"Have you had your heating on yet?" will go down in history as the most asked question of 2022. With energy prices soaring as well as all our other bills, most households have been trying to hold off on the central heating for as long as possible.
But with tumble dryers also swallowing up cash, it leaves one big problem - the washing. You might still get the odd day where it's nice enough to hang it outside, but generally we're heading for shorter wetter days.
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With that in mind - and my family's laundry piling up around my ears - I jumped at the chance to try out Lakeland's Dry:Soon Drying Pod.
Having seen people raving about it in various money-saving forums, it's an alternative to the heated airers that are also being snapped up at the moment.
This thing looks and is completely different. And if you want your clothes dried faster - with less creases too - then this is the one for you.
It's easy to assemble. I'm usually the one giving the 'putting it together' part a miss, but as I was the only one home I went for it and it was done in less than five minutes.
Basically it's a tripod shape at the bottom with a fan attached and then a pole going up the centre with smaller arms coming off that. It all fits neatly inside the zip-fronted fabric cover which comes with the pod.
The arms are designed to hold hangers so your clothes are actually hanging up while they dry. And with warm air up to 70 degrees Celsius circulating around them, it's quicker than you'd think.
And it makes the room you're using it in warm too. Within minutes of it being on I had to take my jumper off as I was getting too hot - a rarity these days, but I wasn't complaining.
I put one load of laundry in it, including thicker jogging bottoms, school trousers and even jeans, and in two hours they were dry. There was the odd little damp patch when I turned the fan off, but the room then stayed warm enough to finish them off completely in about half an hour.
Those two hours cost me around 60p on my current tariff, so 30p an hour. While that's more than other heated airers we've looked at, those are on for a lot longer so it's not costing any more.
It's not something you can use for a big load, as it holds up to 12 items on hangers, but I hung a few things over the arms too, like underwear and socks - even putting a few in the bottom of the bag.
But what you do hang up needs little if any ironing at all, so it'll definitely come in useful for the school shirts.
Talking of school, it just so happened that on the day I was using it, both children arrived home dripping wet and it was the perfect place to put their blazers to dry off too. It's a shame I couldn't fit them inside for a quick blast.
Condensation was a slight issue, no doubt because of the speed at which the clothes were drying, so I opened the window slightly to help with that. Even then the heat from the pod still kept me warm.
I didn't use the timer, but if needs be that can be set for three hours, meaning the fan will automatically switch off when the time's up. I'm not sure I'd have any clothes left on after three hours next to that heat mind.
I'm clearly not the only one impressed with the pod. The Dry:Soon range has apparently sold in the thousands over the last decade and in October 2022 the retailer saw a 72% increase in sales of the Drying Pod, compared with the same month last year. It's become so popular in fact that there's now a product limit of two per household 'due to unusually high demand'.
The one we tried costs £99.99 and can be ordered online here. If you want something slightly bigger, the Heated Cabinet was added to the collection earlier this year, with a larger, square frame. That one costs £129.99, with stock expected from November 7.
Between November 4 and 7, Lakeland is offering free standard delivery with any order to any UK address. Use the code DE22 in the voucher code box on the website or quote by phone.
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