Our Favorite Clothes Dryer

A washer is only half the battle. For a while our bottleneck was the dryer—we would run these enormous washer loads and then have to split each one into two or three sad little dryer cycles, damp towels draped over every chair back while we waited. Nothing says big family quite like a kitchen chair wearing four bath towels at dinnertime.

The fix was the Kenmore 7.0 cubic foot front load electric dryer. The large drum means one washer load actually dries as one dryer load, which sounds small until you have lived the alternative. It powers through the family’s endless mountain of towels without complaint, and the sensor settings have been a quiet hero—they shut off when things are actually dry instead of baking everything stiff, which matters when half the loads are the little ones’ clothes and Grandma’s delicates mixed in.

We weighed a few other dryers, including some cheaper models with fewer settings and a couple of pricey smart ones. The bargain units could not keep pace with the volume we generate, and the high-end ones wanted a lot of money for app features we would never open. The Kenmore sat right in the middle: big enough to match our washer load for load, smart enough with the moisture sensing to save wear on clothes and energy on our bill, and simple enough that nobody needs a manual to use it. It just keeps up, day after day, which is the highest compliment we can pay any appliance in this house.