[mikestew]

If so, why haven't I ever seen a dryer that starts hot and transitions to cool as the clothes dry out?

I'm pretty sure that all of the three dryers we've had in the last twenty years had a permanent press setting that does exactly that. Our current one certainly does, and it's just the front-loader that was on sale at Home Depot, nothing fancy.

[taejo]

But they call it "permanent press" so those of us who didn't study domestic science don't know what it does ;)

Thanks for explaining something I was always curious about in the laundry room but forgot about by the time I reached a computer.

[mikestew]

But they call it "permanent press" so those of us who didn't study domestic science don't know what it does ;)

Yeah, fair enough. Come to think of it, I don't even know why I know this. Our current dryer has something on the display that says something to that affect, but our previous ones were old school analog dials without explanatory text, yet I always knew that "permanent press" meant it starts out hot and ends cool so the clothes don't wrinkle.