Anyone know how much one washing machine cycle costs?

[chocolatequeen]

Am using the launderette for big loads of towels and bedding, which cost nearly 15 quid. Would have been at least 3 loads in my machine, and god knows how many hours in the tumble dryer to get it all dry. So is it a false economy both financially and from an energy point of view? Is there anywhere that you can find out how much appliances cost to run?

TIA

I reckon you could do it cheaper at home... We costed up the electricity to run our machine about 5 years ago, it was something like 15p a wash (just the electricity). That was a small drum, if you multiplied by 5x for increase in electricity prices and drum size, and then x3 for the 3 loads... that's only £2.25 for the wash alone... and only if your machine is as inefficient as ours was.

I don't know anything about tumble-dryers elec use.

You can get devices to measure how much electricity a device uses to run, then work out from your kWh charges what it costs ea. time.

I know it was worked out for a nappy cost comparison but WEN state:

One load at 60 degree for a B-energy rated machine is about 10p (they state 9.71p exactly).

They also give the average cost of washing powder per wash as 20p and the average cost of washing machine per year as £24.63.

Not sure about the tumbler tho.

Was interested to find out about tumblers and have found which.

They state that an energy B rated tumbler doing 5 loads a week will cost £42.95 per year, which is £8.25 per week, so £1.65 per load.

10p x 3 = 30p for washing
£1.65 x 3 = £5.04 for tumbler

Total £5.34 per week, not including deprecation of machines

What do people think about those figures?

If you're being thorough, you also factor in the depreciation on the washing machine (like they do for car milage allowances). We reckoned ours was about a pound a week, which made buying a new one when the old one died seem a bit less bad.

As to the drying theres a whole thread about that (not costed as such but ideas how to reduce use of tumble dryer)

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/2422/392501?stamp=070928113641

I think you did a good job coming up with rough figures, Cinders, otherwise It mostly depends on the energy efficiency of the partic appliances. Even allowing for such variations and adding something on wear-n-tear on machines, I would think still at very very most: £10 for ChocolateQ's towels+bedding... so probably cheaper done at home.

And savings in transport costs for CQ, too .
Although probably takes much more time done at home...?

I'm not sure those figures for tumble driers are right - £42.95 a year works out at 82p per week, not £8.25 - that's only 16p per load.

The Powergen energy efficiceicy department (yes I have too much time on my hands) told me it was 50-60 p per hour for a tumble drier. However, as I have economy 7 electricity so if i run it at night it is about 15 p an hour.

Thanks very much - nice to see some very clued up people....

Will keep on doing it at home then, to be honest thought the figures would work out at a lot more than that, 65p per hour in the tumble drier seems fairly reasonable to me, from a price point of view, although from an ecological point of view I would rather have windy dry days and do it outside!

There's a feature in Today's article about how much appliances cost to use (per load, per hour), including tumble dryers. For TDs they give a figure of 54p/load on average, rising to something like 75p/load.

Durh, article Today's GUARDIAN....