Best heated clothes airers to save you time and money

Our testing reveals the best heated clothes airers, drying pods and heated drying racks from popular UK brands and retailers such as Lakeland's Dry:Soon models, Argos, Dunelm, Minky and more.

We've tested more than 25 models, measuring drying speed and running costs. We also assess which are the most stable and easiest to put up and down, how much washing they can hold, and which have the most drying space for the amount of floorspace they take up.

A heated airer can be a tower-like structure or a winged frame that heats up clothes through bars. By contrast, drying pods work more like a big hair dryer, blowing hot air through clothes inside a pod. They dry faster but hold less, so they’re fine for everyday items but not for bedsheets or duvets. 

We've found five Best Buys that stood above the rest and two Great Value options for less than £80.

The heated clothes airers we tested

The biggest brands and the 11 most popular heated clothes airers are listed below.

Only logged-in Which? members can view the best heated clothes airers and drying pods from our tests.

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A selection of the heated clothes airers we tested are listed in alphabetical order below.

Only logged-in Which? members can view the best heated clothes airers from our tests.

Join Which? to get instant access to our test results and Best Buy recommendations below.

Argos Home 3-tier heated airer

Most recently tested December 2023

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Dimensions HxWxD 144 x 74 x 9.5cm

Need to know 15.3 metres available drying space (24 medium T-shirts); 300W; 4.2kg weight; 155cm cord length; 15kg maximum load weight

Beldray Round Heated Clothes Dryer 

Most recently tested September 2024

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Dimensions HxWxD 149 x 67 x 67cm

Need to know 7.2 metres available drying space (18 medium T-shirts); 1,000W; 3.5kg weight; 150cm cord length; 10kg maximum load weight

Black & Decker X-frame Heated Airer

Most recently tested October 2025

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Dimensions HxWxD 126 x 69 x 54cm

Need to know 11.5 metres available drying space (24 medium T-shirts); 360W; 4.3kg weight; 160cm cord length; 10kg maximum load weight

Dry:Soon Deluxe Three Tier Heated Clothes Airer

Most recently tested September 2024

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Dimensions HxWxD 133 x 74 x 70cm 

Need to know 20.5 metres available drying space (36 medium T-shirts); 300W; 5.9kg weight; 132cm cord length; 15kg maximum load weight; also available with a cover at Lakeland

Dunelm Three Tier Heated Airer

Most recently tested October 2025

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Dimensions HxWxD 138 x 78 x 72cm

Need to know 15 metres available drying space (36 medium T-shirts); 330W; 5.25kg weight; 180cm cord length; 15kg maximum load weight

George Home Silver Heated Winged Clothes Airer

Most recently tested October 2025

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Dimensions HxWxD 94 x 148 x 53cm

Need to know 11.5 metres available drying space (26 medium T-shirts); 230W; 2.8kg weight; 5kg maximum load weight

JML DRIBUDDI Indoor Airer

Most recently tested July 2023

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Dimensions HxWxD 160 x 70 x 70cm

Need to know 7.2 metres available drying space (30 medium T-shirts); 1200W; 3kg weight; 140cm cord length; 10kg maximum load weight

John Lewis Three Tier Heated Clothes Airer

Available from John Lewis (£100)

Most recently tested July 2023

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Dimensions HxWxD 135 x 66 x 73cm 

Need to know 15.8 metres available drying space (30 medium T-shirts); 300W; 5.5kg weight; 140cm cord length; 15kg maximum load weight

Minky Sure Dri Four Tier Heated Clothes Airer With Cover

Available from Argos (£105), Minky (£159.99)  

Most recently tested December 2023

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Dimensions HxWxD 147 x 74 x 71cm

Need to know 22.9 metres available drying space, 20.3 metres of which is heated (37 medium T-shirts); 300W; 5.2kg weight; 169cm cord length; 20kg maximum load weight

Minky Sure Dri Heat Pod Drying System

Most recently tested December 2023

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Dimensions of heat pod HxWxD 28 x 33 x 17cm. Compatible with standard three-tier clothes airers up to dimensions HxWxD of 139 x 59 x 49cm   

Need to know Drying space depends on your clothes airer, typically 13 metres for a three-tier clothes airer (24 medium T-shirts); 850W; 4.0kg weight; 135cm cord length; maximum load weight depends on your clothes airer (typically 15kg for a three-tier clothes airer)

More heated clothes airers from our tests

Here's how the rest of the heated clothes airers from our test measured up, listed in alphabetical order.

How we test heated clothes airers

We regularly revisit the heated airers and drying pods on sale to see if there are any more popular models that need testing and when we find them we do so.

Why you can trust us: at Which? we're free from manufacturer and retailer influence. Find out more about our impartiality and how your support helps us to stay editorially independent.

Drying speed

• We dry a small cotton load on each airer, representing a week's worth of washing for one person.
• If the capacity of the airer is much smaller than our test load, we fill the airer up to its capacity.
• We weigh the wet clothes before they're hung up to dry, and then frequently reweigh and rotate the cotton clothes on each airer. 
• The heated airers are rated on how quickly the small load dries.
• We take each airer's capacity into account to calculate the drying time for a large cotton load, equivalent to the average load size used to calculate tumble dryer annual running costs in our tumble dryer reviews.

The best heated airers and drying pods dry small loads in a comparable time to tumble dryers; the worst take over six hours to dry a small load.

We recently updated this test in response to new portable heated clothes airers that have very low capacities. It would take multiple uses of this type of airer to dry our cotton test load, and so they would automatically get a low score for drying speed. This isn't reflective of how these airers actually perform and are designed to be used.

To rate these low-capacity heated airers, they're judged on how quickly they dry a single cotton load that's the size of its stated capacity, rather than the size of the small cotton test load.

Energy use

• We measure the running cost per hour and total cost to dry the small cotton load.
• We take each airer's capacity into account to also calculate the cost of drying a large cotton load.

The best heated airers cost as little as 5p per hour to run, while the most costly come in at around 29p an hour.

We use the RS Pro energy meter (£32, from RS Components) to measure each airer's energy use.

If you're interested in measuring the energy use of your appliances, you can buy similar meters from popular retailers such as Amazon and Screwfix.

Stability

We use a force gauge to determine how much force is needed to topple over each heated airer, and the flexibility of each airer's bars.

All heated airers are stable enough to hold a full load of washing, but some are more flexible and easy to topple than our top recommendations.

Ease of use

• We score each heated airer on how easy it is to carry, assemble and dismantle.
• We also rate how easy it is to fit different-sized clothing items on each airer.
• We measure the volume of each airer when folded up, so you know which take up the least amount of room when not in use.
• We also measure the total drying space and volume of the airer, so we can let you know which ones give you the most drying space without taking over an entire room in your home.

Save money on your bills and cut your carbon footprint: try our free Home Energy Planning Service

Are heated clothes airers worth it?

It depends on the amount you need to dry and how fast you want it to dry. But heated clothes airers do dry your clothes faster than air-drying indoors.

If you already have a tumble dryer and are thinking of making a swap, it will also depend on what type of tumble dryer you already own.

How long does a heated airer take to dry clothes?

The heated clothes airers we tested typically took between four to seven hours to dry a small (2.15kg) cotton load. The drying pods we tested took on average two hours to dry a small (2.15kg) cotton load. For thicker items, such as jumpers, these times will be longer.

It's also worth noting that the speeds we've found assume you'll regularly rotate and move around the wet laundry – these products are not very effective at drying the areas of clothes not in contact with the heated bars. So if you leave your washing undisturbed, they'll take much longer.

A typical drying pod will do a cotton load in a couple of hours, and a tumble dryer will take anywhere from one to three hours to do a big load of laundry. It's faster than air-drying indoors, but a heated clothes airer is still the slowest of the three.

Can heated clothes airers save you money?

Our testing found heated clothes airers will cost about half as much money to run as a drying pod.

Compared to a tumble dryer, however, the story is a little more nuanced. If you have small amounts of washing that can fit on a heated airer in one go, then there are savings to be made when compared to condenser tumble dryers.

For example, drying three small (2.15kg) cotton loads a week will typically cost around the same as the average tumble dryer, but this saving increases to £27 a year if you compare it exclusively to condenser tumble dryers.

But the savings shrink dramatically for larger laundry loads, where you'd need to use the heated airer multiple times to dry a load that could fit in the tumble dryer in one go.

• Small household with small amounts of washing? A heated clothes airer could save you money. From our tests, it will cost just over £50 a year to dry three small cotton loads a week, compared to around £85 for a condenser and around £100 for a vented tumble dryer.
• Large household with lots of washing? Tumble dryers are the best balance of speed and cost. The annual running cost is around £62 a year on average to dry three large loads a week. According to our calculations, it would cost around £120 to dry the equivalent amount on a heated airer we've tested. The annual costs of condenser and vented tumble dryers are similar to this, but they will dry your laundry faster than the clothes airers. 
• If you have a heat-pump tumble dryer, stick with it. They are just as efficient and cost-effective as heated airers for small loads; and for large loads, the average annual running cost for a heat-pump tumble dryer is around £48, which is nearly triple that of a heated airer.
• Drying pods are costly, but may be what you're after. You won't make any savings – in fact, you could pay significantly more over the lifetime of the product compared to a tumble dryer or heated clothes airer. But if you want to occasionally dry items almost as quickly as you can in a tumble dryer – and you don't own one or can't have one installed – a drying pod could be the answer.

Cut your laundry costs by up to £156 with our money-saving advice

Why you should never dry clothes on your radiator

Radiators can seem a handy option, but drying your clothes on them could end up being more expensive than you'd think. Watch our video to find out more.

Is a heated clothes airer with a cover better?

Heated clothes airers are often sold with covers, or you might see advice online suggesting you drape a bedsheet over the airer to speed up drying times. 

But from our testing, we've found that these are fairly ineffective. We didn't notice any improvement in drying times with a bedsheet in place, and when we used the plastic covers that were supplied with some of the airers we tested, we actually saw drying times increase.

Moisture was unable to escape from underneath the plastic cover, creating a very humid environment that slowed down how quickly the clothes dried. 

Find out the best and cheapest way to dry your clothes indoors

Are heated airers cheap to run?

They may be convenient, but do heated airers use a lot of electricity? Our tests found they use significantly less of it, on average, to dry clothes when compared with drying pods:

• 37p for heated airers vs 61p for drying pods (for a small 2.15kg cotton load).
• 80p for heated airers vs £1.92 for drying pods (for a larger 5.7kg cotton load).

For larger loads, you can reduce the running costs even further with our Best Buy heated airer recommendations, which cost 56p on average to dry a large load, compared to the 88p of all the other heated airers we've tested.

While heated airers use less electricity per hour than a tumble dryer, they take longer to dry the clothes. So, if you're drying big loads regularly, it will cost you more to run a heated airer annually than a tumble dryer.

Can you leave a heated clothes airer on overnight?

You can, but for safety reasons, it’s probably safer to avoid doing this. 

Most brands advise against leaving the appliance running while you sleep or when it’s completely unattended. Even though heated airers don’t get as hot as, say, tumble dryers, they're still heat-producing electrical devices, which means there's always some level of fire risk.

That risk increases if the airer is overloaded with thick items, placed too close to curtains or furniture, or plugged into a cheap extension lead, so avoid any of these pitfalls.