Patent attributes
An appliance for drying laundry (100) comprises an appliance cabinet (110), a laundry treatment chamber (105) inside the cabinet, and a drying air recirculation path (245) for causing recirculation of the drying air into/out from the laundry treatment chamber. The drying air recirculation path is at least partly external to the laundry treatment chamber. A drying air moisture condensing and heating system (215,220,225) located in the drying air recirculation path for dehydrating the moisture-laden drying air leaving the laundry treatment chamber and heating the dehydrated drying air before it re-enters into the laundry treatment chamber. The drying air moisture condensing and heating system comprises a first heat exchanger (215) and a second heat exchanger (220) of a heat pump (215,220,225,210), and further comprising a drying air propeller (250) inside the drying air recirculation path and a Joule-effect drying air heater (255), downstream the second heat exchanger, energizable for contributing to the heating of the drying air. The appliance includes a user interface (121) comprising a laundry treatment cycle selector (305) operable by a user for selecting a laundry treatment cycle, and a control unit (265) adapted to control the machine operation. The user interface comprises a command input means (315) operable by the user for imparting to the appliance an energization command to energize the Joule-effect heater. During the execution of the laundry treatment cycle selected by the user, the control unit causes the selective energization of the Joule-effect drying air heater based on the energization command imparted by the user.
