Hi all,

Fast forward back to September last year, my faithful old Hoover Electron was most certainly on the way out, poor old thing. It ended up being replaced with a Hotpoint Aqualtis condenser. Big mistake! After 12 months of arguing with a dryer that would constantly tell me things were dry, but weren't, so I would have to use the timer cycle which you could only use on 30 mins, 60 mins or 90mins. Grrr. 90 mins for a load of cottons? That's just taking the wee wee.

Rewind to this weekend, our very own lavamat_jon brought me this little beauty, which so far I am thrilled with. It's vented, this eliminating the annoying need for me to bring the water tank out of the cellar and tip down the kitchen sink. It's also quicker, quieter and reverses more frequently (the Aqualtis only reversed about every 10-15 mins, meaning a lot of things got tangled and didn't dry evenly), meaning it dries more efficiently. Overall, very pleased with this. Thanks Jon :). 

Hi Paul,

I think it's a 5kg actually, but it's a very large 5kg. It took a full load of towels straight out of the Miele no problems and had them dry in just under an hour. The aqualtis took far too long to dry anything, and when left on the sensor cycles, would often leave things patchy. I think this is because it didn't reverse properly, so any large items like bed sheets would get tangled and not dry properly. 

The build quality of the Aqualtis was actually pretty good, but the Siemens is still head and shoulders above it. 

Hi George,

I just did a straight swap with Jon - he took the Aqualtis and sold it onto a friend of his, I believe.