Gas vs Electric Dryer Calculator

This gas vs. electric dryer calculator will help you estimate and compare the costs of operating a gas or an electric dryer. The operating cost of these appliances depends on various parameters like the type of dryer, its energy rating, the number of drying loads per, electricity cost (see Electricity cost - single usage), and gas prices.

Find out more in the article below on how to calculate drying costs, or you can begin by entering some numbers into our gas vs. electric dryer calculator.

First, let's look at how these two types of dryers operate. A clothes dryer works by circulating hot air to remove excess moisture from the clothes. First, the dryer draws air at room temperature and heats it. Second, the clothes are then exposed to the hot air in the drum during the tumbling operation. Then, the hot air absorbs the moisture and flows out via vents.

Therefore, the energy requirement is for two processes:

1. Heat generation and air circulation; and
2. Tumbling process.

Tumbling and air circulation processes can only be powered using electricity; however, you can use either an electric or a natural gas source for heating air. Depending on the heat source, the dryer can be classified as an electric or a gas dryer. Some modern innovations in these devices include waste heat recovery, ultrasonic drying, and variations in air circulating patterns.

The operating cost for a dryer depends on the following factors:

• Wattage — The electric dryers can be 2000 to 6000 W, i.e., it would consume 2 to 6 kWh of energy.
• BTU or gas rating — Typical gas dryers are rated between 16,000 to 22,000 BTU/h of natural gas. It is convertible to the volume of LP (liquefied petroleum) gas.
• Time of drying cycle — Time taken to dry a load of clothes altogether.
• Electricity and gas prices — Unit cost of electricity (cf. electricity cost calculator) and gas.
• Frequency of drying loads — Number of loads per week.

The equation gives the cost per loading cycle for an electric dryer:

Similarly, the cost of running a gas dryer for a load cycle considers both gas consumption and electricity consumption to heat and rotate the drum, respectively.

The cost per loading cycle for a gas dryer is:

where:

• Wattage is in watts; and
• Electricity cost is in $/kWh.

Let's calculate the cost of running gas and electric dryers if the load takes 30 minutes to complete a cycle and the number of loads per week is 3.

To calculate the running costs:

1. Enter the time taken to complete a drying cycle as 30 minutes.
2. Fill in the frequency of loads as 3 per week.
3. Insert the wattage for an electric dryer. Let's use a 3 kW dryer in the example.
4. The calculator will return the electricity consumption per load as 1.5 kWh per load.
5. Enter the cost of electricity per kWh as $0.12.
6. The drying cost per week for the electric dryer is $0.54 which translates to $28.08 annually.
7. Insert the wattage value for the gas dryer as 1.5 kW.
8. The calculator will return the electricity consumption per load as 0.75 kWh per load.
9. Fill in the gas/BTU rating for the dryer as 22000 BTU per hour.
10. The calculator returns the value of gas consumption per load as 11000 BTU/h.
11. Enter the cost of natural gas per therm as $1.
12. The natural gas vs. electric dryer calculator would return the cost of using a gas dryer as $0.6 per week and $31.20 annually.

You can now compare the cost of both types of appliances to make the right choice for you. If you are interested in calculating electricity consumption for other machines, you can try our appliance wattage calculator.