What F29 Means
WHICH MACHINES THIS APPLIES TO: F29 belongs to the TD70 platform, on the numeric-display panel the service manual calls panel type B, and within that it applies to heat-pump machines only. The manual marks the row with an "HP" note in the margin for exactly that reason. It is one of the four codes that platform can display, alongside F10 and F30.
WHAT ASKO PUBLISHES FOR F29, AND WHAT IT DOES NOT: this is the unusual part, and it is worth stating exactly. In Asko's own TD70 service manual the cause column for F29 is blank. Not unreadable, not damaged in the scan - printed empty. The row immediately above it, F10, carries a full description of the condensed water tank microswitch, and the row immediately below it, F30, carries a full description of the 200-minute program limit. Between them, F29 has no description at all. Asko has never published what this code means.
THE ONE THING ASKO DOES PRINT FOR F29: the action column. It reads "Check whether the customer has: Cleaned the evaporator filter (net filter + foam filter) and the evaporator." That is the entire published content of the row, and it is the same remedy the manual attaches to the plain-text "Clean filter" message on the TD70.2 machines.
WHY NO MEANING IS INFERRED HERE: the remedy points at the evaporator side of a heat pump, which is suggestive, but a remedy is not a definition. A blocked evaporator filter could produce several different conditions, and choosing one of them and printing it as the meaning of F29 would be inventing a fact that Asko did not state. The honest position is the one on this page: the code is real, it appears on heat-pump machines, the remedy is documented, and the meaning is not.
WHAT YOU MAY READ ELSEWHERE: one repair site publishes F29 as a program that exceeded a 200-minute time limit. That reading is contradicted by the manual itself, because the 200-minute limit is the documented cause of F30, in the row directly below F29, with full text. Asko would not be describing the same error twice in adjacent rows. If you arrived here with the 200-minute reading, treat it as belonging to F30.
HOW A HEAT-PUMP DRYER USES THE EVAPORATOR: instead of venting warm damp air outside, the machine passes it across a cold surface, the evaporator, where the moisture condenses out, and then reheats the dried air and sends it back through the drum. The evaporator is protected by a fine net filter and a foam filter, because lint that reaches its fins is very hard to remove and blocks the airflow that the whole cycle depends on. That is why Asko's single published action for this code is about those filters.
HOW THE FAULT INDICATION IS CLEARED: the manual's instruction for all TD70 codes is "After carrying out corrective actions as above, reset the problem indication on the display by switching off the machine at the main power switch."
CLASSIFICATION: a real error code with a documented remedy and no published definition. Anyone who tells you precisely what F29 means is not reading it out of an Asko document.
Common Causes of F29
- Evaporator net filter blocked
- Evaporator foam filter blocked, or refitted while still damp
- Lint matted across the face of the evaporator itself
- Filters not refitted correctly, so air bypasses them and reaches the evaporator
- A further condition on the heat-pump side that Asko has not described, since the manual publishes no cause text for this code
🔧 One Safe Check You Can Try
Do the one thing Asko actually prints, and do it properly. Switch the dryer off and let it cool, then work through your own model's cleaning instructions for the heat-pump filters: there are usually two stages, a fine net filter and a foam filter behind it, and both sit in the filter housing at the bottom of the door opening or behind a small access flap. Rinse them under a tap until the water runs through freely rather than beading on the surface, and let them dry completely before refitting, because a damp foam filter passes very little air. Then look at the evaporator fins themselves through the access opening with a torch: a gray felt of lint across the face of them is the thing the filters exist to prevent and the thing this remedy is aimed at. Clean it only as far as your manual describes, which usually means a soft brush or a vacuum with the nozzle held clear of the fins, and never with water or anything that could bend them. Refit everything, switch the machine off at the main power switch to clear the indication, and run a cycle. If F29 comes back on a machine whose filters and evaporator face are clean, there is nothing further published to work through, and that is the point to hand it over rather than to guess.
⚠ Why You Shouldn't Go Further Than That
- The filter housing and the air path behind it are hot at the end of a cycle, so the dryer is switched off and left to cool before anything is removed.
- The evaporator sits at the front of a sealed refrigerant circuit; the filters and the visible face of the fins are the owner-accessible part, and anything behind them is workshop work.
- The fins bend under very little force and a bent fin blocks the airflow permanently, which is why the manual limits the cleaning to the method it describes.
Opening a panel to inspect or repair something yourself doesn't automatically cancel your manufacturer's warranty — but it can risk accidental damage, and some manufacturers do have specific service conditions. Check your product's warranty terms, or ask us, before deciding.