NON USA Dryers; what is typical, electric, gas, clothes line?

[MrX]

We measure both gas and electricity in kWh on your bill to allow easier comparison.

The gas meter measures in cubic metres.

My energy prices: (including taxes) in Euro cents.

Electricity per kWh: 17.9cents (25.25US cents) (day) / 8.46 cents (11.93 US cents) (night)
Gas per kWh: 4.46 cents (6.33 US cents) (single rate)

 

[superelectronic]

Rogue figures?

MrX...what is the wattage of your dryer? If it's around the normal 3kw then there's surely no way it can chew through 4.42kwh in 67 minutes. Or are you quoting combined washing and drying consumption of electricity?

I'm a line-drying boy even in winter. I'd be lost without my outdoor space! The dryer comes a poor second for most things, mostly because of the lack of true freshness. And I hate dryers that run hot and just make things smell slightly scorched for want of a better description. Launderette dryers are the worst offenders!

Gas in a tumble dryer just sounds like a recipe for a blazing inferno to me but then maybe that's just what I'm used to - obviusly many, many people get by quite safely!

Drying clothes on racks indoors is my very least favourite method - depressingly damp atmosphere, gets in the way and absorbs any smell of cooking etc...I end up wondering why on earth I bothered washing the stuff in the first place.

In conclusion, it's all about the freshness for me!

 

[combo52]

DRYER POWER CONSUMPTION

Thanks for the energy costs of electric and gas in your area mrx as you can see you can dry almost three loads with gas for the cost of drying one with electricity, this is about the same as most of the US. Gas dryers are the only gas appliance that are as efficient as there electric counterpart because there is no heat-exchanger and all of the heat from the burning gas travels through the load of tumbling clothes. Gas water heaters typically waste about 30% of the heat, gas furnaces usually waste 10-20% of the heat and gas ranges are by far the worst wasting over 50% of the heat produced. This is why there is little if any cost advantage in cooking on gas and in fact in areas of the US where electricity is cheap it can be cheaper to cook on electricity. And if you only have propane which is usually twice the cost of natural gas and electric range almost always wins.

 

Alex the solution for drying clothes in a dryer and having them come out with a fresh-air smell is to move your dryer outside. At least 10 years ago I installed a 1978 WP Imperial Mark 12 gas dryer out on my screened porch and it never fails to amaze me how fresh smelling the clothing comes out of the dryer, with no yucky fabric softener sheets etc. When a vented dryer is installed inside a building any background odor in the air will often smell different and worst in the clothes coming out of the dryer. These odors can come from cooking, smoking, musty basements and many cleaning products let alone floor waxes or painting or new carpeting.

 

[3beltwesty]

Cooking with gas

Here I actually prefer cooking with gas for somethings were one has a thin pan and one wants to have an instant control of the heat. ie I like a gas burner for more exotic cooking.

Down in the south folks too use an outside gas burner to cook gumbo or boil crabs outside in giant pot on a stand. ie we do not want to heat the house in the hot summer!

Here in the USA if one does a lot of clothes washing then a gas dryer will save one money quickly. If one does not wash as much, the savings breakeven has a longer timeframe. With a modern FL washer with a high extract speed, the breakeven gets pushed out farther.

Most commercial "self serve coin" laundromats I have visted here use natural gas.

 

[ronhic]

From a cost perspective, an hour in the dryer is about 40cents....thats with a total power draw of 2250watts and electricity at around 15c a kilowatt hr...

 

Not exactly expensive...and given we have a 2.5kw solar generating system that we feed back into the grid at 44.5cents per kwh, I'm not losing any sleep over it either...

 

[matthewza]

south africa

here in SA it depends on the person. the richer people tumble dry everything. the middle people tumble dry ehen needed and the poor people line dry. we fall inbetween rich and middle. we line dry most of stuff when weather allows. underwear, and thin creasables get tumble dried so that they dont need ironing. we dont iron anything though. wash, hang up/tumble dry, pack away. i dont like tumble drying towels as they get like a pull to them amd also the sun kills wahtever didnt die in the wash. same with bedding. prefer to line dry but i tumble dry the pillow cases. i like the smell of fresh line dried washing. i hang my towels out but they go hard so when dry i put the in my dryer on air dry for 10 mins and that cold air (and dryer ball) fluffs them up and softens. we have a 2009/2010 whirlpool heavy duty dryer and because the loads arent always big i use it on low heat. the low heat setting on the whirlpool is about the same as the high on my old KIC (sensordry dual heat. mod CT 511). even on low heat it takes between 40 and 60 mins to dry an average load. our samsung 13kg top loader spins at 720 rpm so not bad timing i think. if i tumble dry a full load from the washer i normally st it on 70 min low heat

 

[matthewza]

the KIC was 2.7 kw on high heat and the whirlpool which is bout 3 or 4 times bigger is only either 3.0 or 3.5 kw so not bad at all. that is on high heat but as i said i use low heat most of the time. whirlpool is a 3SWED5205SQ0 SERIAL MU5104375

 

[earthling177]

Thomas said:

 

"Somebody please post a picture of an american standard modern dryer plug and outlet.

Please correct me if i'm wrong. gas models usually have the 3 prong plug (2 flat, 1 round) and electric models have the 4 prong "twist to unlock" plug. Am I right?

 

Thomas, sadly you are wrong in the case of the electric dryer (the gas dryer outlet is a regular grounded outlet, like you describe). I don't have a picture handy right now, but a twist-lock outlet/plug would be safer and easier to use. We have a regular outlet, just large and 30A; the new building codes require 4-prong for new construction, but for decades they had been just 3-prong plugs, two hots, one neutral, no ground. I've used dryers that had good plugs and it makes it hard to see how unsafe it can be. But one of my dryers right now has a plug with soft molded plastic, that feels like the prongs will fall off at any moment because of the force you need to use to disconnect it. The other dryer has a more rigid body (probably bakelite) but there is no flange to make it easier to grab, and it's also very hard to pull from the outlet -- that plug made me realize that if one is not really careful, one can actually touch both live prongs while trying to disconnect it. Hasn't happened yet to me, but I usually pay attention to things like that.

 

It's very easy to dismiss such things by saying "oh, people should just be careful" or "they are dumb if they get hurt". But a couple of days ago I was talking to a friend in a public place, she had plugged in her cell phone to recharge. We were about to leave, so she reached and unplugged the charger from the wall receptacle. While she was doing so, the receptacle cover, made out of metal, fell off the outlet right on top of the two prongs of her charger and shorted it. There was a loud bang, the breaker worked, but the charger is now ruined, the prongs were pretty badly mangled. We're grateful no one got hurt, but that was just a 120V/15A circuit. It could have been much worse if it was an outlet for a stove or a dryer. One of the reasons I don't support using metal covers for outlets. Also why I think the ground prong should be on top of the outlet (they are usually mounted so they look like a smiley face instead, not that that would make it much safer, just a bit safer). And the reason why I think the Schuko plug is better, it's recessed.

 

[logixx]

FWIW, I have a cleaning video of our dryer on my channel: