White Knight 37AW

We had a (pretty useless) tumble dryer when we moved into this house fourteen months ago, it was an expensive model which unfortunately didn't live up to the standard I'd expected based on the brand and the price. A few weeks after moving in, and with a sicky eight week old, I decided enough was enough - I needed a reliable way to dry the dozens of babygrows I seemed to be washing every day and I fell back on my old favourite brand, White Knight after spotting a 'used once' ad on Gumtree. The drastically reduced price (and the fact it was located in the poshest area of Brum) convinced me to replace our dryer on a whim.

Our previous White Knight tumble dryer had served us well for eight years, and is now serving my sister well after I stupidly gave it to her after buying the non-working one - it was bright yellow and quirkily fab, sadly the one I have now is plain white but despite this dull colour scheme it's excellent and has made my life (with four kids and an even muckier fella) much easier.

The maximum capacity of the dryer is 3kg, this means nowt to me as I'm not in the habit of weighing my wet clothes but to give you an idea I'll say that it takes up to four tumble dryer loads to dry a single full load of washing from my 7kg machine. This obviously depends on what you're drying; this tumble dryer can dry most things quickly and thoroughly, but it's going to be slower at drying towels than knickers and t-shirts like any other machine.

It's extremely easy to work the White Knight 37AW, well with just one knob (the timer) and a flicky switch that does no more than set the heat to 'high' or 'low' you haven't got to be a brain surgeon to dry a load of clothes. Although funnily enough, Mark hasn't managed to work it out yet... I keep mine set constantly to 'high' as anything that would need a higher setting are dried over the radiators or outside in the summer - the high setting will usually give me a dry load of washing within 30 minutes, 45 if I'm drying jeans or other thick items. You have to be careful not to over-load the dryer as you'll end up with a load of 'damp' washing; I did just that tonight and can confirm that three pairs of baby trousers, two baby jumpers, a mans wooly (but thin) jumper, three pairs of knickers, nine socks (yes, nine), two t-shirts, two babygrows, two pairs of boxer shorts, a mans hoody, a pair of girls tights and a tea towel is too much. I think it was the thick hoody that broke the camels back because as soon as I took that out the rest of the load was dry in ten minutes - you can tell sometimes when you're putting too much in, and I had a feeling this load wasn't going to dry properly.

The filter picks up lots of fluff from the clothes and needs clearing at least every couple of loads, this isn't a hassle as the fluff comes away in a compacted lump but every now and again I give the filter a wash in hot soapy water to remove any dust that has escaped the regular clearing sessions. Washing the filter is easy to do as there are no nooks or crannies to have to clean, it will be air dry in a few minutes and ready to pop back into the dryer - removing it is a simple case of lifting the plastic framed filter out and then pushing it back in again when it's dry, no fiddliness or faffing at all. That's about the extent of work involved in maintaining this tumble dryer, apart from the general wipe over it gets when I'm cleaning the room.

The hose which is supplied is a little short, but I bought a ventilation kit as I was planning to use it too far away from any windows and it wasn't possible to cut a ventilation hole in the outside wall. The hose slots snugly into the back of the tumble dryer and no dust ever leaks from this end - unfortunately the non-White Knight ventilation kit isn't so reliable and I get bits of fluff attach itself to the wall next to the dryer, obviously this isn't ideal but it's nothing a daily wipe down won't solve. Aside from the back of the dryer and the glass (plastic?) door no aspect of it gets hot - the door wouldn't cause a burn and feels soothingly warm to the touch, but the back does get very hot sometimes after prolonged use so I'd watch if you have small children that they're not going to reach around to touch the metal.

This tumble dryer has an energy efficiency rating of D, which isn't great actually although I can't say I've noticed a leap in my electricity bills since replacing my B rated dryer. According to Comet the energy consumption is 1.86 kWh/cyc - make of that what you will! I find the tumble dryer very quiet, even loading and running it at night when the house is (relatively) still isn't a problem as far as noise is concerned and once the utility room door is closed I can't hear it at all. The dimensions of the tumble dryer are 67cm (height), 50cm (width) and 47cm (depth), which makes it fairly compact compared to other vented dryers and therefore easier to slot into smaller kitchens/utility rooms.

The final thing to say is that this (like most) tumble dryer is excellent at de-creasing clothing, meaning anything you pull out is not likely to need ironing. Fantastic news in my opinion as I loathe ironing so it's great to be able to take the clothes out and fold them up to put away straightaway - this is best done immediately as the dryer finishes its cycle, but beware of hot zips and buttons as despite the fact that the dryer supposedly features a 'final cool spin' I don't think this works very well and have burned myself a few times on metal clothing attachments!

I'm completely happy with this tumble dryer and think I had a bargain at £55, even at the full price of £129 (Amazon) I'd be happy to buy it again. I doubt I'll have to any time soon as the previous White Knight dryer has had such an excellent life span, but from now on White Knight is definitely the way forward.