The Top Clothes Dryer Brand Isn’t Samsung or LG, According to JD Power

Clothes dryers are one of the best pieces of technology that don’t get their due. They may feel old hat now, but dryers as we know them haven’t even been around for 100 years. Gone are the days of finding a long clothes line with countless pins to dry all our clothes after washing. We can simply transfer them to another machine, and they are warm and dry in an hour. Of course, some clothes still need to be air dried, but for most of these items, we can dry them and hang them up quickly.

Many major technology companies manufacture clothes dryers, such as Samsung and LG. Because these companies produce a lot of technology that you probably already have in your home, you might consider getting a clothes dryer from them to go along with the product. However, if you’re going to look at the recommendations of a publication like JD Power, those aren’t the companies you should be looking at. Instead, the first manufacturer of clothes dryers according to JD Power is the General Electric Company, better known as GE.

GE has been a master of American-made home appliances for decades and decades, even if its brand isn’t the most prominent on the market. However, the company offers a number of different dryer models. These are freestanding or stacked dryers, electric or gas powered, and top or front loaded. Oftentimes, the same dryer model will be offered as either an electric or gas model to give the consumer more choice. GE dryers range in price from $529 to $1,399, which means they can fit into most people’s budgets, too.

The reasons why JD Power considers GE the best clothes dryer brand are simple. JD Power ratings are based on trust. This is determined by testing actual owners of clothes dryers from a variety of different brands. These people will answer whether or not they have problems with their dryers. JD Power then takes that information and determines how many problems per 100 units (or PP100) a particular brand has. The one with the lowest PP100 number is the best. GE takes that spot by having 45 PP100. However, that is not the first number. Whirlpool is not far behind at 48 PP100.

Although this is a good method to be honest, there are some problems. For example, it doesn’t tell you whether a particular GE dryer model is more prone to problems than another. It combines all models together, without different designs or power levels. This is also a rough estimate of reliability and not absolute features or performance. If you wanted to know how much energy a GE clothes dryer uses, since clothes dryers are generally a high-energy appliance, JD Power’s survey won’t help.

Reliability, of course, is the most important factor when deciding which clothes dryer you want for your home, considering this will be a machine you hope to have for many years. But before you pick up the first GE dryer you see, it’s a good idea to take a close look at the specs to make sure what you’re getting is top-notch.