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My dryer is using way more electricity than normal.
Got our electric bill the other day and it was more than double what it should have been. We checked all the appliances in the house including the AC. When we got to the dryer and turned it on the meter outside started spinning at an insane rate. the meter speed would vary a little but it was still going crazy fast. When we shut off the dyer the meter slowed to a crawl. What causing this to happen?
ANSWERS:
"Sounds to me like a short. Your dryer may be making electrical contacts in areas that it shouldn't. I'd open it up and check all the wiring. Tighten down all the screws you can find. Use a multimeter. Test the continuity on the heater coils. A typical load should run about 3000 watts.
A clothes dryer accounts for a whopping 12% of electricity use in a typical household. And clothes drying is one of the easiest places to save energy, because you can erase 100% of the cost by simply hanging your clothes up to dry. At a sample rate of $0.15/kWh and 7.5 loads per week, we're talking a savings of $196 per year by line-drying instead of using an electric dryer. That's hefty.
Here was the question I posted on drying clothes several years ago: Any tips for preventing stiff clothes when drying outdoors?"
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