Tumble dryer costs

Sterlingtimes

I measured our high usage over 365 days of a condenser tumble dryer at 1,079 kWh. The price of electricity now would be £291 although we obtain about 50% of this free from our solar panels.

We have a heat pump tumble dryer on live standby. Unfortunately, that machine is a poor performer taking about three times the time to dry. We experienced poor reliability with the heat pump dryer. In any calculation, do factor in the price of maintenance. We buy cheap and throw away when we have a fault.

JohnB47

I checked the power usage of our Heat Pump drier over the last few days. It uses 2Kwh to dry a load. I thought it would be different for the different things being dried but one was a towels load and the other shirts and light clothes. Both used the same amount of electricity.

Bear in mind though, that my meter reads only in whole Kwh, so it's difficult to measure the consumption accurately. Also, other devices were running at the same time - fridge freezer, router and various devices on standby.

Anyway, around 2Kwh (56 pence) per drier load isn't as bad as I imagined it would be. It all adds up though.

Cardew

Leaving aside the important issue of costs, it is surprising how much softer certain fabrics feel when coming from the dryer.

JohnB47

Cardew said:

Leaving aside the important issue of costs, it is surprising how much softer certain fabrics feel when coming from the dryer.

Agreed. Even if I could persuade the other half to reduce the use of the drier, towels would always be tumble dried.

Astria

Cardew said:

Leaving aside the important issue of costs, it is surprising how much softer certain fabrics feel when coming from the dryer.

I always use a tumble drier, if only for the simple reason that it does a particularly good job of removing lint from fabrics. I've found that a 20 minute run on warm will use up approx 0.4 kWh, extract a surprising amount of water, and then use a clothes maid or hang them up to dry for about 12 hours. Towels and fleeces still come out like they've been fully tumble dried.

QrizB

JohnB47 said:

Cardew said:

Leaving aside the important issue of costs, it is surprising how much softer certain fabrics feel when coming from the dryer.

Agreed. Even if I could persuade the other half to reduce the use of the drier, towels would always be tumble dried.

I musdt be in a minority, then; I like my towels scratchy!

northwalesd

QrizB said:
I musdt be in a minority, then; I like my towels scratchy!

Seconded.

Ultrasonic

QrizB said:

JohnB47 said:

Cardew said:

Leaving aside the important issue of costs, it is surprising how much softer certain fabrics feel when coming from the dryer.

Agreed. Even if I could persuade the other half to reduce the use of the drier, towels would always be tumble dried.

I musdt be in a minority, then; I like my towels scratchy!

I'm confident in saying that you are!

Edit: I don't own a tumble dryer or a dehumidifer though and dry my clothes just fine.

Magnitio

JustAnotherSaver said:

Here's a question on tumble drying...

We'll stick a dark wash on at the end of the week. If the weather is good then everything is simple but if it's raining then it's tumble dryer job.

So what can't be tumble dried goes upstairs on the clothes horse with the dehumidifier. What's left goes in the tumble dryer.

Now this is where the question starts -

I say to wait on the whites that then go in for wash, sort them like we sorted the darks and THEN put the tumble dryer on.

Wife says that it takes forever for the clothes to dry when the tumble dryer is full and it's better to just tumble dry the darks and then the lights - everything gets dried quicker.

Depends what your better is. Better for me is what costs less.

So, who's correct? I just can't imagine running 2 cycles is cheaper, even if it's for a bit of a shorter time on each.

You would really need to do a like-for-like comparison of the energy used as it may not be so efficient with a very large load. When the weather is foul, I will tumble colours and whites together. If there is too much, then I will tumble one after the other so that the dryer is still hot when the second load goes on. What is important to remember is your wife is never wrong.

Magnitio

QrizB said:

Magnitio said:

Jannearly50 said:

Thanks for your replies, 4kwh is approx £1.20. Tumble dryer use is once a week in summer and twice weekly in winter. Does seem like hell of a luxury to own some sort of dryer albeit combined washer/dryer or single use tumble dryer I know. I do own a meaco dehumidifier but only used in conservatory in the winter. (Don't ask....) cheaper than heating!  I do remember the cost of taking 2 loads to dry at the laundrette in 2013 (to prevent damp in rented cottage prior to dryer ownership) which was £2.50 a time goodness what it costs now... maybe I'll get a secondhand one and see

A heat-pump tumble dryer can use about 1/3 of the energy that a condenser or vented dryer will use. Prices start from about £400 (e.g Indesit YT M11 82 X)

Taking this at face value, and assuming the dryer is used twice a week and electricity prices don't change, you'll save £80/yr in electricity and it'll pay for itself in five years.

Based on some testing by Which?, they evaluate dryers for lifetime cost assuming that they last 20 years, 3 loads per week and 28p/kWh. Cheapest they have tested had a lifetime cost of £1,277 (£380 purchase and £45 p.a. running cost). Most expensive was £3,700 (£300 purchase and £170 p.a.)