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How Much Energy Does a Clothes Dryer Use?

A standard clothes dryer uses 2.091 to 2.110 kilowatt hours (kWh) of energy per load of laundry.  

Did you know that clothes dryers make up for an average of 6% of your home's total electricity consumption? The average energy consumption of a standard or conventional clothes dryer is 2.091 to 2.110 kilowatt hours (kWh) per load of laundry. Meanwhile, a condenser clothes dryer has an average energy consumption of 1.157 to 2.205 kWh per load. Money-wise, this translates to at least 31 cents per load of laundry for an electric clothes dryer and at least 15 cents per load of laundry for a gas dryer. If your clothes dryer is time and energy efficient, you will be able to dry all your clothes in fewer cycles, therefore translating to less energy consumption and time saved.

Clothes Dryers

Clothes dryers, whether electric or gas, use electricity in order to make them work. However, the difference between an electric and a gas clothes dryer is in the way the heat is supplied to the dryer. While electric dryers utilize electric heating coils to produce the heated air, gas dryers use gas burners.

Clothes dryers generally come in two sizes in terms of their clothes container capacity. A conventional or standard dryer has a capacity of 178 liters or 6.3 cubic feet, while a condenser dryer is more compact and thus has a smaller capacity of 100 liters or 3.54 cubic feet.

How to Reduce Your Clothes Dryer's Energy Consumption

Although the average energy consumption of a clothes dryer does not vary much per load of clothing dried, you can reduce the number of loads of clothing that you dry by making sure that your dryer is working efficiently.

To be able to maximize your clothes dryer's efficiency, it is best to make sure that you dry full loads at a time whenever possible because the same amount of energy is consumed even if the dryer is only partially filled . Cleaning your dryer's filters after each load is also essential to ensure proper air circulation inside your dryer. When buying a new clothes dryer, make sure you get the one with the highest energy factor, because this means it has been tested for energy efficiency.