Help with working this out?

moments_of_sanity

Hi All, I currently run my tumble dryer for approximately 13 hours a week as there are 4 of us at home (2 adults, 2 teenagers), does anyone have any idea how much this may be costing us please. I am trying to reduce our electricity bill but not sure if it's expensive to use the tumble dryer or not?

Thank you

msb5262

A thread from here in November 2011 says a 3kw drier costs around 50p per hour to run (depends on your tariff obviously) - so it looks like around £6.50 a week plus whatever is the increase in fuel costs since Nov 2011...

McKneff

Buy a clothes horse, they cost absolutely nothing to run.

If you only dealt with the 'smalls' on a clothes horse, it would save money.

Pink.

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Meadows

moments_of_sanity wrote: »

Hi All, I currently run my tumble dryer for approximately 13 hours a week as there are 4 of us at home (2 adults, 2 teenagers), does anyone have any idea how much this may be costing us please. I am trying to reduce our electricity bill but not sure if it's expensive to use the tumble dryer or not?Thank you

Look at the KW output of the Tumble dryer, for each KW of power it will cost one unit of electricity for 1 hours use on full power.
So it all depends on the wattage/power of the dryer, how much a unit of electricity is for you, how long you run it for and whether on full or low dry.

The only other option you have this time of year is to try to hang clothes outside (usually come in damper than they went out), dry on a clothes horse or radiator hangers (this can of course cause condensation due to damp air so you nee to ventilate the room).
Try to wear thinner layers rather than on thick layer as this will provide more warmth and also the thin layers will; dry quicker than a heavy item of clothing!

Wywth

Get an energy monitor.

They only cost about £5-£10 and allow you to monitor the consumption of any plug in device.
Check out your local library - some will lend them for free, and you won't need it for very long to check

saver_1_2

We only use the tumble when absolutely ness. Fortunate to have a spare bedroom where the clothes horse goes with the window open.

oldskoo1

That is an awful lot of hours to run a tumble dryer.

We use ours perhaps once or twice a month!!

We dry clothes outside and try to time wash days with sunny days, not much effort there but it does help we are south facing.

If not we put a small amount of clothes in the utility with the door open or extractor fan on, seems to work for us.

Also 4 of us, are you using bath towels just once and putting them in the wash? We change our bedding every 7-10 days and we aren't suffering from leprosy.

moments_of_sanity

oldskoo1 wrote: »

That is an awful lot of hours to run a tumble dryer.

We use ours perhaps once or twice a month!!

We dry clothes outside and try to time wash days with sunny days, not much effort there but it does help we are south facing.

If not we put a small amount of clothes in the utility with the door open or extractor fan on, seems to work for us.

Also 4 of us, are you using bath towels just once and putting them in the wash? We change our bedding every 7-10 days and we aren't suffering from leprosy.

Unfortunately I don't have a utility room but wish I did have :mad:

We all have kingsize beds and everyone changes their bedding each week but maybe I can ask them to cut it down to once every week and a bit - that might help with staggering the washing as well.

Towels are changed once a week as my theory is you should be clean when you get out of the shower so the towel should only be wet!

Maybe I need to cut the plug off the tumble dryer as that might stop it being used :rotfl: I can't believe we are paying approximately £8 a week to dry clothes!!!

macman

Where do you get £8 from? You haven't told us the kWh rating of your drier, but if it's 3kW then that's 36p per hour, assuming your rate is about 12p per kWh. So 13 hours is 39kWh, £4.68. And that's assuming that the heating element runs flat out drawing 3kW all the time it is on-which it doesn't.

Welshwoofs

moments_of_sanity wrote: »

Unfortunately I don't have a utility room but wish I did have :mad:

We all have kingsize beds and everyone changes their bedding each week but maybe I can ask them to cut it down to once every week and a bit - that might help with staggering the washing as well.

Bedding dries off pretty quickly if you hang it over stair bannisters or over the tops of doors. Just be careful to have some ventilation in the house to prevent condensation.