How Many Watts Does a Dryer Machine Consume? Remember opening your last electricity bill? How was that? Probably not great. Your eyes scanned the charges and total cost, your mind started to wander. You were trying to figure out if there was a way to reduce energy usage and these upward-creeping energy costs. How Many Watts Does a Dryer Machine Consume?

Maybe you started a tally of the various appliances your family uses: the ceiling fan, your electric heater, how about the dryer? How much electricity does a dryer use?

We’ll walk you through the steps to figure out how much your dryer contributes to your monthly electricity bill and how much it might cost you per year. We’ll also break down how a dryer compares to other major appliances in terms of wattage, and look at ways to increase efficiency and reduce energy costs.

How Much Electricity Does a Clothes Dryer Use?

Clothes dryers can require anywhere from 1800 to 5000 watts of energy. You can find the wattage for your dryer in your owner’s manual, or look up your model online. Most use around 3000 watts. For our example, we’ll use this number.

To find how much electricity is used and what the cost would be for a dryer with this wattage, multiply the number of watts times the number of hours you use the dryer every day.

3000 watts x 4 hours = 12000

Now, divide this number by 1000 to find the kilowatt hours used when you dry your clothes.

12000 / 1000 = 12 kWh

So, we know how many kilowatt hours are used when you run the dryer on a regular day. Next, we find out how much it costs by multiplying the number of kilowatt hours by the cost per kilowatt hour through your utility company. For this example, we’ll say it’s $0.18 per kilowatt hour.

12 x 0.18 = $2.16 

At this utility rate, it will cost you a little more than a dollar per load to use your clothes dryer. Now multiply this by the number of times you’ll use your dryer in a given month.

2.16 x 20 = $43.20

The last step is to multiply this number by 12 to get the total cost per year.

21.60 x 12 = $518.4

So, there you have it. Using your clothes dryer consistently for one year will cost you just shy of $260 in electricity. Energy.gov has an energy calculator that you can use to find the energy use and cost of different appliances in your home.

How Many Watts Does a Dryer Machine Consume?