Dryers Waste $4 Billion a Year in Energy Costs
June 11th, 2014I almost thought that they were going to get away with not mentioning clotheslines in this article. So, after reading about the billions of dollars wasted and how upgraded appliances should be purchased, etc, you need to stick around until the last sentence for the dash of sanity:
Best yet, he says, they can save the most energy with old-fashioned line drying.
haha. Of course, there’s a good chance that using a clothesline is against the law if you are reading this from inside the U.S.
Via: USA Today:
U.S. consumers are wasting $4 billion annually to power clothes dryers that, unlike other common household appliances, have barely improved their energy efficiency since the 1970s, a report today says.
A typical electric dryer may now consume as much energy per year as the combined use of an efficient new refrigerator, clothes washer and dishwasher, reports the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. Homes pay more than $100 annually to run an electric dryer and $40 for a gas one, its report finds.
“Dryers have gone largely unnoticed,” says Noah Horowitz, NRDC senior scientist, noting regulators have focused on other appliances. Since the 1970s, he says U.S. efficiency requirements have been updated seven times for fridges but only three times — each one modest — for dryers. As a result, new fridges — and dishwashers and washing machines — have more than halved their energy use.
Yet, he says Americans spend $9 billion annually to operate inefficient dryers, 75% of which are electric. He says they could save $4 billion of that — and reduce heat-trapping carbon-dioxide emissions — if all electric units were updated to the most efficient hybrid heat pump model sold overseas, mostly in Europe.
Unfortunately I live in a country – Ireland – where there is only a handful of days of warm sunshine each year, the rest of it being gloom, rain, sleet, snow, frost, and with a heavy clothes washing burden due to young kids, we’ve no alternative but to use dryers. It’s almost a victory flag to see clothes on lines in summer here!
Then there are parts of Europe where clothes lines are illegal, being considered unsightly, one presumes…
In the U.S., tens of millions of people could accomplish a lot of clothes drying with clothes lines.
I’m not saying to ban dryers, limit dryers or anything like that. If someone wants a dryer, go for it. In the darkest, wettest part of winter here in NZ with three children, one in cloth nappies, I wish I had a dryer.
My point is that banning the use of clotheslines in what amounts to deserts doesn’t make a lot of sense.
When Becky got busted for trying to dry her clothes on a clothesline in Southern California… In a way, it was a good thing. More proof that we had to get the hell out of there.
@cryingfreeman I hear you. One of my goals in life is to live somewhere that I can dry clothes on a clothesline year round (weather and regulations).
I’m really surprised by the article worrying about $4 in wasted energy costs for a nation that’s been spending over $20 billion a year just on air conditioning for tents in Afghanistan.
http://www.npr.org/2011/06/25/137414737/among-the-costs-of-war-20b-in-air-conditioning
Kevin, I hope I didn’t come across as having a pop at you at all; it was more of a statement about our damp climate here. Even when fine weather comes and the air is crystal clear, you know that the heat from it will start drawing moisture out of the rain-soaked soil and before long, hazy skies ensue. It’s an asthmatic’s nightmare living here. The only places I can breathe are on the continent, in the Alps or far from the Atlantic; I once even smelt the damp saltiness of the ocean when I got back to Heathrow after 3 weeks in central Asia.
I knew the Swiss banned clothes lines in some cantons, but I didn’t realise it was the same in California. But nothing surprises me now about that lunatic state.
I’ve had some bad experiences with clothes lines too; wakening up to find everything frozen solid, or dried but so rough you couldn’t wear it, or fine but smelling of the neighbour’s barbecue smoke – never a favourite bouquet of mine!