Gas or Electric?

[washoholic]

Everyone knows that Electricity costs more in the summer and less in the winter, and Natural Gas costs more in the winter and less in the summer. But is it cheaper to run an Electric Dryer in the winter than it is to run a Gas Dryer in the winter?

I have a Gas Dryer that I always use, and a friend is staying w/ me who brought his Electric Dryer. Should we use the Electric Dryer for the winter?

Please tell me your thoughts!

Jeff

 

[maytagbear]

First....

There's the matter of loads.

Plus, if you don't have a contract for your gas price.....

Here, electricity is expensive year 'round.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[coldspot66]

I would stick with gas whenever you can.

 

[washoholic]

Gas is $1.32 per cubic foot in summer.
Gas is $1.64 per cubic foot in winter.
Electricity is 4.073 cents per kilowatt hour for the first 800 kilowatt hours and 6.051 cents per kilowatt hour for everything over 800 kilowatt hours in summer.
Electricity is 4.073 cents per kilowatt hour for the first 800 kilowatt hours and 3.205 cents per kilowatt hour for everything over 800 kilowatt hours in winter.

 

[petek]

There's so much variance by regions and providers as well as state or provincial taxes that figuring out what is cheaper in the end is complicated. Then you also have to look at special levies, rate riders, transmission costs, etc that seem to appear on your monthly bill as well. Those can sometimes add up to more than the actual cost of the consumed product.

 

[DADoES]

Monthly bill / KWH used = bottom-line cost/kwh including all the fudge factors.

Mine runs about $0.102

 

[washoholic]

Pete, I agree. I only listed the price per kwh and per cubic foot to keep it simple, but there are also pleanty of other hidden expences in the bill.

Dadoes, I like the way you figured it, but the total bill includes all the appliances and I'm not sure how to break it down to just the cost of the dryer.

I guess there's just no way to know.

Jeff

 

[veg-o-matic]

According to Consumer Reports (1972) "an electric dryer would take about 2.5 KWH of electricity to dry a load, a gas dryer would take about 9 cubic feet of gas and .2 KWH of electricity."

I guess dryers have gotten more efficient since '72, but assuming gas and electric machines both increased efficiency at the same rate, you should be able to get a good rough idea how much to dry a load. Proportionately, at least.

Just don't ask me to do the math!

veg

 

[appnut]

My God!! What I wouldn't give for 6 or 7 cents per kwh. I have 10.5 cents per kwh and I thought mine was a bargainh compared to the big boys here in Tejas, until I saw Glenn's.

 

[SactoTeddyBear]

Re: Gas or Electric:

Hi! Jeff, just for curiousity, how long are you having your House Guest? The reason for asking is why can't you if it wouldn't be too much of a hassle, just alternate the Gas and Electric Dryers during your Guests stay, so you can enjoy the use of both of them?

Otherwise do you possibly have the ability to be able to connect both the Gas and Electric Dryer, to enable you to operate both of them at the same time?

Peace and Happy Gas and Electric Dryer Fun, Steve
SactoTeddyBear...

 

[tomturbomatic]

If you go to the trouble of building a GOOD tight lint box for the electric dryer with at least two if not three sides of it being higher efficiency pleated type air filters for a furnace, you can vent the electric dryer into it and gain 3 ways. First and most importantly, you will not be blowing 150 cu. ft. of nice warm air EVERY MINUTE of dryer operation out of the house that has to be replaced with cold outside air that will be drawn into the house through many small air leaks. While the gas dryer is cheaper to run, it really costs you money to replace the air inside your house because of heating (or cooling)costs. 2nd is the beneficial heat and humidity you will be adding to your home. Unless you wash and dry 12 loads a day, the amount of humidity will not overwhelm your indoor air. 3rd is that by using the dryer's heat to warm your home, it's almost like free heat since you have to dry the clothes anyway.

If you cannot consider doing this, only run your dryer during the time of the day when the air outside is warmest and maybe the sun is shining directly on the largest part of the house to help warm the air that is being sucked into the house. Is your dryer in a garage or other unheated space? If yes, keep the gas dryer installed and do not use the electric one, unless your area has a gas shortage, then try to use it vented indoors with the lint box or something like a pair of pantyhose on the end of the vent pipe.

Yes, you will have to vacuum out the inside of the box and maintain the seals to keep lint from escaping, but with the way energy prices are forecast to soar this winter, anything you can do to save will be rewarded.

Earlier this week, one of our TV weather guys talked with the weather person from the Old Farmers' Almanac about the winter weather predictions for the mid Atlantic and North East US. The FA guy forecast November to be mild. December would be cold the first two weeks and bitterly cold the second two weeks with our first snow in early December. January was supposed to be much the same except that it would be snowy all month. February is supposed to be 7 degrees above average for the month. They also said that the stormy summer would turn into a stormy winter.

 

[washoholic]

Using the Dadoes method to figure cost of the utility bill; mine is as follows for Summer rates (Electricity more expensive and Gas cheaper):
Electric $0.944 KW/H
Gas $1.625 per CCF (the price I listed in the post above is what the gas company told me on the phone today that the price would be for this winter which is lower but does not include tax or other hidden charges and is also per hundred cubic foot).



Using the data from Bob's (Veg's) post, drying a load of clothes in a 1972 dryer:
Electric 2.5 KW/h times $.0944 equals $0.236 to dry the load w/ electric.
Gas (9 CFG times $0.01625 equals $0.14625) plus (.2 KW/h times $.0944 equals $0.01888) equals $0.16513 to dry the load w/ gas.



So here we go:
Electric $0.236
Gas $0.16513



But that's using the summer rates as I have no bills this year on the winter rates. I’ll just have to wait until I get the first bill of winter.



Thanks you guys! YOU ARE AWESOME! Now I have a way to figure which is cheaper.



Bob (Appnut), is the $0.10 KW/h figuring it the way that Veg figures it or before taxes and charges?


Jeff

 

[thirtyater]

I tried venting the electric dryer directly into the utility room once long ago with a store bought device that connects to the end of the dryer hose to catch the lint. I went to check on things well into the dry cycle and the utility room was soaked. Water was running off the cabinets the humidity was so high. Aren't the old condensing dryers directly vented indoors with a pan to catch the condensation? I think I would get one of those if I wanted to try this again.

 

[washoholic]

Steve, the guest is staying for about 6 months to a year or whenever the housing market gets better for buyers. We only have 1 dryer vent and it is in the house next to one of the washer boxes (washer hook-ups). He’s a plumber and so is my other roommate so we have 2 washer boxes (Thank God for plumbers!).

Thiryater, I used to live in an apartment that had a device that vented the dryer into, like a bucket of water and after one load the apartment was covered in lint and my allergies were so bad that I had to leave for a few hours until the lint settled. I think Tom is talking about something much different with high efficiency filters. And as far as the humidity, I run a humidifier in winter and think the extra humidity would be good and save me on water for the humidifier.

Tom, I was hoping you would post as you are a wealth of knowledge, know a GREAT deal about everything, and I ALWAYS enjoy reading your emails (from earlier this year) and your posts. The gas dryer is in the house, but since the guy has been staying w/ me; we have been using the garage as a room and will be heating it this winter. There is a 220V outlet in the garage from where my plumber friends replaced the electric water heater w/ a gas water heater. They ran a gas line for the water heater and I’m sure they could run another dryer vent. Actually they wouldn’t have to run a dryer vent if I used a “lint box.” Tom, WHAT AN AWESOME IDEA! Please post more or email about where I can buy or how I can make a “lint box.”(Not to mention getting to have another dryer hooked up.) Is that what you use?

THANKS A BILLION!
Jeff

 

[appnut]

Jeff, the calculation is afterr taxes & charges.

 

[washoholic]

Confusing power bill

In VA our power company (Dominion VA Power) uses a marketing strategy on the bill. The bill says we pay 4.073 cents per kilowatt hour for the first 800 kilowatt hours and 6.051 cents per kilowatt hour for everything over 800 kilowatt which may seem cheap. But then each KW/h is subject to a fuel charge (multiply the KW/h usage by 1.888 cents to figure this). Then add the “basic customer charge,” and the distribution (not sure of the calculation, but my distribution was $40.12 on my last bill of $189.98). Add the State/Local Consumption Tax, and then the Virginia Beach Utility Tax and there you have the total bill. This ends up being 9.44 cents per KW/h including all charges and taxes which is pretty close to the 10.5 cents Appnut pays and the 10.2 cents Dadoes pays.

My point is that at first glance my price per KW/h looks cheap, but if you do the math it’s very close to what everyone else is paying.

 

[DADoES]

I get electric from the local Cooperative. They're "non-profit" and have a CRF (Cost Recovery Factor) that is adjusted as needed to meet the required "margins" for operating.

The last billing details:

Generation --
Energy 1521 kwh X /kwh 0.04688 $71.30
*Demand
Cost Recovery Factor 1521 kwh x /kwh 0.03154 $47.97
*Load Management
Total Generation: 7.84155 cents/kwh $119.27

Transmission, Distribution & Ancillary Svcs --
Energy 1521 kwh x /kwh 0.01633 $24.84
*Demand
Cost Recovery Factor 1521 kwh x /kwh -0.02154 $-32.76
Total TD&A: $-7.92

(Local) Distribution --
Customer Charge $15.00
Minimum 475 kwh x /kwh $0.03089 $14.67
Distribution 1046 kwh x /kwh $0.1380 $14.44
*Demand
Total Distribution $44.11

Total: $155.46
1521 KWH / 155.46 = $0.102209

* Demand not applied to residential.

* I do not participate in load management.

Generation charges are attributed to operating costs of the generating plant from which they purchase electricity. Being that it's a Cooperative, numerous coops have joined as STEC (South Texas Electric Cooperatives) and share ownership in this particular generating plant, which I understand it burns lignite. I imagine other plants can feed into the grid if needed, as during periodic maintenance of the plant or times of demand exceeding capacity.

TD&A charges are attributed to transmission/distribution of power FROM that plant.

Local Distribution is attributed to operating costs of the local cooperative.

Looking back at billing history
Feb $0.10458
Mar $0.12644
Apr $0.12379
May $0.12731
Jun $0.10985
Jul $0.10772
Aug $0.10221

My F&P DEGX1 dryer is rated at 5,400 watts. Based on the current (ha, pun!) cost of $0.102209/KWH ... and assuming the heating element running full-time (which of course it doesn't), it costs about $0.55193 per hour.

 

[kenmore1978]

formula

Consumer Reports used to give a formula in their reports on dryers for people who had access to gas and electricity so they could decide which to buy. It went something like this. Someone who has an old copy of CR could probably find it in one of the issues

Gas had to be cost X per therm vs electricity at X per KWH. My CR collection is buried, otherwise i'd look it up.

 

[tolivac]

In my area-gas is more expensive than electric heat pumps for heat.My neighbors are paying!!And to think of it-the natural gas is cheaper than propane.One neighbor's heater used to run on propane-he converted it to run an nat gas-Its what is called a "gas-pack" common in this area.A gas furnace with an air conditioning unit.Gas packs can run on propane or nat gas.The AC is electric.My home is on "load management" but the utility co hasn't been using it.My AC and water heater are connected to their "box".They call their program "Watt-Watchers"