How Much Does Your Dryer Really Cost you?

A washer and dryer are extremely convenient appliances. They save a lot of time by letting you do other things while your clothes get washed. The cost of buying one isn’t that bad either. The most expensive washer and dryer sets can run around $2000, which isn’t too bad. Most will be slightly less. What about the hidden cost, though? What does the electricity cost? How about repairs and maintenance? What about risks?

Well, let’s take a look.

Electricity Cost

A dryer these days can run surprisingly efficiently, but they do consume more electricity than a lot of other appliances in your house. On average, if you run your dryer daily, it’s gonna cost you about $100 a year, dropping down to about $15 if you only run it weekly. All things considered, that’s not a bad cost, but it is something to consider. This assumes you run the full 45 minute cycle, of course, which you can cut down by running a partial cycle and then air drying your clothes after, if you want to put in the extra effort.

All in all, this one’s not bad.

Dryer Maintenance

All appliances need maintenance if you want to get the most out of them. Any complex machine is going to break down over time and if you don’t take care of it, it will stop working and need to be replaced.

Here, the exact price can vary, but our friends at Cache Valley Appliance give us an estimate that dryer maintenance will cost about $85 per year, with an extra $50 added to do the washer as well. Combine that with the cost of regular dryer vent cleaning, which will run an average $150 once per year, and the yearly maintenance is about $285 per year.

Total: $300-385 per year.

Cost of Replacing Your Dryer

You may ask why you need to worry about yearly maintenance. The maintenance is pretty expensive. Even if your washer and dryer break down after 5 years (which they often do without maintenance), the maintenance costs still seem more than just replacing it, right? Well, the cost of replacement might be a large chunk of cash to have to pay all at once. It’s much easier to pay a small amount yearly than it is to pay a large chunk all at once, especially if you can stretch out the life of your appliances by up to 15 years.

But the cost of the machine isn’t the only cost involved. Consider how much it costs to have the washer and dryer installed. A simple set up will cost between $600 and $800, with more complicated machines costing as much as $2500. And then there’s the cost of disposal. The Logan Landfill will take a washer for and dryer for about $30 per unit ($60). On top of that, unless you have your own flatbed trailer, you’ve got to pay for the hauling, which can cost between $150 and $300. That’s a lot of extra cash just to replace it. On the whole, the maintenance saves you a lot of money by reducing how many times you’ve got to deal with those costs.

If you care about the environmental impact, all of those things have associated effects as well. The hauling uses gas, and the appliances take up a lot of space in landfills.

The Risk of Not Doing Dryer Maintenance

The big problem of not doing dryer maintenance is fire. 1/3 of all house fires in the US are caused by dryers. The amount of damage this can do and the costs to repair it is staggering. Not to mention the stress and trauma they can cause you!

Dryer maintenance is necessary to avoid this. They run very hot and contain a lot of flammable items when you run them. Lint, especially, is a problem. It can clog up the vent (hence why you need yearly vent cleaning), or it can get into the inner workings of the machine, where it gets more directly exposed to much hotter temperatures than in the tumbler. It also chokes up the system so the hot air can’t escape, making it even hotter inside the machine than it should be.

This, as you can clearly see, is a bad combination and it’s the primary reason why you shouldn’t neglect the maintenance. You can further reduce the fire risk by making sure your dryer vent is as short and straight as possible. The longer the vent is, the harder it is to clean, raising the cost of cleaning it. Each bend in the vent creates a new point that lint and dust can get caught up, creating clogs. A single bend is the equivalent of ten feet of ductwork. If your ductwork is designed properly, it can reduce how often you’ll need maintenance, so if you have the option, make sure it’s done right.

Don’t Overlook Maintenance

A lot of people overlook the maintenance of their appliances. You tend not to think about it until it stops working. By the time it quits working properly, it’s going to need more expensive repairs than the maintenance and may need to be replaced entirely. That creates a huge hassle to deal with. If your dryer causes a fire, you’ll be seriously regretting not doing it.

If it’s been a while, or you’ve never had it done, you should probably schedule an appointment. We can help you clean out your dryer vents if you give us a call. For appliance maintenance, check out our friends at Cache Valley Appliance.