Tennis balls are probably too small to do much good if the comforter is wet and heavy. You can take tennis shoes and put white socks over them and put them in the dryer. They are bigger and heavier and will work better. Down comforters dry best in a big, commercial dryer. It still takes a long time, though. Maybe several hours or more on low or medium heat. That is why I moved to fake down and use a duvet. Good luck.

I have the same dryer and have had no problems. I wonder if you have the setting on "less dry" rather than "more dry" (which is what I leave it set on). What I have noticed is that I will look at the time and it will say like "6 minutes" and then a few minutes later it says "20 min" I guess it decides the clothes aren't dry enough and adds on more minutes.

Amd111~ For what it's worth, I have a Maytag Epic set. They are stackable also & did require a kit... Just remember if you have to take the feet off the dryer to put them in a safe place!... Anyway, I originally had mine stacked & it didn't seem to cause any problems; no extra noise, vibration, etc... Also, we live in a mobile home, and there was no problem w/ the weight at all, I was also paranoid about this to begin with. Just recently, I unstacked mine to create hanging space in my laundry room, remember the "tip" above? I lost 1 of my dryer feet & DH had to rig up boards of the perfect height to go under my dryer so it was the same height as my washer! About the venting situation... Why couldn't you buy a longer dryer vent, possibly the expandable periscope vents, and maybe even a longer dryer cord if necessary to put the machines like they're supposed to be? I had to rearrange my laundry room from the way it's supposed to be set up b/c of the depth of my machines, I just bought a longer dryer cord, a periscope vent (these also let you push the dryer further back), and longer washer hoses... All of this stuff is readily available online. Anyway, that's just a thought, good luck! Mc_Hudd

Hi Maven, I had the first batch of T9820 gas dryers (Miele's first gas dryer model). It was LOUD, the clothes were so inconsistently dry...either super damp, or crispy dried and creased. Also, I never thought they smelled fresh after being dried. All of Europe (and most of the world) uses Electric dryers. The heat is a lot more consistent & even, and electric dryers are A LOT quieter than gas dryers. I have the absolute newest filter for the T9800/T9820 models. I can ask about firmware/software updates, but my unit has a build date of 5/2009...so I'd be surprised if anything applies to my unit, but ya never know. Thanks for the reply!