An experimental methodology was developed to improve the energy design of paddle dryers for sewage sludges. A laboratory batch dryer with a vertical agitator has been especially designed and instrumented to determine the heat flux densities. To determine the drying kinetic and the evaporating flow rates, the specific heat and the total heat of desorption of the sludge were measured using calorimetric devices. The evaporating flow rates recorded during the pasty and granular phases were then used in a simple model of the paddle dryer. The good agreement between the computed drying kinetics and the experimental ones measured in an industrial paddle dryer shows that the batch dryer can be used to classify the sludges according to their capacity to be dried in a paddle dryer.