Saddo question but how much does it cost on average to use your tumble dryer

[pepsi]

Ive been really good all summer and have used the washing line and not been tempted to bung everything in the dryer....despite the rain. Am thinking now that I must have saved a bit of cash here and wondered how much, any ideas on how much the average tumble dry cycle costs?

Haven't got a clue how much it costs in total, but last winter I got a new one and although it uses quite a bit more leccy than the old one (maybe 3.8kw over 2.8kw - I am guesstimating) it doesn't seem to have increased leccy bill, possibly because extra power means it dries quicker so doesn't use any more. I air dry most things as much as poss though, summer and winter, before putting them in dryer.

Our winter bill is much higher than summer one but there are other factors.

Bet this doesn't help AT ALL! Sorry, pepsi!

Surely there is another saddo out there.

Yep another saddo who would be quite interested in knowing!
I spend 170 quid on a tumble dryer thinking it would be a godsend and ive only used it about 15 times in 18 months...if its expensive then ill feel better about that, if its cheap then I might get round to using it more!

we have a tumble dryer which is a godsend if the weather is crap or in the winter but we also have a spin dryer which is even better. After washing the clothes you pop them in the spin dryer (about £100) and it spins them at about 2800 rpm and gets loads of water out (at least a litre from a load) which in turn makes drying them easier (& cheaper if using tumble dryer)

I save money because i don't iron anything when it comes straight out of the dryer.Must confess I do feel guilty but it does keep me sane not having piles of ironing hanging around.

I'm a total saddo, so here goes.

Electricity is charged per Kilowatt-hour (so using one kilowatt for one hour costs about 10-11 pence - in London anyway)

If your drier is rated at 2.5KW and takes 90 minutes to dry a load, you've spent about 2.5 x 1.5 * 11 = 41 pence.

My dryer doesnt take 90mins to dry a load, but even if I half that 20p a go adds up. My electric company wanted to put up my direct debit payments to £54 per month, I thought we must be using to much leccy so have been trying to economise. Im hoping to get it down to £40 and I think the tumble dryer staying off is the way to do it. Any other good ideas on leccy saving.

Pepsi, tumble driers are not necessarily the most electricity hungry things. Vacuum cleaners and irons also use lots (though not as much as tumble-driers I think) but what really surprised me was that the most expensive electric item I've got, is my fan-assisted oven. Since I found out it costs 84p an hour to run, I've cut down on using it every day - I now try and do more hob, microwave and slow cooker meals.

Now you are panicking me Meanbean. I have just been looking through Delias Winter Collection thinking out slow roasting for 3 hours................youve put me off now. Is it really that much, I had no idea. Why is everything so bloody expensive.

If you leave things like TV and VCR on standby they use a lot more than you'd think. Will see if I can find a chart.

Don't leave anything on 'stand-by' as it can use up to 70% of the same amount of energy as when it's on. Switch all your bulbs to low-energy ones?

Snap JanH!

OK, this page is about standby costs. Still looking for general consumption costs.

Energy Efficiency website .

If you have any quite old appliances they will use much more than new ones do.

This is really interesting. I try not to use the tumble because of expense but also live in a flat and use cloth nappies! We've got Economy 7 (until 9am in the morning) so I tend to hang a load out to dry in the bathroom and then stick it in the tumble of an evening ready to give a small blast in the morning for about 20-30 mins. I find this gets dry and the ironing is minimal. Also fill the washer up ready to go in the morning too.

Spod75

Like Spod, I try not to use mine too much, and use airers in winter, and the line in summer, with 20 mins in the dryer to finish off if necessary. I hate to iron, and find that tumble-drying halves my ironing so someone PLEASE find evidence, that ironing and tumble-drying use the same amount of energy, so I no longer feel guilty at using my dryer.

My dryer is about 3.8kw on high, if 1kwh costs 10p then 1 hour of high heat costs 38p (but I usually run mine on low, I don't know how much power that is).

If I run it for 20 mins (after air-drying like you, zaphod), ie 10 mins hot and 10 mins cool-down, that costs 1/6 of 38p or 6-7p per load.

1 load per day = c 50p per week.

My iron says it's 1.2kw-1.45kw, ironing one dryer-load would take a lot longer than 10/15 minutes, wouldn't it? And that's not allowing for the cost of your time doing the ironing, as opposed to doing something else while the dryer was running (doodling around on MN in my case but you may well be doing something much more important!)

Thanks Janh, thats cheered me up no end.