Dryers do use a lot of energy. If you were to rank your household appliances by how much energy they use, your dryer would probably come in 3rd, right behind your heating/cooling system and your hot water heater. If you dry 8 loads of laundry a week, you’re producing around the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as driving 1200 miles in the average car. That’s about 10% of what a typical Rhode Islander drives in a whole year!
Of course, not using a dryer saves more energy than using one, but it’s not always easy to air-dry laundry. Try emptying your lint trap to make your dryer more efficient or just air dry some of your clothes. And the next time you’re buying appliances, buy a washer that extracts more water when it finishes a cycle or get a dryer with a sensor that turns off based on laundry dryness rather than a set time.
Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems like the future of our planet, and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
Today we have a question from listener Megan Damico. She wants to know — “How much energy do dryers use? And is it worth the effort to air-dry your clothes instead?”
We had Fatima Husain from our Possibly team look into this. Welcome, Fatima!
Fatima Husain: Hi, Megan.
Megan Hall: So, how much energy can you save by air-drying your clothes?
Fatima: Well, to answer that question, we spoke to Megan — the other Megan — about her laundry habits.
(Audio Clip): “Hello?”
Fatima: Megan is a self-proclaimed sustainability nerd and a Ph.D. student who is studying honeybees. Right now, she air dries most of her laundry.
Megan Damico: I’m a scientist, so this is stuff I think about pretty often.
Fatima: The short answer to Megan’s question is yes, your dryer does use a lot of energy. If you were to rank your household appliances by how much energy they use, your dryer would probably come in 3rd, right behind your heating/cooling system and your hot water heater.
But Megan’s actually better off than most people- she lives in an apartment complex with commercial dryers, which are pretty efficient
Megan Hall: But not everyone has a commercial dryer. What about the kinds of dryers you might have in your home?
Fatima Husain: In that case, the amount of energy your dryer uses depends on a lot of factors, including how often you do your laundry, how many pounds are in each load, the settings and age of your dryer, and more. air drying your clothes would save a fair amount of energy, — but obviously, it isn’t as convenient.
Megan: Like if you’re a family of 4 like mine, doing eight loads of laundry a week?
Fatima Husain: Exactly. But let’s take a look at the numbers-
Fatima Husain: This information will depend on the type of dryer you use, and today we’re going to talk just about electric dryers. For our calculations, we assumed that an electric dryer uses 3000 Watts per load. If you’re a family of four drying 8 loads of laundry a week, you’re probably using just over 1200 kiloWatt hours a year.
Megan Hall: Is that a lot?
Fatima: Yes. It produces the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions as driving 1200 miles in the average car. That’s about 10% — a tenth! — of what a typical Rhode Islander drives in a whole year!
Megan Hall: Wow — that’s more than I expected. Are there things I can do to reduce the amount of energy my dryer uses?
Fatima: Yes! To start, try cleaning your dryer’s lint trap as often as possible. That helps it run efficiently. And next time you’re in the market for a dryer, buy one with an internal sensor that shuts off the dryer when clothes are dry. And buy a washer that’s better at wringing out excess water, so your clothes aren’t as wet when they enter the dryer.
Megan Hall: And what about air drying? Are there ways people can at least air dry some of their clothes?
Fatima Husain: Absolutely. not all of your laundry needs to go into the dryer — try using a drying rack or hanging up items that will air dry quickly, like fleece jackets and undergarments.
Megan Hall: Great! Thanks, Fatima. And thanks to Juliana Bradley who also helped with this episode.
That’s it for today. For more information, or to ask a question about the way you recycle, use energy, or make any other choice that affects the planet, go to the public’s radio dot org slash possibly.
Possibly is a co-production of the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society and the Public’s Radio.
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Sources and Research:
Info: https://www.consumerreports.org/laundry/energy-saving-laundry-tips/
Appliance to kWh: https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/save-electricity-and-fuel/appliances-and-electronics/estimating-appliance-and-home
kWh to miles: https://www.epa.gov/energy/greenhouse-gas-equivalencies-calculator
Miles between PVD and Santa Fe according to Google Maps: 2185.7 miles
https://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0072-shopping-home-appliances-use-energyguide-label – no energy guide label on dryers
https://www.energystar.gov/sites/default/files/asset/document/ENERGY_STAR_Scoping_Report_Residential_Clothes_Dryers.pdf ENERGY STAR Market & Industry Scoping Report Residential Clothes Dryers
https://speedqueencommercial.com/en-us/products/single-dryers/ (“High efficiency heating with 22,500 or 25,000 BTU (gas models) and 5350 or 4750 Watts(electric models) make drying laundry fast and more efficient.”) I’ll take the average here: (5350+4750)/2 = 5050
https://products.geappliances.com/appliance/gea-specs/GTD33EASKWW – Example of cheap, on the market dryer
There is a large range in dryer wattage — 3000W-5000W+
Another important thing we don’t cover, but something to chew on — how much water extracted at the end of a washer cycle plays a HUGE role in how the dryer operates. A commercial dryer should be paired with a commercial washer for maximum efficiency — because those washers have much better water extraction capabilities than non-commercial ones.
https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/6272872: “The values of 2.65 kWh/load for electric dryers and 10,200 Btu/load plus 0.21 kWh/load for gas dryers are actually 20% higher than those measured by NBS.”
2.65kWh/load * 2loads/week * 52weeks/yr yields 275.6 kWh
10200BTU/load *2loads/week * 52 weeks/yr yields 1060800 BTU/yr. 1060800 BTU/yr * 0.000293 kWh/BTU yields 310.8 kWh used in a year.
This fancy Samsung dryer has an estimated 607 kWh/year for a family of 4.
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