The hardest part of doing laundry is always ensuring it dries without any of the nasty damp smells which you often get when clothes take a long time to dry. 

Using central heating and tumble dryers are just two options that can help with the process, however, they will both rack up your energy bills and one can cause awful mould in your home.

Having already used a heated airer in the past and being quite impressed with it, I had a rough idea of how they work but wanted to see how Dunelm’s two-tier heated clothes airer differed. 

A heated clothes airer looks like a regular airer, except the rails heat up when you plug the unit into a power socket. It’s estimated these devices cost between 10p to 20p an hour to run, making them cheaper to use than both your regular tumble dryer and central heating. 

The biggest selling point for Dunelm’s two-tier heated clothes airer is that it costs just 5p an hour to use which has been calculated using the UK Price Guarantee (July 2024) electricity rate of 22.00 pence per kWh.

The heated airer is only temporarily on sale for £49 down from £75 for Black Friday until 2nd December and reviews on the website are glowing.

One user said: “Excellent heated airer to dry clothes on a rainy day - it takes about six hours at 5p per hour to dry a full load. Easy to assemble and folds flat for storage. No need to place items on radiators now and everything is dried in one place. Wish I had thought to buy one ages ago.”

Another said: “Makes my clothes dry much nicer and has the added bonus of heating the room a little. A tad bulky to assemble and store and I wish I could leave it on overnight as that’s when I usually dry my clothes, but other than that great.”

A third commented: “Love this. Gets a lot of clothes on it and dries quickly. Only downfall, which isn’t much of an issue, don’t lean on it or put anything heavy on it as it isn’t very stable and only has four clips holding it up by the middle of the bars.”

The first thing that stands out about this airer is that it’s incredibly light - it weighs just 2.5kg and can be easily lifted with one hand. The bars, arranged over two tiers, have a matte feel and are smooth to the touch with a slightly textured finish which helped keep our smalls in place.

The bars, like the rest of the airer, feel stable - there’s no twisting or shifting, and they’re held in place by thick plastic supports which surround the end of each one. When folded out, curved, flexible clips support the two tiers.

I loved that thick plastic caps covered the feet, which meant when placed on carpeted areas, there were no imprints left behind.

Even the switch has some extra protection - a transparent rubber covering which certainly provided peace of mind when using the airer to dry damp clothes.

To help with the drying process I start by putting them on a spin cycle after they’ve been washed - something I do every time.

Once the clothes were out of the washer, it was time to load them on the airer, making sure to put the larger clothing items at the top and the smaller ones at the bottom.

From the moment I switched the airer on, it took around five minutes to reach full heat. Temperature-wise, the bars certainly felt very warm to the touch, but not hot enough to pose a burn risk.

This is a sturdy airer that coped well with every type of garment that was thrown at it - towels, jumpers, trousers and t-shirts.

I placed the airer in the spare bedroom and made sure to leave one of the smaller windows open slightly to avoid condensation buildup and, potentially, mould.

I would say that everything hanging on the heated bars was dry fully within six hours which cost around 30p. However, this included a bit of rotation to ensure thicker parts of clothing could dry properly.

Despite only having two tiers hand having a weight limit of 10kg, I was surprised that it could comfortably dray a large wash load in a reasonable amount of time.

Once the airier had done its good work and cooled down, it was easy to fold the whole thing flat for convenient storage.

While the Dunelm heated clothes airer does not have a timer function, variable heat settings or a cover, what you do get for your money is a well-functioning airer that heats up to a decent temperature and dries clothes quickly and efficiently.

I would say for those looking for a speedy drying solution and who aren’t in the market for lots of fancy extras, then this is a fantastic option, but you need to hurry if you want to nab it at the price of £49.

Alternatively, there are a few other heated clothes airers that hold a similar capacity of clothes like the Portable Heated Clothes Airer with Wings from Robert Dyas which currently retails for £39.99 down from £59.99 or the Energy Efficient Heated Electric Clothes Airer from B&Q that costs £59.99 and also has two tiers.