I recently heard about this trick from a frugal reader and I am anxious to try it. She claims that making this easy improvement will make your dryer more efficient to the point where it can dry your laundry twice as fast as it would normally.
Dryers are one of those energy hogs in the home. A dryer needs to generate a lot of heat and air to dry the laundry, and all of that heat requires a large amount of energy. A normal load of clothes to be dried can cost you somewhere between $.50 and $.76, depending on the type of fabric and the efficiency of your dryer. So, anything that can reduce that amount by half can really add up. How many loads of laundry a week do you do? I do about five or six large loads a week easily. You can see how the savings would add up to at least $100 a year.
Of course, I should mention that hanging the laundry offers the biggest savings when it comes to drying your loads, but sometimes that just isn’t practical to do.
Here is our readers solution to making the dryer more efficient.
He says that the standard accordian-type dryer vent is not very good at venting all of the moist air that needs to escape from the dryer. The accordion shape traps and restricts that air flow rather than helping it along. Our readers suggests that we install a rigid sheet metal vent to make the dryer twice as efficient. It won’t work as hard, and it will use less energy. Dryer vent sections can be found at your local home improvement store. Just make sure you measure well, since it will be a lot easier for any cutting to be done at the store rather than at home.
Mary Ann Romans also writes for the Computing Blog here at Families.com where she shares everything from the latest news on technology to cool downloads and fun websites.
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