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Remember the pleasant warmth and smell of laundry when taking it out of the dryer? Yet this pleasure can make up quite a bit of your energy bills. How much electricity does the dryer use? Let’s learn.
Key takeaways
The amount of electricity a dryer consumes is not a static number and depends on the dryer itself and your usage patterns:
3 kWh/cycle
average consumption of a dryer
Generally, major dryers use about 2 – 5 kilowatt-hours per drying cycle, with 3 kilowatt-hours being the average. The drying cycle itself takes about an hour so the power rating of a dryer and its consumption per cycle can be the same number.
What if we want to find exactly how much energy a dryer needs and how much it will consume in a year? All modern dryers are required to have an EnergyGuide label that specifies their energy consumption and average cost of running. Alternatively, you can check your dryer’s spec sheet.
Suppose, your dryer’s energy needs match the average – 3kWh per cycle, and you wash and dry your laundry four times a week. Knowing the energy consumption and our usage patterns, we can calculate how much energy a dryer needs per year:
3 kWh × 4 times/week × 52 weeks = 624 kWh
Now let’s calculate how much our dryer costs us. To calculate the cost of one drying run, you need to multiply 3kWh by the cost per kWh in your state. For example, if we live in California, where 1 kWh costs 19.90¢, one drying run would cost us 60¢, amounting to $124 per year.
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Get quotesThe consumption cost heavily depends on the cost of electricity, and each state has its own cost per kilowatt hour. Let's see how much it would cost you to run a 3-kW dryer four times a week throughout the year.
In the 1990s in California, a resourceful young man named Steven Robert Comisar began putting ads in national magazines selling a “solar-powered clothes dryer” for $49.95. But instead of solar equipment, customers received just an ordinary clothesline in the mail.
When you create an energy efficient home, every little detail contributes to lowering your electric bill. Here are several tips for saving on drying.
For a more sustainable approach, consider harnessing solar power to run your clothes dryer. Solar panels not only reduce your dependence on the grid but also contribute to a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. Let’s calculate how many panels you need to run a dryer.
In a grid-tie system, the dryer will pull the energy that a solar system supplies at this moment. If the dryer doesn’t get enough, it will draw the rest from the grid. The AC production of a solar system is 25% lower than its DC rating on average. If a dryer continuously requires 3 kilowatts, a system rated at 3,750 watts DC would be able to run it smoothly. You would be able to build one out of, say, ten 375W panels.
In an off-grid system, the dryer will pull the energy from the battery if it has enough charge. The battery’s rating has to be high enough to support the dryer. The solar system, on the other, doesn’t have to be large; it just has to produce enough in a day to fill the battery bank. Let’s say, a dryer requires 3 kilowatt-hours to complete a cycle, and your solar panels work for 5 hours at full capacity. Keeping additional 25% in mind, we’ll divide 3,750Wh by 5 and it turns out you need 750W of solar power — two 400W panels for example.
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Think of your dryer as one step in a larger energy-saving journey. Understanding and optimizing the energy consumption of your clothes dryer, along with other household appliances, can lead to both financial savings and a reduced environmental footprint.
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Years of experience in translation and a love of nature help Julia find the right words to encourage going solar. She joined the team in 2023 and is happy to make her contribution to a greener future.
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