Whirlpool WED5220R Running Cost (Clothes Dryer)
What the Whirlpool WED5220R costs to run
ENERGY STAR certifies the Whirlpool WED5220R at 608 kWh/yr, about average for its category to run for its category.
The $114 figure above uses the simple average of all 51 published state rates. Pick your state for the real number.
Whirlpool WED5220R against the category
That's 6.3% above the clothes dryer category average of 572 kWh/yr, and ranks 379 of 639 certified clothes dryers for annual running cost, 1 being cheapest. The category average comes from every clothes dryer ENERGY STAR currently certifies (639 models), not an outside benchmark, about $7/year above that average at the national rate. See the methodology page.
What sits beside it in the ranking
Whirlpool WED5605M ($114/yr, 608 kWh/yr) costs a little more to run than the Whirlpool WED5220R. Whirlpool WED5220LR ($114/yr, 608 kWh/yr) costs a little less.
Same brand, different models
Whirlpool makes 114 ENERGY STAR certified clothes dryers; this one ranks 22 of 114 for running cost, between the brand's cheapest, the WHD3090G at $43/yr, and its priciest, the WGF5727T at $129/yr.
Whirlpool WED5220R over 12 years
NAHB's Study of Life Expectancy of Home Components puts a typical clothes dryer's service life at 12 years; run the Whirlpool WED5220R that long and it costs about $1,372 in electricity, on top of whatever it cost to buy.
Shopping for a new one
The Whirlpool WED5220R 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.
Worth comparing a few current certified models before deciding.
Protecting what you have
Whether or not the Whirlpool WED5220R ever needs replacing, a repair is the more common failure for a clothes dryer, one a protection plan budgets for ahead of time.
Sourcing
Ranked 379 of 639 certified dryers for running cost, the Whirlpool WED5220R 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. Whether a repair or a full replacement dryer makes more sense once the electric bill is this well known is covered in the guide to when replacing one pays off. The 608 kWh/yr figure is ENERGY STAR's own certification, not a wattage estimate; exact dataset IDs are on the data sources page.