The little dryer that could

I mentioned a while back that I got a dryer from the rental company. This little thing just cracks me up. It tries SO hard to be a dryer...and can eventually succeed, but man, it's not easy.

Let's start with my washer, it's small. Well, it's bigger than the one I had (60L max vs. 55L max), but SO much smaller than the one I'm used to at home. It's pretty much full with two pairs of jeans. I can throw a few socks in with those, but not much else. Ok...maybe 3 pairs of jeans, but it's not pretty. I guess it feels really small in part because I haven't figured out an easy to way measure (in a basket) what I can put in it. In Texas, I had a laundry basket that was the same size as my washer...give or take. If the laundry basket was full, the washer would be, etc. Here, my laundry basket barely holds one pair of jeans and 3 means I'm pulling some interesting balancing trying not to drop stuff on the way to the washer. I'm almost better off using my hands. This makes deciding what goes from the bedroom to the laundry room a bit of a challenge.

Also, it only washes stuff in one temperature, which appears to be cold. While this is probably better for my clothes, it just feels weird.

It does have this neat lint filter, though. My old one had 3, but they were holey so they never did anything and I didn't see much use for them. This one is new and apparently the water that goes back in gets recycled through this and it actually catches most of the lint. Makes the stuff cleaner when I just take it straight to the line. It's an interesting feature.

Now for the dryer. I'm not sure it was meant to hold a full 60L washer load. It looks SO packed when I put everything in it. Secondly, it has no outside exhaust so it gets things really warm, but drying is not easy. I have found (on nights when I have to get something dry and it's too late for the line to be worthwhile) that it can dry a small load in about 3 hours. It takes 4-5 for a 'regular' load. When it does get stuff dry, my apartment gets REALLY warm and humid. This may be nice on cold winter days, but I'll probably stick to the line during the summer - makes sense, I guess. It also took some playing to find the 'dry my clothes without burning my hands when I get it out still damp' setting. That wasn't a fun process.

The pluses...I found dryer sheets so now my clothes are a bit softer than just washing them. Also, they have fewer wrinkles since I can get them nice and warm in the dryer and then hang out the wrinkles on the line. It sure beats ironing Chrys' work shirts to keep him looking nice...I was almost at that point.

Lastly, all of it will make doing laundry back home seem like a cake walk...I hope I can remember that in a few years!