Electric clothes dryers have been common for many years, so electrification of clothes drying is not exactly a new frontier. The real push in efficiency for the past decade or so has been with clothes washers—using less (hot) water and wringing as much wash water out of the clothes as possible, in the spin cycle. (Hence the prevalence of front-loaders). As a result, until recently the efficiency of clothes dryers has been something of an afterthought; Energy Star didn’t even rate them.
That changed a couple of years ago, and now you can purchase extremely efficient heat pump clothes dryers that use very little electricity, in particular when coupled with a high-efficiency washer.
Of course, the most energy efficient clothes dryer of all is a clothesline or drying rack.
This tip was provided by Byggmeister Design Build, a Newton firm that is “working to leave a legacy of sustainably beautiful homes for future generations.”
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