1. Field
The present invention relates to a control method of a laundry treatment apparatus.
2. Background
Generally, a laundry treatment apparatus is a generic term encompassing home electronic appliances capable of performing washing of laundry, drying of laundry, or both drying and washing of laundry. In a laundry treatment apparatus capable of performing drying of laundry, drying of laundry is achieved by supplying heated air (hot air) to a space receiving laundry. In connection therewith, there is a conventional laundry treatment apparatus using a heat pump.
Generally, a heat pump includes an evaporator configured to exchange heat with ambient air and, as such, to evaporate refrigerant present therein, a condenser configured to condense refrigerant present therein and, as such, to heat ambient air, and a compressor configured to compress refrigerant discharged from the evaporator and to supply the compressed refrigerant. In the laundry treatment apparatus using such a heat pump, however, the temperature of air introduced into the evaporator may become non-uniform depending on the environment wherein the laundry treatment apparatus is installed. For this reason, there is a problem in that the laundry treatment apparatus may not exhibit constant drying performance.
That is, when the laundry treatment apparatus operates under low-temperature conditions (when the laundry treatment apparatus is installed in a cold region or when the laundry treatment apparatus operates in winter), there may be a problem in that a long time is taken to raise the temperature of air supplied to laundry to a desired level through operation of the heat pump because the temperature of air introduced into the evaporator is low. This causes a problem of an increase in drying time and a difficulty in drying laundry to a desired level.