Making Your Dryer More Effective

{Making Your Dryer Run More Effectively}

When I run my dryer I am always thinking of ideas about how to make it more cost effective and more efficient. It all started when I decided to run my dryer on low heat instead of high heat. Running it on high was great because the clothes were drying faster but they were also shrinking and wearing much faster.

Here are a few other things that I have found that are helping me make my laundry days a little bit easier on me and also on my electric bill!

1.          Clean the lint trap/filter; this can help your dryer so much! I had heard it a million times but didn't try it because I didn’t think it would really help much. Once I tried it, I realized how much of a difference it really made! My clothes dry much faster now and I also think it reduces the risk of fire. All that you have to do is pull the lint-trap out and wash it in your sink; I use my cleaning tooth brush and dish soap. You should do this once a month or whenever you remember.

2.        Dry your delicates and light weight clothes first because they don’t need as much heat and it helps your dryer warm up so that when you get to your heavier clothes your dryer doesn't have to work hard to get warm and all of the energy will be focused to the actual drying.

3.         Do your laundry back to back so that the dryer doesn't cool down between loads. Keeping the dryer warm will help save energy.

4.          Make sure to do full loads, drying half a load will take just as much energy as drying a while load.

5.      Don’t overload your dryer, loads that are too big will take twice as much time to try and it is really hard for the clothes to move around so the outer layer will dry and the middle will be wet still.

6.            I found that throwing a tennis ball in with my drying clothes really helps the drying time, not only that but it also helps to keep your clothes fluffy after they dry. The tennis ball bouncing around will cause the clothes to shift around more and helping all of the clothes to dry.

7.      One other thing that I found, it seems so bizarre but I *LOVE* it! I have a big problem with losing my hair and when I am folding and hanging my clothes I find tons of loose hair, which I hate! One day on accident one of these little toys ended up in my dryer.

When I pulled it out of the dryer it was covered and wrapped in hair! Since then I have started just throwing one of these in with my clothes and it really does work to get most of the loose hair from the laundry. I dry my loads on low heat, as I mentioned above, so I don’t worry about the heat affecting the porcupine balls. I find these little gems on sale after holidays (since they have them in holiday colors for gifting) and they are around $1 for 8-10 of them and sometimes I use them multiple times. Try it, I swear by it now! They don't melt in my dryer but you should try it in yours first because every dryer is different and I only run mine on low heat so I have never had a problem, just test it first.