line drying
All of my clothes for work are office casual (khakis with button down dress shirts) with wrinkle-free finish from LL Bean. 20 minutes in the gas dryer and they're done, just hang them up and they look as if they were professionally laundered. Line drying would result in wrinkles and ironing. I've never checked to see how much electricity my iron consumes, but thanks to wrinkle-free finishes my ironing has been reduced to nearly zero. The energy costs of running the gas dryer for 20-25 minutes, over the zero cost of line drying, have to weighed against the energy cost of running the iron for an hour or more. I could see line drying heavy things like towels, which take longer (45-50) to gas dry, since wrinkles are not an issue.
When I bought my present home in 1988, San Diego Gas & Electric (which, despite the name, provides electricity but not gas to southern Orange County; in San Diego County it provides gas and electricity) sent an energy saving guide as a bill insert. By the time it arrived, I had already bought new appliances, but the leaflet said that it cost 25 cents to dry a load of laundry with gas, vs $1.00 with electricity; the calculation included the electricity consumed by a gas dryer's motor. We pay currently about 65-75 cents per "therm" and close to 15 cents per KWh (dividing bill by KWHr used, this factors in taxes, fees, fixed distribution costs). I don't know if it's still four times more costly to dry with electricity here, but it can't be cheaper.
In the mid-1990s, the neighboring city of San Clemente outlawed 240V outlets in laundry areas in new construction, leaving gas as the only option. THe rationale was that SDGE was struggling to keep up with generating capacity for a growing population, whereas there was no shortage of gas. My 1988 home, not in San Clemente, does have a never-used single phase 240V outlet.
