Do I Have To Reduce Load For Drying In Washer Dryer?

[Piera]

I've just bought my first washer dryer and hope to get years and years of active service from it. The manual says to reduce the load by half when drying, which is fine, but a bit inconvenient….is this really necessary? Or can I simply double the recommended drying time instead? I do wonder how many people actually follow this guidance.

[Whitegoodshelp (Andy)]

No, you must reduce the load to a half load before drying in a combined washer dryer. Washing clothes and drying clothes are different jobs, and the compromise required to do them inside the same machine is that up to half of the washing often needs removing before drying.

The explanation for this is covered on Whitegoodshelp's main site Washer-dryer, or separate washing machine and dryer - which is the best?

Overloading a washer dryer by having too much laundry in on the drying section can cause the thermal overload cut-outs to trip, and the dryer would stop heating until an engineer visits to replace it. But even if that didn't happen, it would take several hours to dry the load or it would just not dry them in the middle.