How do you dry your clothes? In the dryer? On the line? According to The Spruce, it costs $0.45 per load. (https://www.thespruce.com/how-much-does-it-cost-to-run-an-electric-dryer-1387954) That might not seem like much, but it adds up fast.
We do 5 loads of laundry a week. If we dried all 5 loads in the dryer, that would cost us $2.25/week, which ends up taking the cost out to $117/year. "No big deal" you say. That's a minimal expense.
That Spruce's estimates are based upon a 12 cents per killowat hour. In Maryland, looking at the rates for BGE, they charge a flat 11 cents an hour or if you have a time of use meter it is 7 cents for off peak hours and 36 cents for on peak hours. It's still not outrageous.
But, in a world where we are facing rising energy costs, how stable are those numbers? My guess is that the cost for energy is going to continue to rise over the next year. And I'm all about saving a few dollars here and there. $117 may not seem like a lot, but that is two tanks of gas for our Civic, or a decent amount of groceries.
We have a time of use meter, and we have been consolidating our dryer usage for as long as I can remember. We do laundry on the weekend, when the rates are low. We don't live in an HOA neighborhood, so we are able to hang our laundry outside when the weather is nice.
When the weather is not nice, or when we lived in an HOA neighborhood, we hung all of our shirts on hangars to dry, and placed on the top of the door frames around the house to dry. There is always some stuff that goes on a drying rack in the bathtub. But, we try to run all of the jeans at once, and all of the towels at once. Sheets and pillow cases get their own special turn in the dryer.
We're not saving huge amonts of money, but small amounts here and there. And those small amounts of money begin to add up over time!
No comments:
Post a Comment