What the Maytag YMED5500FW* costs to run
The Maytag YMED5500FW* is certified by ENERGY STAR at 608 kWh a year, about average for its category to run among clothes dryers currently certified.
The $114 figure above uses the simple average of all 51 published state rates. Pick your state for the real number.
Where this ranks
That's 6.3% above the clothes dryer category average of 572 kWh/yr, and ranks 299 of 639 certified clothes dryers for annual running cost, 1 being cheapest. Every one of the 639 currently-certified clothes dryers feeds that average, putting this model about $7/year over it. See how it's calculated on the how it is calculated page.
The closest alternatives by cost
Sorted by running cost among clothes dryers, one step cheaper is Maytag MEDB855D*+ ($114/yr, 608 kWh/yr), and one step pricier is Maytag YMED5630H** ($114/yr, 608 kWh/yr).
Within the Maytag lineup
Maytag makes 42 ENERGY STAR certified clothes dryers; this one ranks 18 of 42 for running cost, between the brand's cheapest, the MED5500FW* at $114/yr, and its priciest, the MGDB955FW* at $129/yr.
What this adds up to over time
NAHB's Study of Life Expectancy of Home Components puts a typical clothes dryer's service life at 12 years; run the Maytag YMED5500FW* that long and it costs about $1,372 in electricity, on top of whatever it cost to buy.
Is it worth replacing?
The Maytag YMED5500FW* is already efficient for its category at $114/year. If you're shopping and comparing options, this is roughly what a well-chosen new clothes dryer costs to run.
Compare current ENERGY STAR certified clothes dryers before buying.
Protecting what you have
Whether or not the Maytag YMED5500FW* ever needs replacing, a repair is the more common failure for a clothes dryer, one a protection plan budgets for ahead of time.
The data behind this page
Ranked 299 of 639 certified dryers for running cost, the Maytag YMED5500FW* is also worth reading with a caveat specific to this category: the methodology page explains why ENERGY STAR's own combined-energy figure for dryers can overstate the electric bill impact of a gas model. The 608 kWh/yr figure is ENERGY STAR's own certification, not a wattage estimate; exact dataset IDs are on the data sources page.