Can you save money by drying clothes on a washing line?
It's a bit of a faff to hang out your clothes to dry and then bring them in again later, but can it save you some money?
The fairerpower.co.uk website has an article on the top five energy using applicances in the home, and the tumble dryer is number two, at least in the UK. They estimate that it likely costs most users about 37 pounds a year to run, assuming 150 uses a year.
Another website, www.thegreenage.co.uk, estimates that a load in your dryer could cost between 14p and 49p per load, depending on the energy rating of your dryer, so 150 loads a year would be 21-74 pounds a year.
And if you do even more loads than that, for example, if you have children, say 250 loads a year, then that would be 35-123 pounds a year, which is quite a bit of money!
So hanging out your clothes to dry could save money (and greenhouse gas emissions). A handy thing to do is to check the forecast to see if it's going to be sunny or windy (both good for drying) in the next few days, and if so, plan your laundry loads then. Even hanging out for a few hours can take off most of the wet, if you decide to finish them off in the dryer, or if they're only a little bit damp, sticking them in the hot press (airing cupboard) to dry.
Happy drying!
The fairerpower.co.uk website has an article on the top five energy using applicances in the home, and the tumble dryer is number two, at least in the UK. They estimate that it likely costs most users about 37 pounds a year to run, assuming 150 uses a year.
Another website, www.thegreenage.co.uk, estimates that a load in your dryer could cost between 14p and 49p per load, depending on the energy rating of your dryer, so 150 loads a year would be 21-74 pounds a year.
And if you do even more loads than that, for example, if you have children, say 250 loads a year, then that would be 35-123 pounds a year, which is quite a bit of money!
So hanging out your clothes to dry could save money (and greenhouse gas emissions). A handy thing to do is to check the forecast to see if it's going to be sunny or windy (both good for drying) in the next few days, and if so, plan your laundry loads then. Even hanging out for a few hours can take off most of the wet, if you decide to finish them off in the dryer, or if they're only a little bit damp, sticking them in the hot press (airing cupboard) to dry.
Happy drying!
The thing is that in developed countries everybody can afford
ReplyDelete"energy" without worrying about its cost. That is a main factor to explain our unconscious use of energy in the first place. Of course you can show some money annual savings but in practice those amounts are worthless for most of the people. I don't think that it's about money.