Toasty towels – pennies or pocketfuls? Yesterday was beds and the days prior – bedrooms. Today? Sheets. Pillowcases. Your socks. You see, I’ve got dryer guilt. Energy-saving rhetoric and costly shared apartment laundry had convinced me – to now – that dryers are just bad news. But they can’t be avoided. Soggy towels are an even drearier prospect in our sodden climate. Careful dryer use – yes. Hanging 30 socks to air dry – not on your life.
How much does a 60-minute dryer cycle cost?
I started investigating the cost of one dryer cycle – wanting, as well, to know whether using a dryer sometimes make me a planet-killing, horrible person? I found the 8-ball inconclusive:
It depends where you use it.
Like most people who’ve suffered through two-star apartment rentals, Paolo & I spent the last year forking over fistfuls of toonies (Canadian $2 coins joined in resplendent silver-gold union) for our week’s washing. $2 per washing load, $2 per dryer cycle.
You learn to minimize your tumble-drying pretty quickly when it means heading out in the rain to find extra change. Toonies were kept as sacrosanct plunder – spent only on the never-gonna-dry pile of towels. Paid laundry sucks. That we could feel good about saving the planet while letting nature take its airy-fairy course? Distant second.
Unpacking at our new apartment, we soon wondered how we’d ever survived without our in-suite laundry. But dared we use it!?
Would fluffy, warm towels incur an ugly bill @ the ugly baby?
Google delivered this seriously cool website with the answer: Mr. Electricity (aka Michael Blue Jay) helps to calculate your dryer’s running costs – per load, per week – however you like.
In Vancouver we’ve got insanely low energy rates – for once something in this damn city that’s cheap – we’re billed $0.06 per kWh. A 60-minute load costs us a quarter. My figures should be illustrative – but look up your area’s rates and let me know what you come up with. (And for random interest – global electricity pricing. Remind me not to leave the lights on in Tonga – 45 cents per kilowatt hour!)
New life plan
Don’t move to Tonga. Become an apartment building landlord with paid laundry. Dare we calculate the cash to be made – in a building with 20, 30 or 40 units? Getcha some! Anyway – here’s what we’re going to save this year – just by living in an apartment with in-suite laundry.
What about your washing machine’s costs? Yea – I eyed up that beasty too. Running similar calculations proves our washing machine costs just about the same – give or take a dollar. (Same figure whether we run cold washes all the time, or 50% warm washes and 50% cold. (Be sure to read what Michael has to say about washing and water temperature!) So by living in a home with our own laundry, we’ll save $273 on the dryer, and $273 on the washing machine this year over last year. Without any reduction in use.
Total laundry savings in 12 months: $546
What a freaking racket! You’d never notice that expenditure when it’s disappearing in the form of random change. Cash like that might make up a large part of a mortgage payment – money you didn’t know you had.
Massive laundry secret – outed
Paid laundry is for suckers. When hunting for an house or apartment – make absolutely sure to pick a place with laundry. Unconvinced? Paid laundry in Canada is even more expensive than in-suite in Tonga – most expensive electricity on earth.
Yet another reason to tuck into the folder labelled: ‘reasons not to rent’. Don’t even get me started on waiting for the creepy guy with the too-small red sweat pants to finish his laundry.
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Photo credit to Randi, Percy and Alessandro via Flickr Creative Commons
Hey, you want a s'more? Some more of what?
I actually followed your link and determined how much I spend my my dryer per year and with just the Hubs and myself in the house, it’s less than $100. I suddenly feel so virtuous and environmentally responsible! Thanks for that!
Cool! I hope all those thousands of extra dollars in paid laundry in rental buildings is going to massive donations of carbon offsets. I had no idea dryers cost so little.
I had just tossed a load of towels into the washer when saw this post. I always worry about that–especially with the towels. Until we got our new dryer, it used to take two cycles to get them dry enough to hang without dripping. Our new energy-efficient washer spins them until they’re practically dry and saves on dryer time, but still. Seems like I wash a LOT of towels.
I remember how miserable it was when we lived in a rented townhouse and had to drive to the laundromat to do our clothes. Ugh. I so don’t miss those days!
Good timing then! And I don’t miss the dark ages either. Blehhh.
I’m drying sheets as I write this…I used to pay USD 2.75 for one load of, like, 4 queen-sized sheets. I finally bought my own washer and dryer about 2 weeks ago and I don’t miss driving to the laundromat at all. And I DEFINITELY don’t miss the weirdos who hit on me while I was very visibly folding men’s boxers. Ugh.
$2.75 — yikes, head for the border! Honestly – it’s enough to make you reconsider “wear once, then turn inside out”. Just kidding – but only sort of.
Maybe your folding men’s boxers makes you even more appealing – since you obviously know how to do chores and would make a tidy, no-nonsense housewife.
You know, I meant to tell you this before but I really appreciate you taking the time to read and respond to every single comment. I have as much fun reading all the comments and responses as I do reading the posts. So thanks!!
The comments section is a riot – I love it too. Thanks Nicole, appreciate it. A lot!
Hah! I knew it – we have been renovating our house and so have had to use a laundrette for the last 4 months. We finally have our washer / dryer installed and I hug them everynight before bed. Not only are they going to save me money, but now I never have to meet the crazy person while drying my smalls again. Does every laundrette have a crazy person?
PS Just voted for your blog!!!
Hug them, kiss them and read them a bedtime story – (you could even splash out for hardbacks and still keep half your laundrette savings!).
YES – there’s a crazy installed in every one – and it’s never Jennifer Aniston circa 1994 rolling around in the laundry cart.
Thanks for the vote, that’s lovely!
Expense aside, holding onto those precious loonies and quarters is a pain in the derriere. (Derriere = my attempt to be fancy). It has been 6+ years since my hubby and I were apartment dwellers and I *still* think twice before handing a loonie or quarter to a cashier!
Also – vote submitted pour vous. (Again, I’m fancy!)
Cheers!
Hi Nic – so very true about the coin-hoarding habits…a slippery slope that ends with eating cat food, I’m sure.
Thanks your for vote – happy to reciprocate. All the best!
My washer, dryer and dishwasher have my changed life. I should write a sonnet about how much I love not having to wash my dishes by hand or go down two flights of stairs, outside and then down to a scary basement to do my laundry with bazillions of quarters in tow. I used to have to set my alarm for 7 on Sunday mornings just so I could get in there first.
Ooh – please do. Darling buds of Maytag.