anyone own a gas dryer?

[Large Sarge]

Hi Folks,

My washer is on its last leg, and the elctric dryer is not far behind.

I have always heard natural gas dryers are far superior to electric (taking half the time to dry versus electric, clothes last longer, etc)

anyway it so happens that the natural gas line enters the house where the current sryer is, so for a nominal charge I can do a hook up and switch to a gas dryer.


my folks had a gas dryrer a long long time ago, and really liked it.

anyone offer any opinions/experiences/etc?

Thanks,
Sarge

[osoab]

I bought a crappy looking used gas dryer for 75 bucks almost 4 years ago at a appliance resale. It is still going strong.

My reasoning to swap from electric to gas was the electric pull on 100A service.

I never looked at the cost savings. Even with Natty gas dropping in price, the utility company still gets theirs in an increasing delivery charge.

I can't comment on the time savings. The last place I stayed had a gas dryer too. How long does your current dryer take to dry the largest load it can handle?

[oldmansmith]

Sarge, we bought our house in 1996 with a gas dryer that had been installed when the house was built in 1985. It is still going strong 25 years later! I'd never buy an electric dryer again.

[MNeagle]

Yes, we have a gas dryer. Gas is the only type we've ever had, so I can't offer you a comparison either. But I'm very happy w/ it.

[Ash_Williams]

I don't think you'll see any cost savings. You don't with a water heater anyway. A neighbor had theirs break a month after mine did, and I told him after the plumber had run new gas exhaust for mine (new code) that he mentioned the only advantage is that it heats faster, not any cheaper. Neighbor saved himself a grand and put in the electric and he feels that statement is accurate.

With the gas dryer you have the problem of needing someone (legally) to install it for you and you might want to get a repair man in when stuff goes wrong too, depending how comfortable you are with gas. An electric dryer can basically be repaired by anyone.

My thoughts on any new washer or dryer, after fixing a few, is that they are designed to fail. If your last washer made it 15 to 25 years, expect 3-7 out of the new one. Parts inside these things are designed to wear our or corrode (or the engineers are incredibly stupid... and I don't think they are incredibly stupid.) Unlike the old ones, when the new ones fail, they fail in such a way that a repair is at least half the cost of a new machine.

What I did to get reliable machines that looked good enough for a woman not to complain about was go with a commercial brand. You're going to pay 3 or 4x as much for the same capacity as a regular brand on sale, but you're also looking at something that's warrantied 3-5 years in a laundromat. The commercial also don't have built-in excuses for failure (unlike some brands out there that will fail if you overload them, use the wrong soap, have hard water, etc.)

[milehi]

Gas dryer in the winter, clothes line in the summer. My appliances are old and serviceable. My washer went out a couple months ago, and I found out that the lid switch was bad. I got a new switch off e bay for eight dollars shipped and fixed it in under ten minutes.

[BrewTech]

I've found them to be pricey and sort of a pain in the ass to use, so now I just buy all my gas pre-dryed...

::) (Sorry)

Don't mean to derail, but I've noticed more than a handful of thread titles lately where, when I first read them, my mind automatically misinterprets them, due to the way they are worded. So I thought I'd start having a little fun with it.

Apologies in advance! ;D

Back OT: I owned a gas (operated) dryer, but I had it stored at my buddy's house and some jackass accidentally set his garage on fire, and it was completely destroyed. Worked great though, when it was still alive.