Gas Dryers vs Electric Dryers?

[daveamkrayoguy]

DAVEAMKRAYOGUY's First Post in "Deluxe" Forum:

I do smell gas as well as the musti-ness of the basement coming right up through my Laundry Chute; I hope it's normal to...!

Must be my "Gassy Trio": The Furnace, Water Heater & Dryer!

(Though I notice no difference, really if the dryer is on & the water heater & furnace have pilots, so that might be why...)

-- Dave

 

[kitty]

ELECTRIC IS THE WAY 2 GO

Our 19 year old GE electric heated dryer has never broken. All we've done to it was clean the lint out of the machine which was recent. The heater has always worked amd nothing but a little knob for the start switch broke after 19 years. I remember we went to a laundromat with gas dryers and after the dryer was done, the clothes had a slight gas smell to them, so I think electric would be the way to go.

 

[mrb627]

Scary!

Here is a video that just makes me nervous to watch!



Malcolm

 

[angus]

I am in the process of moving my laundry room and since my neighborhood just got natural gas service, have been considering replacing my electric dryer with a gas model figuring it was more economical. I don't know why, but I still have reservations about it. I know many people have had gas dryers for years with no issue and I already have gas heat and hot water, but I just seem to be more worried about the safety (short and long term) of a gas dryer. Intellectually, I know I am being irrational and I wish I could reason my way through that.

 

[turboace]

I grew up with a gas maytag 1968 Avacado green dryer. I was born in 1970 and that dryer lasted until 2002 when my parents finally sold that house. Who knows it may still be going somewhere. It only ever had one service call to replace the thermocouple on the pilot light. I do remember my mom would pull it away from the wall and take the back apart and clean out the lint out of it. Once a mouse got in and it was stinking. Mouse decapitation and asphyxiation in the squirt cage blower.

Today I have a Miele LP gas dryer and it dries fast and perfect. The only time I ever have noticed an odd odor on the finished clothes was when the 500 gal propane tank ran nearly empty(bad gauge) and that's when the highest concentration of the odorant (mercaptin)comes out. Otherwise, perfectly happy with both gas and LP my whole life.

 

[cleanteamofny]

I have the best of both worlds, Gas and Electric.
Since my nasal is wide open, they both give off different scents and the winner is electric since it is more tolerable to notice less. As for gentleness, gas wins hands down. For quick drying electric wins in my house because of different room setup (electric in the house/gas in the garage).

I use the gas dryer for long deep drying of King Size bed comforter and all cotton thick bathroom floor mats that take forever to dry.

Both will get the job done and gas will costs less to use than electric.
If your washer spins at full speed from the beginning of the cycle to the end then electric is the way to go, if not gas should be considered!
Step spin extracts less water, something to think about!

 

[washerdude]

My bet is electric

A while ago we lived in an apartment when we we're on vaction. There was an Inglis coin op gas dryer. So one day we did a little experment. We threw the washed clothes into the dryer set it on medium heat and turned it on and timed it. Though these ones have a pre-set timer all the clothes we're done in 45 minutes including the towel. When we got back from vaction we did the same thing with our maytag electric dryer. Same settings (medium heat) and set it to 45 minutes. Guess what? The same load was also tried in the same time it took as the gas dryer even the same towel. So my bet is still with electric. But if you come to think about all the safty things with gas dryer's it can switch your mind around. So for me it's still electric.

But this video may alert you a little more because you trust these things to be built well and be safe but you really don't know what goes on inside....

 

[stricklybojack]

.
Thanks for that video Malcolm, it really put my mind at ease regarding the choice i made.
Given the dryer vents into the garage whith it's collection of petroleum distillates gas would never have been a smart choice. Also a plumber would have to be hired for the install. On top of all that we got our electric SQ dryer at a closeout price which wasn't available in gas. Seeing that video though really has put the (second) thought out of my mind for good.

That said, if were to someday buy a nice stacked SQ unit, with digital controls, that didn't have venting issues, well i might revisit the question. That guy did seem to indicated the machine had been tampered with, and it is in a commercial setting.

 

[mielefan]

Electrical Panel.

Another thing to consider is amperage.

If you buy the gas dryer, it requires much less amperage and thus frees up amps from your electrical panel. As for myself, I would also buy a gas range. Houses here in the USA are required to have 100 amps as a minimum. Having a gas range and gas dryer allows a home with 60 or 100 amps to then connect central air-conditioning if wanted, for example.

 

[qualin]

Wow.. Old thread.. Just thought I'd mention that my utilities bill is about $30 a month less than it was when we had an electric dryer. Over the last few years I've had this gas dryer, it's paid for itself just in utilities savings alone.

I'm glad I bought a gas dryer. It was well worth the price.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

If I haven't mentioned this already, I would laud a gas dryer for the idea that in spite of the money that they cost over purchasing an electric dryer, they pay you back instantly in that they cost a lot less to run!

As for repairs, it is most-likely the parts are easy to break down individually and just as quickly to repair as you go--such as the burner, ignitor, manifold, etc. prolonging a long-life even if electrics are more simpler as they use a heating element, which upon its needed replacement, may mean replacing the whole unit, as opposed to the many more parts a gas dryer uses being replaced on a more individual basis, thus still saving over a buying a whole new machine...

 

 

-- Dave

 

[yogitunes]

Natural Gas has always been known to be cheaper to operate, for drying, heating, hot water and cooking.....

having lived in an all electric house with skyrocketing electric bills, and now converted to gas, and combined bills under $150.00, you can't argue the results

but curious, are there areas where electric is cheaper to use versus gas?....

not sure about other areas, but LP gas falls somewhere in between....

gas has been an easy choice when hooking up several dryers, they all operate off a regular 110 voltage plug

 

[wayupnorth]

Propane is outrageously expensive here as that company owns your tank and can and will charge you all outdoors. My dryer is electric, though I use my clothesline whenever possible. I can fill my BBQ grill tank for half the price per gallon as what my propane company charges me to fill my big house tank. Their excuse is because I dont use enough gas. I will never see natural gas this far out of the city.

 

[mrb627]

Venting

I could never understand why a gas dryer, water heater, and furnace had to be vented outside, but your gas range did not. Are they assuming people dry more laundry than cook?

Malcolm

 

[kb0nes]

Malcolm,

I'd suspect the lack of venting of a gas stove is largely due to the fact that the total BTU output is comparatively small as it the total duty cycle.

But of course the gas stove does indeed create indoor air pollution and really should be used with a operating vent hood. This one of those things that makes gas better suited to a commercial kitchen as they never turn off the vent hoods.

It reminds me a bit of when OSHA came to visit our machine shop. They were VERY concerned about how we monitored the CO levels caused by our propane fueled forklift. I mentioned that we run it for less then 5 minutes a MONTH and generally only when the dock door is open to load/unload a truck. There would never be appreciable CO build up here, but we had to buy measurement equipment to prove it

 

[yogitunes]

never understood the cause/effects of venting gas.....some thing seems odd......could it be the effects of something like a dryers exhausting high BTU's for roughly an hour or more?...

our living room fireplace is vented up through the roof, but then again, it pulls air from the outside for combustion, and allows Summer use without heating the house....

yet the basement fireplace is not vented.....this is allowed for living/rec room spaces, but not for something like a bedroom...

for one thing, our chimney never needs cleaning versus using kerosene for heating...found that an advantage to having gas...

 

[wayupnorth]

My nieces range hood automatically comes on when a burner is turned on. My living room Hearthstone vents thru the roof and my basement fireplace is also non vented. It does have an oxygen depletion sensor that will shut it down completely. When I had a gas dryer it was vented outside but with my electric dryer, I can vent it right into the house, that is after the moisture is just about gone for additional heat.[this post was last edited: 1/27/2016-15:05]

 

[askolover]

Propane here

 is  outrageously expensive as well.  My grandmother lived in a small speck on the map and everyone there used propane or electric....she had propane but used her electric radiant heaters too, to kind of balance the bill just about evenly I guess although she had electric dryer and hot water too.  I converted my gas grill to NG when I got the house in '98 and have never looked back.  I use the old bottle on an infrared heater when I have to do car maintenance in the winter.  Ever since I've owned my own house it's been "house rule" if the range is on, so is the hood!