Laundry Alternative Spin Clothes Dryer - Laundry Guide Product Review

Bottom line: The Laundry-Alternative Spin Dryer works effectively on small loads and reduces drying time for laundry. It is time consuming to operate and must be attended to during the entire operation. It is also very loud to use.

The Laundry-Alternative Spin Dryer uses centrifugal force driven by an electric motor to remove moisture from freshly washed laundry. Their promotional material states:"Our spin dryers offer several major advantages over conventional clothes dryers. They extract up to 6 times more water from the clothes than washing machine spin cycles, are much more gentle on clothes than clothes dryers. With a cycle time of only about 2-3 minutes per load, they only consume a fraction of the energy that a regular clothes dryer does. In addition, our spin dryers operate on 110V, are compact, portable and no hookup or installation is required. Finally, they cost much less than a conventional clothes dryer."

I was sent a unit to test and had mixed results. The unit stands 26-inches tall and 13 1/4-inches in diameter with a 8-foot electrical cord. You will need an additional clearance of 8-inches above the unit for opening and closing the lid. I'm rather short so the only way that I could load the machine was to place it on the floor. The spin dryer has a spout where the extracted water flows out. The user must provide a vessel to capture the water. The machine also has a tendency to vibrate and move across the floor so you must stay with it during the entire operation and ensure that the vessel catching water stays in place.

The unit will hold only 12 pounds of laundry. If you regularly wash full loads to save time, energy and money, the spin dryer will not hold a typical full washer load of laundry. I found that two bath towels, two hand towels and four placemats filled it to the brim.

I loaded the laundry according to the directions keeping all pieces as extended as possible and well balanced. The directions are very clear. After the laundry is loaded, a rubber disc is inserted to keep the clothing in place.

Operation is very simple. Be sure the unit is plugged in and close the attached latch. Spinning begins immediately. I was amazed to see that slightly over four cups of water was extracted. It also took significantly longer than the 2 to 3 mintues - it took over 16 minutes, and the water was still dripping when I stopped the unit. It was also quite loud during operation. I have a tile laundry floor so I tried moving it to a rubber-backed mat to damper the noise but then it moved around too much to keep up with it!

When I removed my laundry, it was in fine condition and much less wet to the feel. I still had to dry the laundry.

I can see using a spin dryer if you want to save on drying time in a dryer or on a clothesline. Or, if you don't have space for a dryer and have small loads of laundry. It is effective but a bit time-consuming.

Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy .

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Disclosure: Review samples were provided by the manufacturer. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.