This Household Appliance Consumes Electricity At An Unexpected Rate

These days, we're all trying to reduce electricity consumption, whether out of concern for the impact of global warming or because everything is just too darn expensive. As such, it's worth taking a closer look at what household appliances are actually sucking up electricity and it turns out your clothes dryer is one of the most surreptitiously power-hungry things in your home.

We don't necessarily think about drying our clothes as putting a massive strain on the electric grid. We might try to limit the use of air conditioning or turn lights off when we're not using them, but drying our clothes just doesn't seem like that big a deal when it comes to energy use. Unfortunately, there are plenty of statistics and research which show that dryers are a surprisingly big contributor to not only household power expenditure, but also CO₂ emissions. Now, researchers from the University of Michigan have uncovered the extent of how power hungry dryers really are, and have urged people to make behavioral changes.

It's widely known among experts that clothes dryers are one of the chief culprits when it comes to exorbitant energy use in homes, with the least efficient models capable of guzzling enough power that they account for a tenth of electricity use in the average home. Much of this comes down to the way the appliances work, with several models over-drying clothes, continuing to use heat and energy even after the material has been sufficiently dried. There are also multiple models on the market which use outdated technology, which in recent years has prompted the U.S. government to mandate new compliance rules. But for most of us, dryers seem like a useful and fairly innocuous appliance. The University of Michigan researchers are, however, hoping that will change.

As noted in a 2025 University of Michigan study, published in the journal Resources, Conservation and Recycling, a 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey revealed that around 100 million (around 83%) United States households have clothes dryers. Collectively, these appliances are responsible for emitting 27 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually in the U.S., costing households $7.69 billion dollars every year. That means that while dryers account for roughly 3% of U.S. residential energy consumption, that's still roughly six times the energy used by washers, which means these deceptively power-hungry appliances are pumping out a heck of a lot of CO₂ and costing people a fortune in the process.

It seems the U.S. has a bigger problem with dryers than pretty much every other country, too. Compared to the roughly 83% of households with dryers stateside, just 58% of households in the United Kingdom have the appliance. That number falls to 43% in Germany and less than 30% in South Korea.

The researchers looked into how line drying and changes in drying behavior could affect household budgets and found that using line drying instead of an appliance could save a household as much as $2,100 during the lifetime of the dryer. This would also reduce household CO₂ emissions by three tons during that same timeframe.

The U.S. Department of Energy has many tips for consumers when it comes to buying and using dryers, from cleaning the lint screen after every load to checking the dryer vent for blockages from time to time, which can help save energy. You can also use a higher spin on your washer to ensure the clothes are significantly less wet before they go into the dryer. The University of Michigan study also found that running your dryer at night rather than during the day can reduce emissions by 8% as opposed to running the appliances during peak hours.

Of course, air drying is the ideal way to save electricity, but if an electric dryer is absolutely necessary, those with Energy Star labels will always be more efficient. According to the DoE, Energy Star dryers use 20% less energy than regular models. It's also worth ensuring your model has a moisture sensor that can shut off the appliance when the clothes are dry rather than over-drying a load. Energy Star heat pump dryers are even better at managing power. But as the researchers in the University of Michigan study found, the second best way to conserve energy and save money is to use a combination of line drying and dryer use, which proved to be much more preferential than simply buying a more energy efficient dryer.

In simple terms, then, more line drying will result in more savings and less of an impact on the environment. If you happen to live in the United States, following that advice is even more important.