Dryer cost control

Q: How much does it cost to run a dryer for an hour? My roommate uses the dryer like crazy, running it for hours even with just a few pieces of clothes inside.

A: The calculation for determining dryer operation costs is really quite simple. All you need is a reliable figure for the amount of power consumed by your machine when it's running and your cost for electricity. A typical figure for power consumption is 5,000 watts, or 5 kilowatts (same thing). To figure out the per-hour cost, multiply the kilowatt consumption for an hour by the cost of electricity. That works out to 5 kWh times about 10 cents per kWh (or 0.10 for calculation purposes). The bottom line assuming a 5,000-watt unit is 50 cents per hour. And while this might not sound like much, it really adds up over the course of a month. Heat-producing appliances always use surprisingly large amounts of electricity and they’re the first things we should cut back on in an effort to become more environmentally responsible. Most people are surprised to learn that using your clothes dryer for one hour consumes the same amount of electricity as a 100-watt light bulb burning for 50 hours.