models the reviewers I trust rated well, with figures taken from their published tests rather than from the box. Prices move around, and more than usual this week with Prime Big Deal Days on, so check the current figure before you click.
MeacoDry Arete Two, about £179
This is the one to buy. Ideal Home picked it as best overall: 20 litres a day, 207W, a 4.8-litre tank, noise between 38 and 50dB, a laundry mode and Wi-Fi. The reviewer’s verdict was that it’s quiet, simple to use and very energy efficient. At £179 it also undercuts most of the models in Expert Reviews’ drying-clothes test, several of which do the same job while drawing more power.
The downside is the usual one with compressor dehumidifiers: it blows out dry, slightly warm air and it isn’t silent at full tilt. In a small flat with a bedroom door open, you’ll hear it.
Dryzone, about £149.99
Ideal Home called it the best affordable pick. 12 litres a day, 175W, a 2.2-litre tank, quiet. At six hours it should cost around 27p a load, which makes it one of the cheapest full-size units to run. The tank is small and a bit fiddly to empty, and there’s no Wi-Fi. If you’re drying one or two loads a week in a single room, it does the job and saves £30 on the Meaco.
De’Longhi Tascuigo AriaDry Multi 16l, about £175
Expert Reviews’ pick of the bunch for laundry. Lightweight garments dried in five to six hours in their test, with heavier items needing another two or three. It draws 290W and pulls 16 litres a day. It’s the one I’d choose if you’ve got a bigger household, because 46p a load is still less than half what a condenser dryer costs, and the extraction rate leaves room for jeans and towels.
Meaco DD8L Pro, about £194.99
The desiccant option, and the only one here that earns its extra money in a particular situation. Ideal Home says it works down to 1°C, and as far as I know that’s the point of desiccant machines: compressor models lose efficiency in cold rooms, which matters if your drying space is a garage, a conservatory or a spare room with the radiator off. It draws 200-600W and pulls 8 litres a day, so it’s pricier to run. If your laundry lives in a warm room, don’t pay for it.
The £260 models: skip them
Here’s the contrarian bit. The most expensive dehumidifiers in the category aren’t better at drying clothes. They’re better at looking serious.
The Meaco Arete One 20l is £260 and draws 200W. That’s a fine machine, but it does what the £179 Arete Two does, and Expert Reviews’ laundry-mode test took around six hours, the same as most of its cheaper rivals. The Meaco DD8L Zambezi, also £260, peaks at 650W and takes six hours to dry a full rack in Laundry+ mode. At peak draw that’s 98p a load. And the Pro Breeze 30L, at £259.99, has the biggest extraction rate Ideal Home saw but is noisy, heavy and uses 600W, so about 95p a load at the cap.
Bigger extraction rates matter if you’re tackling a damp house. They matter much less for laundry, where the limit is how much air the machine can move past wet fabric and how long you leave it running.
The Meaco 12L Low Energy: cheap to run, awkward to live with
TechRadar reviewed the Meaco 12L Low Energy at £198.95. It draws 157W, Meaco quotes about 4p an hour, and the reviewer found it made a real difference to drying clothes in a basement flat. At that wattage you’re paying roughly 24p for a six-hour run.
It’s also fiddly. The controls confused the reviewer, there’s no quieter night mode, the tank only holds 2.5 litres and the filter cuts dehumidification by 11%. TechRadar’s own conclusion was that stronger options exist in Meaco’s range. I’d agree: save the extra £20 over a Dryzone for something with a bigger tank or buy the Arete Two.
Why a dehumidifier beats an airer, and where it doesn’t
An airer in a closed room is a humidifier with a rack on it. A single load releases litres of water into the air and none of it leaves the house unless you open a window, which defeats the point of heating the room. Mould follows. Ask anyone who’s lived with a black-spotted bedroom corner. A dehumidifier takes that water out and pours it into a tank you can tip down the sink.
On running cost alone, it’s closer than you’d think. A heated airer at 42p a load barely loses to a 33p Meaco. If your only goal is dry clothes and you’ve got a small flat, the airer is a perfectly sensible choice and costs about £50 rather than £179. Where the dehumidifier pulls ahead is speed and the knock-on effects: five to six hours rather than eight, and condensation that stops forming on the windows.
That second point is easy to underrate. A dehumidifier also dries the room, so the damp patch behind the wardrobe stops spreading and your curtains stop smelling musty, which is worth thinking about alongside the heavier winter curtains many people are hanging again.
Dry air also feels warmer, and nearly all the electricity the machine uses ends up as heat in the room. Not enough to replace a radiator. Enough to notice.
Where to put it, and how to run it so it costs 33p
Noise is the other thing the spec sheets gloss over. The Arete Two runs between 38 and 50dB, the Dryzone is quieter at its lowest setting, and the Pro Breeze 30L sits at 46dB with a reputation for sounding like it. A lounge is fine. A bedroom you’re sleeping in isn’t, which is why most people run the machine in the daytime in a spare room and shut the door.
Shut the door. Put the rack in the middle of the room rather than against a wall, give the machine a metre of clear air and set it to laundry mode if it has one. Leave windows closed until the cycle ends.
A small room is cheaper than a big one. I haven’t run these myself, so this comes from reading the reviewers’ results: a full rack in a closed bedroom or box room, six hours, a 20-litre machine. Open-plan living rooms and draughty hallways are the worst places, because the machine ends up drying the whole floor and the run time climbs.
Hang things with gaps between them. Spin faster in the washer, if your machine allows 1,400rpm. Every minute spent drying clothes mechanically in the drum is a minute you don’t pay for at the wall, though I’m guessing at the exact saving and you’ll want to try it yourself.
If the room is somewhere you’d like to live in over winter rather than hide laundry in, the same logic applies to a snug that you close off from the rest of the house. A closed room is simpler to heat and much simpler to keep dry.
Is the dehumidifier a heating decision as well?
Sort of. A 290W dehumidifier puts out around the same heat as a very small heater, so on a cold evening it takes some of the edge off. It isn’t a heater, and the heater maths we ran last month still holds: every 2kW heater costs about 53p an hour at this price cap. A dehumidifier that dries your clothes and adds 200-odd watts of warmth is a pleasant side effect, not a plan.
The sums matter more as the January cap looms. Money to the Masses reports a predicted 14% rise in January, so a 33p load could be nearer 38p in the new year, if that feeds through to the electricity rate, which I’m guessing at. Still less than half a condenser dryer. And if you’re managing your heating with a smart thermostat, a dry house is easier to keep comfortable at a lower setting, because damp air feels colder than it measures.
What I’d buy
The MeacoDry Arete Two at £179 for most households. The Dryzone at £149.99 if it’s a flat and you dry a couple of loads a week. The De’Longhi at £175 if you’ve got a family and a lot of jeans. The Meaco DD8L Pro only if the drying room is cold. Skip the £260 machines.
Skip the whole category if you already own a heat pump dryer, or if your only aim is to save a few pence and you’ve got an airer that works. And don’t buy the 1.5-litre mini units under £50. Ideal Home’s Pro Breeze 1500ml Mini manages 0.5 litres a day. That’s a damp-wardrobe gadget, not something that will dry a load of washing.
Prices will move when Black Friday arrives, and our Prime Big Deal Days guide covers what’s worth grabbing now versus waiting for. A dehumidifier is a seasonal purchase, though. Nobody buys one in July. So if you want one before the first properly cold week, it’s a reasonable time to look.
So how many loads does your house dry indoors every week, and what’s it costing you now?
Sources: Money to the Masses, January price cap prediction; Ofgem, price cap changes 1 October to 31 December 2026; Ideal Home, best dehumidifiers; Expert Reviews, best dehumidifier for drying clothes; TechRadar, Meaco 12L Low Energy review; Household Money Saving, dehumidifier vs tumble dryer.
