Laundry

Laundry running costs, per wash and per load

Laundry is the clearest case on this site of a cheap machine being the expensive choice. A vented tumble dryer costs a third of what a heat pump one does and uses nearly three times the electricity per load. Whether that trade is worth making depends entirely on how often you dry, which is a question about your household rather than about the machines, so every page here gives you the break even rather than a verdict.

Read

Cost per wash: laundry detergent by price per dose22 August 2026UK laundry detergents ranked by cost per dose, with the electricity and water of the wash itself added, so you can see what the detergent is really worth.
Tumble dryer cost per load, and when it pays back22 August 2026What a tumble dry costs per load in the UK, vented against condenser against heat pump, and how many loads it takes for the expensive machine to win.

Everything we have priced in this room

Priced at the tariffs shown in the bar at the top of the page. Sorted cheapest first.
Item	Running	Cost per use	Relative
Per load
Heated clothes airer	31.3p	43.1p
Tumble dryer, heat pump	41.8p	85.1p
Tumble dryer, condenser	£1.04	£1.29
Tumble dryer, vented	£1.17	£1.35
Per session
Steam iron	13.1p	32.3p	nothing to compare with yet
Per wash
Washing machine, 40 degrees	57.4p	77.7p	nothing to compare with yet

Open the calculator to put your own tariff, your own purchase price and your own usage against any row above.

Worked through

The cheapest and the dearest of the things here that are measured in the same unit, with every term of the sum shown, so you can see which part of the number is the part that actually matters.

Heated clothes airer, 43.1p per load

Cost per load, the working

Purchase, £85 over 720 loads11.81p

Electricity, 1.2 × 26.11p31.33p

Cost per load43.1p

300W airer run for 4 hours.

Cheap to run and slow. It also puts every litre of that water into the room, so in an unventilated flat the real cost includes the dehumidifier you then buy.

Tumble dryer, vented, £1.35 per load

Cost per load, the working

Purchase, £265 over 1,500 loads17.67p

Electricity, 4.5 × 26.11p£1.17

Cost per load£1.35

Full 8kg cotton load, dry to cupboard. Vented machines dump heated air outside and reheat from cold, which is the whole of the difference.

The same sum, applied in heating and damp, home office and motoring. Or open the calculator and put your own numbers through it.

Prices used on this page

Electricity, 26.11p per kWh. Ofgem price cap, direct debit, average of England, Scotland and Wales, including 5% VAT.. Ofgem energy price cap unit rates and standing charges. Checked 22 August 2026.
Water and sewerage, £4.60 per cubic metre. Combined volumetric water and wastewater charge, metered. Mean of three large suppliers for 2026/27: Thames Water £4.02, United Utilities £4.75, Anglian Water £5.03 per cubic metre.. Published 2026/27 household charges, Thames Water, United Utilities and Anglian Water. Checked 22 August 2026.