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Free Solar Clothes Dryer

As I worked upstairs in the laundry room in my Menifee, Southern California home, a gust of hot air blew through my washer room window. I was preparing to put the freshly washed clothes into my electric dryer when like the gust of hot air, an almost forgotten way of drying clothes soon propagated through my cerebral cortex (brain). I realized I should take advantage of Menifee's "free solar dryer".

Was this simpler, less expensive way of drying clothes not how our grandparents did it? Although I don't have clothes lines out back, a shower curtain rod in my laundry room suffices!

With the high cost of electricity bills, especially during Menifee's hot summers, should I not find ways of conserving energy?

I quickly went to my closet, took out hangers and hung the wet clothes. This saved me 1 load. I took extra hangers for load 2 and 3.

However, how much money would this save me? Was it worth it? I went to my laptop, and Googled "how much does it cost to dry a load of clothes" and found the following link: http://www.jimcarson.com/2005/ 08/gas-versus-electric-dryers/

I found the following:
Electric dryer: 5,600 w/hr * 0.06872 = $0.384832 per load (38 cents/load)
Gas dryer: 22,000 BTU * 1 therm / 100,000 BTU * $0.98655/therm = $0.217041 per load (22 cents/load).

When I looked at my June electric bill, we used 60.1 kwh/day at a cost of $11/day. A single load of clothes drying for 1 hour would use 5.6 kwh (same as 5600 w/hr above). If my math is correct, my cost for drying a load of clothes for 1 hour is $1.02, not 0.38 cents?

If the above assumptions are correct, a family of four who dries 10 loads weekly would spend just over $500/year drying

Although, it is not always convenient to wait half a day for clothes to dry, I think we will start using our Menifee Solar Clothes Dryer more and more. This simple change may save our family $5000 dollars over the next 10 years.

During a time of economic uncertainty for so many, we can all find other things we would rather do with our money.

For more information on energy conservation tips, visit your local electric companies websites. For California residents, visit www.sce.com

Learn more about this author, Eric Madrid.
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