Gas vs electric dryer in the USA: cost per load

At four loads a week (208 a year) the yearly figures are $35, $80 and $30; at eight a week (416) they are $71, $161 and $60.

The number of loads changes the size of the gap and never the order, because every figure is a cost per load multiplied by the same count.

These are the efficient models: the three rows use the typical ENERGY STAR certified dryer of each type. A dryer built only to the legal minimum costs about 28¢ a load on gas and 69¢ on electricity at the same prices.

Against a standard electric dryer, yes, in all 51: by 9¢ to 45¢ a load. The gap is smallest in Arkansas, Florida and Louisiana and largest in California, Maine and Connecticut.

The reason is in the energy. A standard electric dryer makes all its heat from electricity, 2.15 kWh a load. A gas dryer makes its heat from gas and uses electricity only for the motor and controls, so the price of a kWh moves its cost much less. Where electricity is dear the electric dryer falls far behind; where electricity is cheap and gas is dear the two come close.

A heat pump dryer changes the answer. It uses 0.80 kWh a load, and at the state's average gas price it costs less per load than gas in 35 states. In a home that already uses gas the count falls to 21.

The state figure is an average, not your tariff. To redo the sum, find the price of one more unit on each bill: the line in cents per kWh on the electricity bill, and the line in dollars per therm on the gas bill. Some gas bills count in CCF, a hundred cubic feet, which is about 1.04 therms. Leave out the fixed monthly charge: you pay it whether or not the dryer runs.

Take the yearly gap from your state's row, or the difference between the two types you are choosing between, and the extra cost from your own quote. The grid gives the years until the saving has paid for the change.

Without a gas main, a gas dryer runs on propane from a tank. Per unit of heat, propane costs more than natural gas in 38 of the 38 states where EIA publishes both prices. The propane column prices the same gas dryer burning the same heat per load, 0.0790 gallons; that is our assumption, not a certified propane figure.

A heat pump dryer reuses its warm air instead of blowing it outside, so it needs no vent: all 21 certified models are ventless. They use a median of 0.80 kWh a load against 2.15 for a standard electric dryer, 63% less at any electricity price.

In the certified energy test the median cycle takes 69 minutes in a heat pump dryer, 67 in a vented electric one and 70 in a gas one.

So on the test cycle a heat pump dryer is not slower. These are manufacturers' certified figures on one standard load, not measurements in homes, and there are far fewer heat pump models to choose from. It is the answer where electricity is the only fuel, where there is no way to vent, and in the states where it beats gas in the table above.

A load dried while your panels produce more than the house is using costs you what the utility would have credited for that surplus, not the retail price. Where the credit is below the retail price, both electric dryers get cheaper to run and gas stays where it was, so a heat pump dryer wins in more places than the table shows. Where surplus is credited at the full retail price, nothing changes. To see your own case, put your credit rate in place of the electricity price in the formula below.

Look behind the machine. An electric dryer has one thick cord with a large 240-volt plug of three or four prongs, and nothing else. A gas dryer has an ordinary plug and a second connection: a gas pipe with a shut-off valve and a flexible line to the machine.

Energy per load comes from the ENERGY STAR certified standard-size models: the median combined energy factor of 192 gas dryers is 3.48, of 350 vented electric dryers 3.93, of 21 heat pump dryers 10.5. The federal test dries a load of 8.45 pounds, and the energy per load in kWh is 8.45 divided by that factor.

For a gas dryer the factor counts gas and electricity together. We split it: 0.281 kWh of electricity while running plus 0.0305 kWh of standby per load; the rest is gas, at 3,412 BTU per kWh and 100,000 BTU per therm.

A year is 283 loads, the figure in the federal test. The test moves to 236 loads on 1 March 2028, and the Department of Energy's field estimate is 213 loads a year, each larger than the test load. At those counts the yearly figures at US prices are $40, $91 and $34, or $36, $82 and $31.

Prices are each state's residential average for the 12 months to Jul 2026: electricity as revenue divided by sales, gas weighted by volume. Left out: your own tariff, time-of-use rates, the dryer's purchase price and installation, repairs, and the heated or cooled room air a vented dryer pushes outside.

How the state prices are worked out: how the prices are calculated.