The Gas Dryer Journey...Four Months Later
Welcome to Saving Money with Andrew!
Four months ago, I wrote about switching from an electric to a gas clothes dryer (part 1 and part 2). The experience has exceeded our expectations on three key fronts: savings, performance, and environmental impact.
Savings/Performance
Each 80-minute load on our old electric dryer used 7.2 kWh of electricity ($1.30 at our local utility rate). Each load on our new LG gas dryer uses 10,000 BTU, or 0.1 therms (about $0.12 at our local utility rate before discounts at higher usage levels), for a savings of about $35/month for one load per day.
But in real world usage, our savings have been significantly greater. The gas dryer dries more effectively, meaning that most (~75%) of the time, it is able to dry all of our clothes in a single run of 60 minutes or less, auto-sensing how long our clothes need. Our old electric dryer needed a full 80 minutes, and often needed to be run again. And the new dryer is higher capacity, meaning that we are now able to occasionally stretch doing laundry a couple of days.
Comparing our utility bills to a month last year with comparable average temperature (similar AC usage), our gas consumption increased 50%, from 28 therms to 42 therms, and our bill increased by $10. But our electricity consumption declined from 59 kWh/day to 35 kWh/day, with our electric bill decreasing by $163. In total, we saved $153 last month.[1]
Environmental
According to the EPA, using one therm of natural gas generates an average of 11.7lbs of CO2, meaning that each gas dryer load causes 1.17lbs of CO2 emissions.
By contrast, each kWh generated in the US causes approximately 0.92lbs of CO2 emissions (based on the US’s current mix of power generation). At 7.2 kWh per load, each electric dryer load causes 6.62lbs of CO2 emissions.
Ignoring that we are now able to do fewer dryer loads, at one dryer load per day, this equals a reduction of just under 1 metric ton of CO2 emissions per year.[2] With the average household in our town generating 17 tons of CO2 per year, this is a substantial environmental savings.
And now…Andrew’s pick(s) of the week:
Dagobert, The “DuckTales” Bandit
“The most important thing to know about German Donaldism is that we are not just fans but we take Duckburg seriously and investigate it with a scientific approach,” Susanne Luber, the organization’s current president, told me. Before now, the Donaldists had busied themselves debating how much Scrooge McDuck was worth, or why male ducks typically walk barefoot in Duckburg while female ducks wear heels. Now, some of them searched the comics for clues to catch a real-life criminal.
If any of this means anything to you, you will probably enjoy this incredible story of a German extortionist who styled himself as a real-life criminal version of Scrooge McDuck.
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] An important note—we moved a few months ago, so the comparison is not perfect. But our houses are similarly-sized, are served by the same utilities, and have similar lighting and appliances other than the new washer and dryer.
[2] Note that, for simplicity, this ignores some factors including frequency of dryer loads (we do fewer now) and the changing mix of electric generation. All that said, the difference is so large that it is hard to conceive of a scenario in the next decade in which there would not be a significant net reduction in CO2 emissions from switching from an electric to a gas dryer. The NRDC agrees.