A typical heated airer costs 4c to 11c an hour to run. Work out yours, compare it with a tumble dryer, and see how much a night rate saves.
Heated airers are one of the cheapest ways to dry clothes indoors because they run at low power, usually 100W to 300W.
A 230W airer running for five hours costs about 41c at the typical Irish rate, against €1.08 for a 2kW tumble dryer running for an hour and a half.
Put in your own airer's wattage and how long you run it below.
Heated airer running cost calculator
Cost = watts ÷ 1,000 × hours × rate. October to March assumes 182 days at your daily hours.
Five hour drying session
Where to find your airer's wattage
Look on the rating label, usually on the underside of the control box or the plug end of the frame, or in the manual. It's shown in watts (W). If the listing gives a range, use the higher figure.
Most heated airers have no thermostat, so they draw their full wattage the whole time they're on. That makes the calculation simple and the result accurate.
The hidden cost of drying indoors
The electricity is the cheap part. The water from the clothes goes into the room's air, and in an Irish winter it settles on windows and cold walls.
That's why our heated airer guide recommends running a dehumidifier in the same room. A low-energy compressor model adds about 5.4c an hour, and the clothes dry faster too.
A full-size heated airer with 24 bars and wheels. At 230W it costs 8.3c an hour at the standard rate, or 3.5c on a night rate.
Run it in the same room as the airer with the door shut. It takes the water out of the air before it reaches your windows, and its laundry mode switches off after six hours.
Two ways to cut the cost
Run the airer overnight on a night rate if you have a day/night meter, which cuts the cost by more than half.
And cover it, with a sheet or a fitted cover, so the warm air stays around the clothes and they dry in fewer hours.
Respond, the Irish housing association, also suggests drying clothes in a well-ventilated room. A closed room with a dehumidifier running counts; a closed room without one doesn't.
Every euro matters more here than elsewhere: Ireland has the dearest household electricity in the EU, according to Eurostat.
For a dehumidifier on its own, use the dehumidifier running cost calculator. If you're weighing up which type to buy, see desiccant vs compressor.