Washing machine electricity cost

How the estimate works

Weekly energy is the energy per cycle multiplied by your cycles per week. A year is the weekly figure × 365 ÷ 7, and an average month is a year ÷ 12, the same conventions used everywhere on this site. The cost per cycle is simply the energy per cycle multiplied by your price per kWh.

Finding the energy per cycle

• Energy labels in the UK and EU give the energy for 100 cycles of the eco programme. Divide that figure by 100 to get kWh per cycle.
• If a label gives yearly kWh and states how many loads a year it assumes, divide the yearly figure by that number of loads.
• A plug-in energy monitor can measure the programme you actually use.

What changes the energy per cycle

The programme, wash temperature and load all matter. Hotter programmes use more electricity because the machine heats the water itself. If your machine takes hot water from your home's water heater, the energy used to heat that water is used by the water heater instead and is not included here.

Example

With an illustrative 1 kWh per cycle and 4 cycles a week, weekly use is 4 kWh and yearly use is 4 × 365 ÷ 7 = 208.57 kWh. At an illustrative $0.20 per kWh, each load costs $0.20 and a year costs $41.71. Enter your own figures for your estimate.

Clothes dryers

A dryer uses its own energy for each load. Add it separately in the appliance cost calculator using the energy per cycle method, then compare both on your dashboard.