Quote:
Originally Posted by thinkxingu
...The last thing I've been thinking about is the dryer...but I don't see much of an alternative to drying clothes...
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Our house is heated in the winter, cooled in summer by the heat pump. The heat pump of course uses electric power to run, so you'd think that the highest months of power use would be in winter. Most of the time that is true. While the house is superinsulated and loses heat very slowly in winter, it also gains heat slowly on those hot days of summer. The calculated worst case AC load, for continuous 95 F and 74 F dewpoint outside air, is less than one ton. Yet the worst power bill ever was for one month in mid-summer, when it peaked around 300 KWH over the highest winter month. Why? Family members were here then, and it seemed we were forever doing loads of beach towels, and the electric dryer was the reason for the huge power use.
Bottom line regarding dryer use - don't buy thick, beach blanket-sized towels for waterfront use. Kids can survive very well with thinner, smaller towels. The "higher authority" in the family may argue otherwise.