Gas dryer efficiency.

[Prosperi-Tees]

Are used older gas dryers worth the money in comparison to new more efficient gas dryers? What makes the new ones more efficient? Is it just the insulation of the dryer? Not looking to buy one just doing research, I have some debt I have to pay down first which is getting tough but I just realized I have a gas pipe already plumbed into the shop pretty close to where my dryer is now.

[cbjamel]

What I was told was maybe depending on age. Say an old precision dryer versus my dryer that is 3-4 years old now. 244 told me huge difference.
Shane

[Rockers]

I assume the newer dryers will have more efficient burners.

[Binkspot]

It's more efficient burners, air flow and circulation and how the dryers are insulated.

[blue moon]

we have a 2004 interchange MD-8 that does not seem to be insulated as well as the new ones. We threw some insulation over it and are now paying about $150/month for gas (10+ hours per day, six days a week, 60" belt, 8' of heat).

I've heard of ppl having a $700+ monthly gas bill with older dryers, so $150 is a huge difference!

pierre

[cleveprint]

wow pierre, thats awesome. im not sure how i could check, but our old electric dryer has got to be killing us. can you have an electrician hook a meter up to it for a day or something? has anyone ever tried that?

thats our shops next purchase is a dryer. finding money is the tough part!

[244]

wow pierre, thats awesome. im not sure how i could check, but our old electric dryer has got to be killing us. can you have an electrician hook a meter up to it for a day or something? has anyone ever tried that?

thats our shops next purchase is a dryer. finding money is the tough part!

Depending on the size of your electric dryer and its rated energy usage you may be spending more per month on energy than the payment on a new gas dryer. Look into that and you may find the money.

[blue moon]

wow pierre, thats awesome. im not sure how i could check, but our old electric dryer has got to be killing us. can you have an electrician hook a meter up to it for a day or something? has anyone ever tried that?

thats our shops next purchase is a dryer. finding money is the tough part!

we had a rather small (9KW) electric dryer that did not do too bad. With three panels and 6' tunel we could get a good number of shirts through per hour. It was strictly radiant heat, no blowers. Once we switched to gas we noticed about $200 less on our electric bill. So in our case the savings was not as big as Alan's who if I remember correctly eliminated many hundreds of $$$ from his monthly nut. . .

pierre

[TCT]

I was trying to figure out the "break even point" of how big of a electric dryer you can run until it becomes cheaper to run a gas one. We have a small electric dryer we only use for when we print transfers and I was wondering at what point is it cheaper to run a gas one for them.

ANYWAY, here is a link for a meter that can be used to figure out how much your gas dryer itself costs to run-
http://www.ekmmetering.com/ekm-metering-products/gas-meters/pulse-output-gas-meter-pgm-1-read-gas-consumption-remotely.html

You gan get electrial meters all over the place to see what your electric dryer costd to run. Heck, you can check them out from the libraries around here. Just be careful and check it can handle the load the dryer will draw. Or else you may have more to worry about than your electric bill!

[Socalfmf]

I know I have posted this numerous times...but here we go again.  I had a workhorse quartz dryer our electric bill would be anywhere from 800-1200 month.  we then got a gas dryer and our electric bill is about 200ish a month and our gas bill is just over 100 bucks a month.  right there was more than a payment is for a dryer.  we are now looking to upgrade our dryer so we can feed two autos into it and still the gas usage will only go up pennies an hour yet we will yield more throughput making us more and more profit.

sam

[TCT]

I know I have posted this numerous times...but here we go again.  I had a workhorse quartz dryer our electric bill would be anywhere from 800-1200 month.  we then got a gas dryer and our electric bill is about 200ish a month and our gas bill is just over 100 bucks a month.  right there was more than a payment is for a dryer.  we are now looking to upgrade our dryer so we can feed two autos into it and still the gas usage will only go up pennies an hour yet we will yield more throughput making us more and more profit.

sam

What size was the Workhorse? What size is your gas one now?

[GraphicDisorder]

I honestly barely noticed a difference in the as bill when we added our M&R Boomerang.  We also use gas for heat/water heater/warehouse heat.  But since adding the M&R we barely run the warehouse heat.  It's very similar in cost.  It's saving us on electric though, we had a Vastex and it was drawing some elect for sure. 

[Socalfmf]

we had the 3608 workhorse 2 feet in  4 feet heat and 2 feet out

we now have the heatwave from M&R

[alan802]

We went from a 5' infeed 10' heat chamber, 5' out, 48" belt gas/electric combo dryer that could run 1500+shirts an hour to the M&R Sprint International.  The M&R is 8', 12', 8' and 60" belt width so considerably larger.  I'll get some numbers on our gas bill in a bit but I know our electricity bill went down enough to pay for the new dryer and have money left over at the end of the month.  Our electricity bill averaged about $1200/mo for this building with the old dryer and now ranges from $450-650/mo.  That's why I always tell people to do whatever it takes to get a gas dryer for their shop.  Electric dryers will get the job done, but the additional costs for those IR panels is ridiculous compared to gas.  Even if you have to get a tank and put it outside the shop it would be way cheaper than doing electric.  If your building doesn't have gas lines then do some research and see what it would take to get a line run or check on getting a tank for the nat. gas or propane.

[Gilligan]

I guess it's because our Chaparral is so small (3 in 6 heat 3 out 24" wide) and only 3 panels that it doesn't cost us that much.

My calculations based on a 70% duty cycle which I just clocked myself over 2 mins (which does count for initial warm up), using my dryer 6  hours a day 4 days a week (we aren't even CLOSE to those numbers yet) we are only at like $56 bucks a month.