ow much more efficient are A rated tumble driers?

nh101

How much does it cost to run an A-rated tumble drier versus a C-rated one? The C rated ones cost as little as £230 but A-rated ones are around £480. If it is being used every other day, how long would it take to make my money back if I went for the A-rated one?

Poppycat

I wondered this too most tumble dryers seem to be B and C and A jump up a lot, if A is more efficient you would have to weigh that up against the cost between a and say C

madmoys

white knight do an A rated tumble dryer for £167 don't know what it's like though.

http://www.applianceplanet.co.uk/eshop/manuprod/84AW.htm?ref=froogle

1jim

I would look into these dryers fully before buying an A Rated dryer,
A few years ago we were about to buy an A Rated dryer but when we read the specs more closly it seemed to take about 8hrs to dry an average load, as capared to around 90min for the c rated one we bought in the end, so whilst yes the A rated was more efficient per hr when you worked it out per load the c rated dryer worked out to be more efficient,
This was a couple of years ago so things may well have changed but I would look to see how long they estimate the drying time to be

MickKnipfler

I asked white knight about theirs. They said that the A rating was per cycle. The reason it takes 8 hours (and is cheap to run) is that it dries with cold air. I'm considering buying one because this does seem sensible if you're not a rush. You can put it on a warm air cycle though which obviously costs more but it dries in normal time

Poppycat

Is that right 8 hours for a cycle? Thats far too long in my books energy saving or not cant wait 8 hours

moonrakerz

MickKnipfler wrote: »

They said that the A rating was per cycle. The reason it takes 8 hours (and is cheap to run) is that it dries with cold air.

I would have thought that you are getting pretty close to the the borderline here.

8 hours of motor and no heat = 1 hr of motor + heat !

slipp_digby

you will need to do some maths of your own but....

get the figures from the dryers you are interested in kilowatt hours (kWh) per cycle.

grab one of your electric bills and look what your tariff is p/kWh.

then multiple the tariff by the kWh used by each machine, and multiple by your estimated number of cycles in a year. which give total pence per year to run.

if you have a split electric tariff with different costs day/night you will need to use the lower tariff if your dryer has a timer and can be used on cheap rate night electricity.

in short, the savings are probably not massively signficant

edit: note manufacturers work on 100 cycles per year.
white knights A rated approx 2.5kWh/cycle, hoover C rated about 4.5kWh/cycle.

If you assume 7p/kWh for electric this would give runnign costs of £17.50 and £31.50, saving £14/year. The payback period based on your costs above would be rubbish and the appliance might be scrapped before you get your money back.

nh101

So slipp, are you saying that to run a c-rated dryer 100 times a year will cost as little as £31.50 on 7p per kilowatt? That seems low!

Thanks for the figures.

slipp_digby

nh101 wrote: »

So slipp, are you saying that to run a c-rated dryer 100 times a year will cost as little as £31.50 on 7p per kilowatt? That seems low!

Thanks for the figures.

yeah,

4.5kWh/cycle x 100 cycles x 7p/kWh = 3150p/annum.

you may want to put your own tariff in from your electric bill what with electriciity prices going up, or add more cycle to refelct your actual use, it was just illustrative....the manufactureres actually quote the kWh/cycle with the Energy Labelling info so yiou can look at the specific model and do the same calc yourself.