Your clothes dryer's timed dry settings could be wasting your money, if your clothes get toasty before the buzzer. Traditional dryer cycles end after a set number of minutes (three Seinfeld episodes, roughly). Instead,
use the auto-dry feature. Take advantage of your dryer's teeny electronic brain, er, moisture sensor and tell it to shut off when your clothes are dry.
The
auto-dry feature on a clothes dryer works by sensing a rise in air temperature after most of the water evaporates from the clothes. Moisture sensors are even better because they measure remaining moisture in the dryer drum, according to the Consumer Energy Center.
Using a
moisture-sensing or auto-dry cycle when drying clothes could cut costs by 10 to 15 percent compared to using the timer, according to the
Oregon Office of Energy (your savings may vary). Plus, over-drying clothes can cause wrinkling and shrinkage. Try an energy-efficient dryer setting, and you could watch your energy bill shrink instead.