The Highest-Quality Clothes Dryer Brand Isn't Samsung Or LG, According To JD Power

Clothes dryers are one of the great technological conveniences that do not necessarily get their due. They may feel like old hat at this point, but dryers as we know them haven't even been around for 100 years. Gone are the days of getting ourselves a long clothesline with countless clothespins to air dry all of our clothes after a wash. We can simply transfer them to another machine, and they are perfectly warm and dry after about an hour. Sure, some clothes still require them to be air dried, but for most of these items, we can get things dried and hung up quickly.

A number of the big tech companies produce clothes dryers, like Samsung and LG. Because these companies produce so much tech that you probably already have in your home, you might think about getting a clothes dryer from them for brand consistency. However, if you are to look at the recommendation of a publication like J.D. Power, those would not be the companies you should look at. Instead, the number one clothes dryer manufacturer according to J.D. Power is the General Electric Company, more commonly known as GE.

GE has been a stalwart of American-made home appliances for decades upon decades, even if its branding isn't exactly the flashiest on the market. However, the company offers dozens of different dryer models. These are dryers that are standalone or stacked, electric or gas-powered, and top or front-loaded. Oftentimes, the same dryer model will be offered as an electric or gas-powered model for the ultimate in consumer optionality. GE dryers range in price from $529 to $1,399, meaning they can fit into most people's budgets, as well.

The parameters for why J.D. Power considers GE the best clothes dryer brand are quite simple. J.D. Power ranks based on reliability. This is determined by surveying actual owners of clothes dryers from a variety of different brands. These people will respond with whether or not they have had issues with their dryers. J.D. Power then takes that information and determines how many problems per 100 units (or PP100) that a particular brand has. The one with the lowest number of PP100 is the best. GE takes that spot by having 45 PP100. That is not an overwhelming number one though. Whirlpool is not too far behind at 48 PP100.

While this is a fine methodology for reliability, there are some issues. For instance, it does not tell you if a particular GE dryer model is more prone to problems than another. It lumps every model together, despite different designs or power capabilities. This is also strictly a measure of reliability and not overall features or functionality. If you wanted to know how much power GE clothes dryers use, as clothes dryers in general are an appliance that use a tremendous amount of power, J.D. Power's survey cannot help you.

Reliability is, of course, an extremely important factor when deciding on what clothes dryer you want in your home, considering this will be an appliance you will hopefully have for many years. But before you pick up the first GE dryer you see, it would behoove you to look further into the details to make sure what you're getting is of a high quality.