Saving Money With Gas Dryers - The Savings (Part 1)
Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!
The one constant in our lives (with two young children) is laundry. We do one load daily, sometimes two. I always knew washing, and especially drying, clothes uses lots of electricity. But it wasn’t until we replaced our washer and dryer that I learned the true cost of laundry, the possible savings, and what it can teach us about our impact on the environment.
The Cost of Laundry
Until now, we’ve used an average GE washer and electric dryer, consuming 1 kWh per washer load and 7.2 kWh per large 80 minute dryer load. We average one load of laundry each day (kids…), consuming 8.2 kWh per load. We currently pay $0.18 per kWh, meaning that each daily load of laundry costs $0.18 * 8.2, or $1.48 per day, $44 per month, and $540 per year.
In addition to being a lot of money, this is also a large portion of our electricity consumption—about 17% of last month’s electricity usage. I was shocked by these two figures. Sure, we do laundry more than most, but one-sixth of our electric footprint? Nationwide, people don’t do as much laundry as we do, but clothes drying still represents 6% of all residential electricity consumption. Most home appliances have become dramatically more efficient over time (the average refrigerator, dishwasher, and washing machine each use less than half the energy they used 40 years ago). But dryers haven’t changed much since the 1980’s, and electric dryers consume nearly as much energy as all other home appliances combined.
Washers and Dryers: The Lay of the Land
The United States has 123 million households. About 90 million of them own a washer and dryer.[1]
Let’s focus on dryers, given that they consume most of the energy. There are three major dryer types:
Conventional Electric Dryers - plug into an outlet, generally high-voltage (240V), use electricity to heat a coil that then is used to heat your clothing, and vent the damp air to the outside. About 75% of dryer-owning households have one of these.
Conventional Gas Dryers - connect to your natural gas line, ignite natural gas to heat your clothing, and vent the damp air and gas to the outside. About 25% of dryer-owning households have one of these. These typically cost about $100 more than a conventional electric, and require that your house has a natural gas connection.
Heat Pump (Ventless) Dryers - these dryers use electricity to heat your clothing, but do not vent the resulting damp air to the outside. Instead, they remove the moisture from the air and “recycle” the hot air to continue to dry your clothing. These dryers are significantly more expensive than conventional dryers, and are uncommon in the US, though you may have had one if you’ve lived in an apartment with a washer/dryer (or live in Europe). I’m not going to discuss these here as they are typically more expensive and slower than gas dryers, but they are very efficient and don’t require access to natural gas.[2]
There’s also a fourth drying option - a $20 clothesline! Yes, line drying is free and saves a lot of energy, and some money-saving sites love to promote it. But it’s also completely impractical for most people for a variety of reasons. The entire point of SMwA is to help you save money without making life harder or less pleasant.
Purely from a saving money perspective, there is no contest between conventional electric and gas dryers. Gas dryers are far more efficient. Why? Effectively, there is significant energy lost in generating the electricity in the first place (natural gas and coal still account for ~62% of US energy generation) and sending it to your house to power your electric dryer. By contrast, a gas dryer uses the natural gas coming into your home, with minimal energy loss along the way. As a result, gas dryers are typically 2-3 times as efficient as a comparable electric dryer.
The difference is even more stark when calculating the cost per load. A typical electric washer/dryer load might use 7 kWh, which at an average US cost per kWh of $0.13 would cost $0.91 per load. By contrast, that same load instead using a gas dryer would consume 1 kWh (the wash) plus perhaps an additional 0.2 “therms” of natural gas, which would cost about $0.22 at today’s prices, resulting in a cost of $0.35 per load.
The average family doing 200 loads of laundry per year would save approximately $112/yr using a gas dryer. Thinking about this as an investment, an extra $100 spent on a gas dryer would pay for itself in less than a year, and would yield over $1100 in total energy savings (assuming a 10-year dryer lifespan).
There are some caveats here:
Gas dryers are, of course, only available to households with access to natural gas. About 60% of US households have some access to natural gas for home heating or appliances. But only 25% of households use a gas dryer, meaning there are tens of millions of US households who have this savings opportunity.
Gas dryers require a gas hookup in your laundry room, which will likely require a visit from a licensed installer and potentially some additional plumbing work. This should be factored into your savings.
A gas dryer should have its vent cleaned at least annually, and if the dryer has any issues you should have it serviced. This is true of all dryers, but is particularly important with a gas dryer because it is using your home’s natural gas. As with all gas appliances you should be vigilant if there is any evidence of a gas leak, and you should make sure to have a carbon monoxide detector installed.
Overall, the aggregate energy savings make gas dryers an extremely compelling opportunity, and we’re making the switch. If you’re really on an energy and money-saving kick, check out my two-part series on LED bulbs (part 1 and part 2) for another great opportunity.
Next week, I’m going to talk more broadly about the environmental impact of these changes, our carbon footprint, and also address some of the potential criticism people might have of shifting to natural gas (which still contributes to global warming). Is switching to a gas dryer really a green move? Come back next week for more on that topic!
And now…Andrew’s pick of the week:
Say Nothing
Most Americans’ (including my) knowledge of The Troubles has come largely from movies and U2 songs. But there is a lot to learn about Northern Ireland’s three decades of ethnic conflict, and Say Nothing is a gripping story of the period and its aftermath, with some interesting lessons for today. One of the most interesting passages in the book seems particularly relevant given our own level of partisan enmity today, and how often our own political debates seem to devolve into a recounting of the other side’s perceived sins rather than a good-faith discussion:
The anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss once observed that, “for a majority of the human species, and for tens of thousands of years, the idea that humanity includes every human being on the face of the earth does not exist at all. The designation stops at the border of each tribe, or linguistic group, sometimes even at the edge of a village.” When it came to the Troubles, a phenomenon known as "whataboutery" took hold. Utter the name Jean McConville and someone will say, What about Bloody Sunday? To which you could say, What about Bloody Friday? To which they could say, What about Pat Finucane? What about the La Mon bombing? What about the Ballymurphy massacre? What about Enniskillen? What about McGurk's bar? What about. What about. What about.
I hope this has been helpful. If you liked it, please share it on social media! Also, please send me your feedback, requests, and success stories.
[1] Much of the data in this post comes from this useful NRDC paper (a bit dated, but not that old, and most people use their washer/dryer for a long time).
[2] The NRDC paper discusses these in more detail as well.