What uses more electricity - tumble dryer or dehumidifier?

martin2345uk

Well it's a washing machine with a separate drying function... and the dehumidifier is a standard domestic Delonghi.

When drying clothes in wet or cold weather I tend to leave them on an airer in the spare room with the dehumidifier on; as they dry pretty quickly that way.

But I'm wondering if it would make more sense to use the dryer instead? What are your thoughts?

flashg67

The power usage will be stated somewhere on the machines or in the manual but as a rough guide(guess) - my dryer is rated at 1kwh on low and 2kwh on high - so between approx 15-30pence per hour to run. A dehumidifier is likely to be be around 200 watts, so say 3p per hour?

martin2345uk

Ah so dryers aren't THAT expensive then... Thanks for that it's interesting. Will certainly try and look up the consumption rates for my ones!

ValHaller

flashg67 wrote: »

The power usage will be stated somewhere on the machines or in the manual but as a rough guide(guess) - my dryer is rated at 1kwh on low and 2kwh on high - so between approx 15-30pence per hour to run. A dehumidifier is likely to be be around 200 watts, so say 3p per hour?

Appliances are rated in kW, not kWh. You multiply the rating by the time they are on in hours to get the consumption in kWh.

Comparing a tumble dryer with a dehumidifier for electricity consumption is not as straightforward as comparing the ratings plates. They will almost certainly take different times to do the same drying task - so you need that time and the power rating to calculate energy consumption.

martin2345uk

Trying to find out the consumption of my washer dryer...

At the back of the manual it says "max absorbed power 1700-2100W.

Is that it? Doesn't say if it's for the washer or the dryer though!

[Deleted User]

I worked out the same calculation recently as we were considering whether to buy a tumble dryer. For us it was not worth buying one.

I dry everything on the line outside unless it is too wet and then it dries in the utility room using a dehumidifier. In winter when cold and damp the clothes can take three days to dry, but a tumble dryer would take about 45 mins to 1 hour. The tumble dryer uses more electricity, but runs for a shorter time. The cost of electricity for running both worked out very similar for 3 days x dehumidifier versus 45 mins x tumble dryer.

However, as I am able to dry clothes for 7-8 months of the year outside or inside without using the dehumidifier the cost of buying and then running a tumble dryer did not make sense for us as it would only be used for part of the year and the dehumidifier works just as well. Also, as we have the space to leave the drying clothes hung up out of the way it does not matter that they take a while to dry.

Norman_Castle

martin2345uk wrote: »

Trying to find out the consumption of my washer dryer...

At the back of the manual it says "max absorbed power 1700-2100W.

Is that it? Doesn't say if it's for the washer or the dryer though!

The 2100W is the maximum power used during washing or drying. Most likely when heating water. In use my washing machine varies from 5 watts to 2000 watts depending on exactly what it is doing at any given time. Its impossible to work out the costs from that information.

I use one of these https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=POWERplus+Energy+Meter&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&gws_rd=cr&ei=JDksUozqFMOc0QW22oDQDw Easy to set unit cost and read. I tried another similar type but found it difficult to read and overly complex.