Umelome Spin Dryer, Energy&Power Saving Spinner, 2800 RPM

Ordered this to tide us over after the new replacement washing machine for our old faulty machine, broke down itself after 3 weeks. The old machine had the most effective spin on any machine I have ever had even though it was only a standard 1400rpm. So I had in mind using this to do an extra spin on clothes washed in any new machine we get that aren’t quite as well spun as we would like. So far, so good. It is very easy to balance the clothes in this on the first try, whereas my mum used to have one where you had to adjust them loads of times before they would spin properly. This is also comparatively lightweight, my mum’s one was so heavy that nobody could lift it even though it was half the capacity.

Build quality is good overall but a bit rough around the edges looking if you get close up. The plastic semi translucent lid enables you to see what you’re doing but is of a quality you would find on one of those cheap portable twin tub matchines, which is a let down.

The capacity is really good. It is a bit expensive for what you get but since so many brands that used to make these stopped in the past few years, for example Indesit, there is just no competition in the market now.

Finally, the collection jug is really inadequate in terms of size and capacity and when spinning handwashed items, can fill up completely within less than a minute even if you just spin a few lightly wrung out toddler clothes in it, they could have easily made this much bigger. I will have to experiment with other options such as washing up bowls to find the best solution for that.

Edit: the new washing machine has thankfully been fixed but this will make a useful back-up in case anything goes wrong again in the future. As an experiment I did spin 5 bath sheets, one at a time in this that had already been washed and spun at 1400 on a cottons cycle. Most of them only a few drops of extra water came out and the spin on this is very ‘vigourous’ with it being so fast, so I am sure with repeated use on the same items it would cause wear and tear to a lot of fabrics and cause them to wear out more quickly, along the lines of using a tumble dryer. Therefore I would not advise using this on delicate fabrics at all, and on anything else I would weigh up whether using this is worth the extra wear and tear on fabrics.