zlacker

> dryer use accounts for about 6 percent of U.S. residential electricity use

That's a huge amount! I didn't realize it was so much!

>>Wowfun+(OP)
I thought for SURE that was going to be one of those made up stats from stupid magazine... nope... seems like that's actually true!? That's WAY higher than I would've ever guessed.

>>Wowfun+(OP)
At home we stopped using the dryer and the electricity bill got reduced like a 30%. It's impossible to dry all the cloth in rainy winter weeks (imagine 10°C(50°F) and 90% of humidity), so now we are hanging towels, bed sheets and similar stuff and using dryer for small stuff, probably 50% and 50%.

>>Wowfun+(OP)
NOt mine! I live in the country, but the county gas pipeline crosses our property. The easement (written 50 years ago) permits us to connect as a customer.

So all our appliances are gas.

>>blakes+j
It's 6% of residential use.

Residential use is 39% of all electrical generation.

So driers are 2.3%.

That number doesn't surprise me in the least. Residential electrical consumption is trivial if you don't include heating. So having an appliance use 5% of all home electricity seems pretty low?

>>JoeAlt+75
Bad choice nonetheless. Get a heat pump dryer and you'll save a lot and your clothes will last longer.

>>gus_ma+V3
Get a heat pump dryer and you'll have the convenience and it'll probably cost only 30% of what it used to cost you.

>>henvic+E5
Saving depends on the cost of gas and electricity, so you might be right for some locales and wrong for others (to the point that a heat pump dryer will cost more than gas dryer), but how do you imagine clothes will last longer? Do you think temperature causes more wear than a spinning drum?

>>JoeAlt+75
Okay, so your dryer uses zero electricity, but the carbon impact is presumably still substantial?

>>refurb+95
I'm actually struggling to figure out the remaining 94%. I guess AC is like #1, fridge, tv/computer.... lights ... ?

>>Wowfun+t8
Isn't there consensus that the industrial sector's carbon footprint is multitudes greater than residential so even a net-0 residential would barely put a dent in reducing carbon impact?

>>blakes+j
You want a crazy stat? US uses more energy just for its AC usage, than the entire continent of Africa uses for literally everything combined together.

>>Wowfun+t8
Probably worse. Gas will always have a carbon footprint. While electricity is getting greener every day!

>>refurb+95
There are commercial dryers to consider too

>>noneth+q9
I would guess AC (on average across the US) is a big one. Electric heat where it exists and is needed, refrigerators/freezers, over/stove, washer and dishwasher often heat water some. With LED lights/monitors and a general shift to more mobile electronics, I imagine that sort of thing is pretty far down the list.

>>noneth+q9
Oven, and stove are the major ones. Not everyone has electric oven/stove, but those consume way more electricity than a drier (because they are on more often). Microwaves, space heaters, and hair driers are also major power users.

>>noneth+q9
space cooling: 15.5%

space heating: 15.2%

water heating: 11.6%

refrigeration: 7.1%

lightning: 3.9%

television: 3.7%

computer: 2.4%

other: 40.7%

source: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/use-of-elect...

>>Billin+Pa
The figure is residential use. But sure, some commercial use would be dryers, but I assume compared to say aluminum ore electrolysis, it's pretty low.

>>deepse+Gc
I know it's an average, but I'm somewhat surprised that refrigeration is half of heating/cooling. I suppose gas heat offsets much of the heating requirement in some areas and some parts of the US have minimal cooling needs.

>>Billin+Pa
I do not think I have ever seen an electric commercial dryer (hotels/laundromat/etc). The electric costs would be insane in comparison to gas.

>>gambit+ba
It's probably more meaningful to compare energy usage per-capita. IMO it's hard to understand what it means when describing energy uses by land masses.

2020 US population 330 million

2020 Africa population 1.3 billion

>>refurb+ce
If you include gas heating, heating alone becomes twelve times the energy use of refrigeration: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/homes.php

>>Wowfun+(OP)
Every house with a washing machine has a dryer in the US. Also many are gas powered instead of powered by electricity. Similiarly for any laundromat or laundry room in an apartment complex.

I've yet to have ever been to a location in the US where a dryer was not directly adjacent to the washing machine.

>>blakes+j
I guess they're mostly using old dryers without a heat pump

>>henvic+S5
Hang your clothes outside, and you don't have to plunk down for any dryer, heatpump or conventional.

>>HarryH+xs
Nope. I waste barely no space with my heat pump dryer. I can have my clothes dried outside quickly. I still can use my balcony for recreation rather than as an extension to the service area. I probably spend €15 a month drying everything I use, no big deal.

>>pandam+m8
> how do you imagine clothes will last longer?

From my own experience + the fact that it dries at a much lower temperature.

>>henvic+9D
I am questioning that fact. In my experience temperature is not destroying fabric, people used to iron their clothes for decades. Spinning in an underpowered dryer for longer will put more wear on the fabrics and stitching.

>>henvic+S5
Get a spin-cycle front loader that bolts to the floor or a water extractor and hardly need to even use the heat pump!

https://speedqueencommercial.com/fr/products/hardmount-washe...

>>refurb+ce
Remember that we have a box that makes the inside cold inside a box that makes the inside warm (or cold) half the year in many places.

I heat my house so that I can run a freezer inside the heated house to lower the temperature back down to what it is outside sometimes. It's not entirely efficient.

>>lotsof+ke
Here's one: https://unimac.com/product/tumble-dryers/industrial-tumble-d...

Bigger than that goes to gas or steam only.

Note that if you're using that, you'd use an extractor, also (big centrifuge that spins the clothes so fast you can enrich uranium with it).

https://unimac.com/product/washer-extractors/uw-series-high-...

>>mlindn+rj
I've seen a few cases, but they're rare.

Much more common in the south and the desert where the weather is almost always sunny.

>>judge2+aa
Residential energy use accounts for roughly 20% of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1922205117

So it could do something, but it's not everything.

>>pandam+hR
You can kind of compare the amount of lint you get, but often that is caused by the washing machine and not the dryer.

>>bombca+ze1
I imagine the mechanics of wear are very similar between a washer and a dryer. If temperature was the main contributing factor then ironed and dry-cleaned clothes such as uniforms would deteriorate much quicker than machine washed/dried ones.