Introducing me & few questions

Gabriele,
I can answer your questions, but some other people here might have better answers, here goes.

1) US appliances have a simple "ENERGYGUIDE" yellow sticker which compares the "operating cost" per annum of this appliance with the similar appliances. It is primitive, inaccurate and is very often criticized. Basically, American consumers have to ask and look up the information for themselves. The current US government is not interested in consumer protection, only in manufacturer protection. There is an additional label called "energy star" which is given to appliances which are better than the average. There is a picture, below.

2) Here is what "Lowe's", a big American retailer says: (see link for more)

Washers
Whether you wash a few loads a week or a few loads a day, energy-efficient washers can contribute tremendous savings.
Full-sized ENERGY STAR� qualified washers use 16-25 gallons of water per load, compared to the 40 gallons used by a standard machine. For example, top loading washing machines can save as much as 10,000 gallons of water per year and about $100 in utility bills.
Front-loading washing machines can save even more � up to 12,584 gallons of water per year.
(end of quote)
But all the Americans are complaining that the clothes don't get clean and they aren't well rinsed at the lower levels.
You can think of one gallon as about 4 liters.(*)
Information about the power consumption is listed on the yellow lable, but noise levels are only on the manufacturer's website, if they care to list them. By nature, TLs are very much louder than FLs. The motors are usually very sturdy split-phase induction, not three-phase or brush driven (this is changing) and draw about 6-8amps at 115V.

2a. Vintage machines vary too much to say, I think Unimatics used just over 40 gallons and cleaned and washed very well; some Kelvenators used twice as much. This is because of something called "over-flow" rinsing which was an attempt to flush the dirty soap-scum up and out of the clothes instead of spining the water out through the clothes or draining it down through the clothes, both of which could leave the soap and dirt trapped as a layer on the clothes.

3. American dryers are wonderful. Much better than what we have in Europe. They draw around 4800 to 6000 Watts. They are run at 240V, split-phase AC.**
It takes them about one hour to softly dry seven kilos of cottons.
Vintage dryers used about the same, but some had different wattage elements and could adjust the wattage to match the heat needed. This was a better method than today's system of only using a thermostat to cycle one high-temperature element on and off. Dryers are the only machine where Americans are very far ahead of us in Europe.

Cercare il pelo nell'uovo:
* One US gallon is exactly: 3.785 liters
** Most Americans call split-phase "two-phase". True three-phase like we have it in Europe is only used in the US for very big agricultural machinery and manufacturing.

I hope this helped, there will be more replies when the Americans start waking up.

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Post# 217917 6/24/2007 at 03:31 (6,144 days old) by dj-gabriele ()
Checkrate/Likes First let me introduce myself! :D I've been around automaticwasher.org for a few months now, I've always been fascinated with washing machines since I was a little child and finding somebody with the same interest was like "ohhh!" Let's just say that dad & mom own a dry cleaning store plus traditional (water) and leather&furs cleaning department; me, I'm going to be an energy enegeneer soon, so other than washing machines everything that drains electric power is of interests. Oh, I was almost forgetting! I'm Gabriele and I'm writing from the beautiful town of Bologna, Italy. Ciao! Now let's get to the questions: 1- it seems impossible (to me) to find something like Eurolabelling on US washers/dryers, how can somebody going to buy an appliance define the running costs? Like how many litres of water does the machine use per cycle, total power consumption, noise level? Af far as I know (and I must say I know little about US) most times only capacity and spinning speed are shown. 2- What are the averange water use levels for a new, mid-size (what is the mid-size?), top loader? And electricity (yeah, I know there's no heater) 2a- And for a vintage machine? 3- What is the standard heating power on an electric fired dryer in the US? How long does it take to dry a standard (spin dryed in the above mentioned "reference" top loader) 5Kg wash load? 3a- And for a vintage (50s-60s) dryer? Thanks!

Post# 217919 , Reply# 1 6/24/2007 at 05:56 (6,144 days old) by askomiele (Belgium Ghent)
Checkrate/Likes Hai welcome, seems that more and more europeans are finding this nice website... Eum answere on your first question... I think that our energylabel has the energyguide as his american friend. On the energyguid you can see the running costs as wel as the anual use of electricity... (Am I correct?) Thanks anyway for joining....

Post# 217921 , Reply# 2 6/24/2007 at 06:08 (6,144 days old) by panthera (Rocky Mountains)
Checkrate/Likes *Hi and Welcome!* Gabriele, I can answer your questions, but some other people here might have better answers, here goes. 1) US appliances have a simple "ENERGYGUIDE" yellow sticker which compares the "operating cost" per annum of this appliance with the similar appliances. It is primitive, inaccurate and is very often criticized. Basically, American consumers have to ask and look up the information for themselves. The current US government is not interested in consumer protection, only in manufacturer protection. There is an additional label called "energy star" which is given to appliances which are better than the average. There is a picture, below. 2) Here is what "Lowe's", a big American retailer says: (see link for more) Washers Whether you wash a few loads a week or a few loads a day, energy-efficient washers can contribute tremendous savings. Full-sized ENERGY STAR� qualified washers use 16-25 gallons of water per load, compared to the 40 gallons used by a standard machine. For example, top loading washing machines can save as much as 10,000 gallons of water per year and about $100 in utility bills. Front-loading washing machines can save even more � up to 12,584 gallons of water per year. (end of quote) But all the Americans are complaining that the clothes don't get clean and they aren't well rinsed at the lower levels. You can think of one gallon as about 4 liters.() Information about the power consumption is listed on the yellow lable, but noise levels are only on the manufacturer's website, if they care to list them. By nature, TLs are very much louder than FLs. The motors are usually very sturdy split-phase induction, not three-phase or brush driven (this is changing) and draw about 6-8amps at 115V. 2a. Vintage machines vary too much to say, I think Unimatics used just over 40 gallons and cleaned and washed very well; some Kelvenators used twice as much. This is because of something called "over-flow" rinsing which was an attempt to flush the dirty soap-scum up and out of the clothes instead of spining the water out through the clothes or draining it down through the clothes, both of which could leave the soap and dirt trapped as a layer on the clothes. 3. American dryers are wonderful. Much better than what we have in Europe. They draw around 4800 to 6000 Watts. They are run at 240V, split-phase AC.* It takes them about one hour to softly dry seven kilos of cottons. Vintage dryers used about the same, but some had different wattage elements and could adjust the wattage to match the heat needed. This was a better method than today's system of only using a thermostat to cycle one high-temperature element on and off. Dryers are the only machine where Americans are very far ahead of us in Europe. Cercare il pelo nell'uovo: * One US gallon is exactly: 3.785 liters ** Most Americans call split-phase "two-phase". True three-phase like we have it in Europe is only used in the US for very big agricultural machinery and manufacturing. I hope this helped, there will be more replies when the Americans start waking up. CLICK HERE TO GO TO panthera's LINK

Post# 217925 , Reply# 3 6/24/2007 at 06:55 (6,144 days old) by dj-gabriele ()
Checkrate/Likes Thank you very much for your informations! Here I can't imagine running a single appliance "eating" more than 2200W such as my washer. A 6000W thing is out of my mind!!! The most demanding stuff in my house is the A/C that sucks 3,3KW but it has a separate line and meter! Gosh, what is the standard US amperage? 60Amps? Must also say I loved that "cercare il pelo nell'uovo" thing! :-D It's a shame that energy guidance isn't enforced! I remember when the energylabel came in common practice in late 90s there was a wave with everybody going out buying only A class appliances! And most shops only carry A/A+ machines and B (in case of aircons & dryers C ) stuff is only visible in bargains or clearance sales!

Post# 217936 , Reply# 4 6/24/2007 at 08:58 (6,144 days old) by mielabor ()
Checkrate/Likes *Most Americans call split-phase* Do I understand correctly that American 220 Volt is obtained with two 127 Volt phases? That is interesting, we had the same system in Amsterdam until circa 15 years ago. I know that it was, and maybe still is, used in Brussels.

Post# 217942 , Reply# 5 6/24/2007 at 09:29 (6,144 days old) by dadoes (TX,�U.S. of A.)
Checkrate/Likes Gabriele, my house has 200 amp service. The highest single-consumption item is the electric demand water heater, which can get high as 120 amps @ 220 volts by itself (but rarely does). The next higher is air conditioning/heating, which is about 5000 watts.

Post# 218199 , Reply# 6 6/25/2007 at 16:06 (6,143 days old) by fa_f3_20 ()
Checkrate/Likes mielabor: Yes, the standard residential service in America consists of two 120-volt legs, 180 degrees apart, and a neutral. You wire from a hot leg to neutral to get 120V, and across the two hot legs to get 240V. True three-phase wiring is common in commercial buildings and industrial machinery, but rare in residences. In most of the U.S., 100A service was standard in new residential construction until the last ten years or so. Some areas now go with 150A or 200A service as standard. In the Southern states, 200A has been the standard for some time due to the need for air conditioning. Our house has its service split into two panels, both breakered at 200A. One panel contains mainly the HVAC and kitchen appliances, and the other contains most branch circuits plus the water heaters. Except for gas fireplaces and an outdoor grill connection, the house is all-electric. The highest-drawing appliance is actually the oven, which is breakered at 50A (it only actually gets near that number during the self-clean cycle). Heating is from heat pumps. Believe it or not, this was by far the cheapest way to heat the house in this area; natural gas service is not available in our neighborhood, and propane is pretty expensive here.

Post# 218355 , Reply# 7 6/26/2007 at 05:06 (6,142 days old) by mielabor ()
Checkrate/Likes *200A service* Amazing, in apartments such as where I live only 20A can be used at maximum. This means that I cannot use the washer and the dryer at the same time. Electric cooking is impossible, but gas is widely used. I have always wondered why gas dryers have never made it here as they are energy-efficient and do not overload the electrical installation. Miele had a nice gas dryer a few years ago but it has been discontinued for lack of sales.

Post# 218648 , Reply# 8 6/27/2007 at 02:42 (6,141 days old) by dj-gabriele ()
Checkrate/Likes *200A service* Gosh! My house runs (aircon is an exception) on a 16A 230V service! And as Mielabor said we can't run 2 electricity demanding appliances at the same time. Even in my father's laundry, the service is 32A 380V plus 50A 230V. And most of the machines rely on steam for heating! Anyway, thank you again for your informations!

Post# 218815 , Reply# 12 6/27/2007 at 13:48 (6,141 days old) by vivalalavatrice ()
Checkrate/Likes *Benvenuto mio caro Gabriele!* Oib�! Ecco che spuntano come i funghi...:-)) I'm very happy to know that I'm not alone! But in the meanwhile I wonder why I've been so for such a long time?!?! Where were you?! Anywasy WELCOME (Here the official language is the English but...nessuno avr� nulla da ridire credo se due paroline le facciamo in italiano...non credi?!) Enjoy this website Gabriele and let me introduce you to this one...I think I'm the first one have a blog of Italian washer's lovers... Tranky...non sei affatto da solo ad amare la lavatrice! :-) Scrivimi e magari ti do la mail di Enrico...� di Ferrara! E poi c'� Marco di Firenze e Riccardo di Milano...e tanti altri sparsi per il Belpaese! CLICK HERE TO GO TO vivalalavatrice's LINK

Post# 218823 , Reply# 13 6/27/2007 at 14:47 (6,141 days old) by passatdoc (Orange County, California)
Checkrate/Likes *weather* Yep, we are very lucky in Southern California with such a mild climate. The gas bill each month does display the company's commodity cost for gas, and it seems to vary maybe 50% between summer and winter...so that the bill for a certain amount of gas units may cost 50% in winter than the same amount in summer. However, the electricity rates where I live (SDGE, San Diego Gas & Electric) are the second highest in the nation, after the NYC area, so that may affect the equation in favor of gas. I made an error in my earlier post about 240V outlets being outlawed. What I meant was that in the water heater and dryer areas, only a gas line is allowed and no 240V, forcing the owners to use gas. I knew a few people who moved in with electric dryers and they had to buy new machines! However, most kitchens are allowed to have 240 V outlets without restriction. Our particular home had gas and 120V behind the range, but at the time it was built, in the late 1980s, they probably figured the owners would eventually upgrade to a fancier gas range (maybe a commercial one) rather than switch to electric. European features such as convection first appeared in the US on electric models. Then the appliance manufacturers woke up to the fact that many homes had a gas line and 120 V where the range was, and then they began to make gas convection ranges. They realized people wanted to upgrade appliances and maybe put in new countertops, but they weren't ready to gut a ten year old kitchen, they only wanted to improve what was there. When I bought my current range in 2001, there were only four companies that made gas convection ranges: Frigidaire, GE, KitchenAid, and Jenn Air. Now, just about every mid range and upscale company offers a gas convection range.

Post# 218769 , Reply# 9 6/27/2007 at 12:12 (6,141 days old) by passatdoc (Orange County, California)
Checkrate/Likes *gas costs* I'm aware that natural gas is relatively inexpensive in Holland (due to gas fields in northern Holland around Groningen) and maybe not so inexpensive in Italy. I was an exchange student in Nijmegen (Netherlands) and I recall that most appliances in the house were gas: gas cooking range, point of use gas water heaters in kitchen and bathrooms, etc. I was not there in winter, so I never saw the heating system being used, but I think it was radiators (whether the hot water in the radiators was gas or electrically heated, I do not know). The old rule of thumb (that means, general rule or custom) was that it cost four times as much money to dry a load of clothes with electricity as with gas. So if the laundry area has both a 240V plug and a gas line, most people will choose gas. In some areas of California, the building regulations now prohibit the installation of a 240 V plug in a new home, forcing the owners to use gas only, in the interests of energy conservation. With the rise in the cost of natural gas, I am not sure if the 4:1 ratio is still true. I have read estimates however that the ratio is still 2:1 or 3:1 in favor of gas to dry clothes or heat water. Remember, in USA we only have 240V at locations where two hot wires are joined. That means at most in the laundry area, perhaps in the kitchen, and perhaps an outside connection for a spa.My home was built in 1989 and has only 120V and gas in the kitchen, so all cooking must be gas. However, most of the appliance manufacturers make gas ranges with convection that can run on 120V, so my cooking range is up to date with the newest features. Ten years ago, such features could only be found on an electric range. I cannot use a so-called dual fuel range (gas cooktop, electric oven) because such a model requires 240V electricity. To create a 240V outlet in the kitchen, they would have to rip out a wall and cabinets to have access to the wiring (no thanks!!). The prong arrangement on a US 240V plug differs from a 120V plug, so the two cannot be used interchangeably by accident. I have a Frigidaire gas dryer (the company is owned by Electrolux). It heats with gas and uses a 120 V motor to spin the drum and operate the controls. I believe the heating unit is rated at about 18,000 BTU (british thermal units). It can dry a load of permanent press clothing in about 30 minutes. A big load of towels takes about 50 minutes. A king sized comforter might take a bit over an hour to dry, because you have to remove it and turn it over to get everything dry (my dryer is average size, about 5.7 cubic feet, you can buy dryers up to about 7.5 cubic feet which probably could dry a king size comforter without having to turn it inside out). I live in Southern California near the ocean. The house is 120 square meters and does not have air conditioning (not very hot here), but some heating is used (forced air ducted heating with gas furnace) in winter. In summer, gas is used to cook and to heat water only (for bathing and for laundry). My typical monthly gas bill in the summer is $11-12, to give you an idea of the costs here. The electricity bill tends to be $30 in summer, $40 in winter (the heating fan is electric), but I have a 100 gallon/400 liter aquarium which probably adds $10 to the electric bill due to the lights and pumps. My gas bill in winter can be $30-40 per month due to the additional gas used for heating. But by showing you my summer gas cost, you can see that it does not cost much money to heat water for bathing and washing. Also, be aware that US machines fill using both the cold and hot water pipes. Most US water heaters produce hot water at 140 F or 60 C. So if you require a wash with 30 C, 40 C, 50 C, or 60 C, the washer does not need to heat the water...it simply mixes the water coming in from the cold and hot water pipes. (there are exceptions....you can buy a 240V cold water-only filling Miele here, but I mean the typical US machine, like Whirlpool, Frigidaire, Maytag, etc.). Many US machines do not have a heater built into the machine, and when a heater is available, it is offered usually on the top of the line models only....expect to pay $100-300 extra for a heater, something Europeans take for granted! The heater on a US machine would be used to heat water if the incoming hot water is below 60 C (say, someone is taking a shower at the same time) or if you select a temperature setting about 60 C. The heating capacity is not as robust as in Europe, since it is usually only 120 V, but the machine isn't heating cold tap water up to washing temperature. It is simply boosting it to 60 C if the hot water runs out, or taking 60 C tap water and boosting it to 70 or 80 C if the user selects a high temperature cycle. My machine lacks a heater and can wash only at a maximum of 60 C (unless I modified my water heater to make it hotter). Even on machines with a heater, the heater is not used, as I outlined above. Consequently, cycle times are shorter than in Europe. You would not see a two hour cycle unless someone selects the "sanitize" cycle with very hot water. Machines vary, but my washer cycle times are about 40 minutes to 75 minutes, the latter for heavy cycle with extra wash, extra rinse, and extra spin all selected. Two hours for a NORMAL load, as I experience in April on my Stockholm friend's brand new Bosch, would never happen here, and machines that took two hours to run a normal load would not sell well here. The top loaders often required only 30-40 minutes for a cycle, so people here are not used to waiting so long, and it is a matter of education to train them that they have to wait an hour or more for their washer to complete its cycle. In answer to your question about consumer information, we are in the dark. As someone else said, the government protects manufacturers, not consumers. In addition, many Americans who buy a front loading machine are doing so for the first time in their lives. Imagine your grandparents when they bought their first automatic washing machines after the war.... that is what many Americans are like. They grew up with top loaders. That is all they know. Many of their friends still have top loaders, so they cannot rely on the advice of friends or family in many cases. You may THINK of the USA as a wealthy consumer society, but having money does not always mean well-informed or having much experience. We do not receive any comparision tables with letter grades for cleaning and spin effectiveness (your A B C system), nothing about spin speeds, nothing about water used per wash. We do get information about energy efficiency, the yellow sticker on each appliance as someone posted earlier in this thread. Appliances that are more efficient and meet certain standards are designated "Energy Star" by the government, and you can use their website to compare energy efficiency, and to some degree the water efficiency. If you hunt for it!! But we do not get easy to use information to compare models the way Europeans receive. Some manufacturers with larger tubs now use the tub capacity as a selling point, so that information is easy to find. But speed of final spin? You might have to call customer support to find that information. They can get away with this because the average US consumer is far less savvy about this area than a European. They are better informed about buying a TV or a car, but a front loading washer is just unknown territory to them. Since the consumers don't ask the questions, they aren't given any answers. The group of people on this website as a whole are very well informed, but their expertise is FAR above the average American walking into an appliance store. If you asked an average American who just completed a purchase of a new front loader some questions about the machine, such as final spin speed, water efficiency, energy efficiency, etc., they would have no idea. Because the machines use 2/3 less water than top loaders, they know they are saving water (compared to the machine being replaced) and that is all they know. It will require another generation of front loaders to die and have to be replaced before you will have consumers who are as knowledgeable as Europeans. Until I bought my Frigidaire (Electrolux) front loader last year, the only times my clothes had ever been washed in a front loader were on trips to Europe in the homes of friends.

Post# 218778 , Reply# 10 6/27/2007 at 12:25 (6,141 days old) by passatdoc (Orange County, California)
Checkrate/Likes *All Electric Homes* Forgot to add...in the late 1950s and early 1960s, there was a move by electricity producers (most of which are privately owned, not government) to have houses use only electricity and no gas. In some cases, home builders were persuaded not to run gas lines in the streets of new homes. Such all electric homes were designated as Medallion Homes. Electricity was supposed to be the choice of the future. It was believed that nuclear power generating stations would be everywhere, and that electricity would be so inexpensive that there would be no reason to meter it....everyone would pay a low monthly "flat rate" charge (you pay the same no matter how much you use). Where I grew up in San Diego, California, the local electric company gave a 20% discount if the home was all electric. Until of course the energy crisis of 1973-74, when suddenly they cancalled the all electric discount very quickly and very quietly....leaving some consumers with no gas choice because the home had been built with no gas lines on purpose. My parents' home is in this situation. So the availability of gas varies by the city and neighborhood. Not everyone has a gas line system in the house. Where gas is available, people tend to choose it over electricity for water heating and laundry (remember, since the washer draws hot tap water from the pipe, the gas water heater--and not the washer's own heater, in most cases--is heating the wash water). Cooking tends to be more a matter of taste. Some like to cook on gas, others on electricity. Gas ovens do not have the same cost advantage over electric ovens that gas water heaters and dryers have over their electric counterparts. That is because gas ovens must be vented to bring oxygen to the flames. An electric oven can be tightly sealed, which does not heat up the kitchen as much as a gas oven (until you open the door, of course). Some people have a gas cooktop but an electric wall oven. Or they buy a dual fuel range with gas cooktop but electric oven (you need a gas line and a 240V outlet to do this, and many homes have only a 120V outlet behind the range....installing a 240V outlet here requires access to the lines in the wall, which means a wall may have to be opened or ripped out to do the job, and it also depends on how many amps the circuit in that wall will carry. They generally recommend 30 A for an electric 240V oven, whereas a circuit for my range's 120 V outlet (which only operates controls and the convection fan) is probably only 15 or 20 A.

Post# 218807 , Reply# 11 6/27/2007 at 13:14 (6,141 days old) by fa_f3_20 ()
Checkrate/Likes *Energy costs and weather* Passatdoc, thanks for the interesting data. As a contrast to that, the cost ratio for electricity vs. gas in northern Alabama is close to even. Last winter, our first winter in our new house with about 4200 sq. ft. of space heated with heat pumps, our electric bills were about the same as what it was costing us a couple of years ago to heat a circa-1990 1700 sq. ft. home with gas. In addition, gas service here has had problems with wild month-to-month price swings occurring during the winter; this has been going on for a number of years. Electricity, by contrast, has been pretty stable in price. I know of several people who used to have gas heat and switched to heat pumps a couple of years ago due to some absolutely insane price swings that occurred in gas that winter. Gas is still commonly used for water heating, though. Gas dryers are a lot less common, even in houses that have gas service. I'm not sure why this is. I can remember that when I was a child, gas dryers had a bad reputation for poor reliability, but I don't think that's true anymore. Yet, even people who have gas heat, gas water heating, and gas stoves often have an electric dryer. New homes here are usually built with provisions for both gas and electric in the kitchen and at the water heater locations, but I hardly ever see a gas outlet in the laundry room for the dryer. I should point out that it's only been since the 1980s that dryers have become a universal appliance in this part of the country. When I was a child, a lot of people didn't own dryers, and even people who had them often hung out their laundry on a line when the weather was good. I should point out for the benefit of our European friends that Southern California's mild weather is atypical for the U.S. Most of the States experience far more extreme day-to-day and season-to-season variations. In the southern U.S., a house without air conditioning is unliveable. (Trust me on this... I grew up with relatives whose houses were not air conditioned, and despite the fact that people lived in them, their houses were unliveable!) Our daytime summer temps approach 100F (37C), with high humidity. In the Southwest, taking Las Vegas as an example, summer daytime temps reach 120F (nearly 50C!), although without the humidity. But the "dry heat" jokes aside, 120 is 120, and there's no getting around it. In contrast, winter temperatures in the Northern states will not-infrequently hit -20F (-28C), in spite of the fact that they do get some summer days around 90F. And, even Alabama sees occasional days of near 0F in the winter.

Post# 218824 , Reply# 14 6/27/2007 at 14:52 (6,141 days old) by passatdoc (Orange County, California)
Checkrate/Likes *gas dryers* Typically, a gas dryer will cost $40-50 more than the equivalent electric model, but our local utility says that you recoup the cost gap within the first year. When I first moved to my current home, I remember a mailing from the power company that said it cost (then) $1 to dry a load with electricity vs. $0.25 with gas (I don't know if they figured in the electricity cost to operate a gas dryer,i.e. spinning the drum). If that was the case, and say one did five loads of laundry a week, then one would have recouped the cost difference in 14 weeks in 1988. None of my European friends have ever seen a gas dryer in action except when visiting here in the USA.

Post# 218825 , Reply# 15 6/27/2007 at 14:56 (6,141 days old) by gadgetgary (Bristol,CT)
Checkrate/Likes CR says: The average American dryer consumes 2.5 KWH. Multiply by your rate to see what it will cost you.

Post# 218827 , Reply# 16 6/27/2007 at 15:04 (6,141 days old) by passatdoc (Orange County, California)
Checkrate/Likes *come to think of it* When I run the math again, in 1988 one saved $3.75 a week running five loads on gas rather than electricity. I think the point of that memo ad from the power company was two fold: 1. Urging people who were in the market for a new dryer to choose a gas model (the utility, SDGE, supplied only electricity where I live, but in most of its service area, it supplies gas AND electricity) 2. Getting people to consider replacing an existing, working electric model with a gas dryer. One could buy an ok gas dryer for $300 back then, and if one saved $3.75 running five loads per week (obviously larger families would have more loads and more savings), a NEW dryer bought to replace an existing, working electric dryer would be paid for with savings on electricity in only 88 weeks, so in about 20 months. After 88 weeks, you would be saving money in the long run compared to the person who kept the electric dryer. In addition, under US tax laws, you can donate a working appliance to a charity and claim maybe half the original cost as a charitible donation. So someone could donate an old, working dryer and receive a charity receipt stating that $100 or $150 of value had been donated. This would then reduce one's income taxes by maybe $20-50 that year. So I think the goal of that memo ad was to get people to give away their old electric dryer and buy a new gas model. At the time (1988), there were electricity shortages, but no gas shortages here. Since the utility supplied both electricity and gas, they wanted to shift people over to gas so that they could minimize having to build new power plants.

Post# 218866 , Reply# 17 6/27/2007 at 18:18 (6,141 days old) by dj-gabriele ()
Checkrate/Likes Whoa! What a nice discussion that has took place here! Thanks for the friendly Italian welcome! It is very interesting to learn about this things, I always wondered! I never had a dryer at home and I don't feel the need to have it, with the weather we have in Bologna I cand dry my room carpet overnight and in winter a full load of towels dryes in only a few hours because of the high heating we use in my flat. Plus the electricity consumption would be cathastrophic, a tariff of 23 eurocents per kW/h I call it a financial suicide!