Should I purchase a dryer in a shared house ?

LOL - that made me laugh. No doubt you would insist on collecting the rent in person too?

Hello Mark,and hi to Keith.
Many thanks to give me opportunity to express my view regarding to Dryer.I had few tenents in past asking me for dryer. I thought I should provide one.But Up to now my answer is always 'NO' and not given yet.Even my tenants pay me good rent and fairly on time more over I can affort to give and claim against expenses,and all my houses are big enough to have one ,but Safety first.Also we are invite trouble for our selves.Reason (1) high electricity bill (2) Fire risk (3) Cloth damage risk (4)Space (5) ventalation and Damp problem in case vent out of duct.(6) left ON without cloths and no one say i did.I think this is fair on us and tenants.
As a good landlord up to now all my tenants said I am very good landlord xecept two 1)Indian Tenants 2) African tenants.I am British citizen and Indian.I am not discriminating but teling truth.And proud to be good landlord.

Many thanks,

Regards,
Nat patel

For me it's a no brainer. A (washer)dryer is a must-have in a HMO. The amount of condensation caused by tenants (students) drying their clothes on radiators can lead to further problems, so nip it in the bud and get a dryer. The initial outlay of a few hundred pounds is negated by the hassle and unsightliness of condensation that can put future tenants off your property, especially in high turnover properties like student houses. Most new dryers are fairly economical compared to previous models, so get an A or A+ model, or get the tenants to look after the bills themselves. Fire risk is negligible so get is properly installed to be on the safe side, clothes damage is also very limited and socks can be found in the front vent usually!, space - get a washer dryer. I've never considered a token meter and am not convinced so far, but I do like the idea of hiring one. I may look into it further when my current WD packs up. Great idea Mick - Anyone know of any nudists in south Wales after HMOs?

We let and manage over 200 HMOs and my advice is to provide
space and vent for a tumble dryer but persuade the tenants to purchase the
machine. 4 sharers will pat about £30.00 each. I do not advise providing them
as if the filters are not regularly cleared, they can become a significant fire
risk; my fire risk assessment officer tells me tumble dryers are the third most
common cause of fire in a domestic setting.
My insurance broker says that there will be less chance of claim
avoidance if the machine is brought in by the tenants.......as my insurance
company will be likely to counter claim against them!

In practice, what happens is that when a group of tenants
vacate the property they offer to sell the dryer to the incoming tenants (who
invariably buy it) the dryer is not on the inventory, so is deemed to belong to
the tenants and therefore does not need to be PAT tested annually.

I don't have HMO s - but in general I would say no to such a request and I would not supply, fire risk being my major concern. Having said that I recently let to 3 professionals on a medium term corporate let who asked for a washer dryer. To be honest I haven't assessed the fire risk on a washer dryer yet - but these gents passed my 'look them over' test and are only in residence Monday to Friday and are a sensible and educated bunch, so I will take the risk on this one. Getting back to the point; if this was a real 'deal breaker' and risked losing goodwill to good tenants I would probably negotiate something like Mark Crampton Smiths' solution; namely - I would agree to put the infrastructure in place for them (rated electrics,venting etc - i.e the expensive bit) and should they then wish to install their own piece of kit at their cost (outlay and running costs) it would be up to them. A decent tumble drier between 4-6 people on the never never doesn't amount to much over 24/36 months...I hadn't considered Lease/Rental for white goods-but I will be moving forward

I'm surprised so many respondents think meters are a good idea: I think it's simply unfair on the tenants to expect them to pay extra for a meter, to have change available when they want to dry clothes etc. As Vanessa said, meters give a house an institutional feel, but I want my tenants to feel they are living in a shared home, not anonymous student bedsits or halls of residence. As "geraint" comments, a dryer is to the landlord's benefit as well as the tenants', because it cuts down hugely on the condensation and associated mould created by drying off radiators or clothes racks. In my experience most HMO tenants don't like opening windows or using washing lines at the best of times, and especially in winter, so months of drying clothes on racks in their bedrooms leads to real problems of spot-mould in the corners, mould on windows (which means more maintenance cost to redecorate), and a not-very-pleasant "fug" of warm moist air in the house, which puts off prospective new tenants.

I provide a tumble-drier as part of the white goods in my HMOs. I generally get a good one from the likes of John Lewis, because of better reliability and brand recognition. The electricity cost is simply added to the household electricity bills, which are in the names of the tenants, so there's no need for a meter. Buying an efficient drier also means the tenants are more likely to use it, rather than thinking they will try and save money by using drying racks. If you install a meter and hike up the charges, what's the point if the tenants respond by going back to drying racks? My driers get used a lot, especially in winter, and well-behaved female tenants in particular love being able to wash and dry clothes quickly in a few hours. In other words, a drier helps attract a better class of tenant; a house full of damp washing sitting on maidens does not.

Mark Crampton Smith's idea about asking the tenants to buy the drier is a good one; my only concern would be that they would only invest in a poor-quality drier, one which is more likely to be expensive and break down, leading to conflict in the house. It might make sense to help them buy a better-quality second hand one through Gumtree etc, as it will aleady have depreciated and they won't mind so much about handing it on to the next set of tenants. There could even be a system in which each new tenant is asked to put £30 into a "house deposit" (not a landlord's one) which they get back when they move out.

I've heard of but have never seen a gas-powered drier. The main problem I can see is that one rarely has a gas supply pipe in the right place.

Washer-driers: yuk. I rent a house myself and in my experience they do not give good results and are expensive to run.

Its important that the landlord has a document, hand written is ok, from the incoming tenants to say that they bought, even for £1, the machine from the outgoing tenants. Regardless of what is on the Inventory, items that are left in a property when one tenancy ends and another begins are deemed to have been "adopted" by the landlord and he will be responsible even if he did not buy the item.
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About the tumble dryer - if the housemates can't agree about paying the electricity bill among themselves, they are probably not a very good combination of housemates anyway - forget it.

We run 11 HMO,s and provide washing/spindryers as part of the shared facilities. We have always had card timers for these machines and they have always produced a degree of conflict and hazzle. We recently changed them to £1 metres and they are far more popular with no hazzle. Intersetingly the machines are used far more than before when it was cards ???? Alan

mileage is tax deductible and regular inspections are vital espec in an hmo so dont understand your thinking.