Green Tip of the Week #9: Drying laundry - don’t overdo it

“Do not over-dry laundry. An electric dryer operating an extra 15 minutes a load can cost you up to $34 a year in wasted energy; a gas dryer, $21 a year. If your dryer has a moisture sensor that turns the machine off automatically when clothes are dry, use it.”*

We don’t have a moisture sensor on our gosh, nearly 10-year-old dryer, so I usually just set it on “very dry” and walk away. After reading about over-drying, however, I experimented with our dryer and put it on one line less than “very dry,” translating into using slightly less drying time. Guess what? The clothes came out just as dry. I plan to keep fiddling with it until I find the lowest amount of time it takes to dry the clothes.

Of course, even better than using a dryer is to air-dry your laundry - something I haven’t jumped on board with just yet. The Natural Mommy has a great post about hanging drying racks** right in your laundry area. I might have to see if the hubby will install one of those for me. If nothing else, it’d be great for the cloth diapers.

*This tip brought to you by: Women Co.’s Green Guide
**This tip brought to you by: The Natural Mommy

Have any green tips you’ve recently learned? Please email them to me and I may include your tip with a link to your site or blog in a future post. :)

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