Martin Lewis says households can dry clothes for just 5p an hour without heating

It's one of those household chores that becomes more difficult in winter when the rain is pouring and it's freezing cold.

Drying clothes indoors becomes a battle: do you open the windows to stop mould, and let all your heat out? Do you keep windows closed but worry about condensation damage? Do you use an extremely expensive tumble dryer or crank the heating?

Money expert Martin Lewis has previously opened up about the issue, urging households to use cheaper methods to dry their clothes inside in the winter, rather than relying on expensive appliances like tumble dryers.

Martin says that dehumidifiers are the perfect compromise, being cheap to run and avoiding mould or mildew buildup without having to open your windows and let all your heat escape.

They can cost as little as 5p an hour to run based on current energy prices, which is a far cry from the 50p to £1 for a typical tumble dryer.

Speaking on a 2024 episode of The Martin Lewis Podcast on BBC Sounds, Spotify and Apple Music, Martin said: "Many dehumidifiers have different wattages - the one I checked out was 200W.

"Once we know it's 200W and we know a kilowatt is 1,000W, which is how electricity tends to be priced, we know this is a fifth of a kilowatt.

"And you pay roughly 34p per kilowatt per hour. A fifth is 7p, so you're going to pay roughly 7p per hour to run a dehumidifier at 200W, assuming it uses full power the whole time."

Energy costs are slightly lower since those calculations, meaning it will only cost about 5p an hour now based on 25p unit prices this winter.

It also means that you don't have to crank your heating or use your radiators to dry the clothes, although not using any heating at all could make it take longer to dry.

By contrast, energy supplier Utilita reckons that a tumble dryer costs as much as 53p to £1 an hour to run, which is ten to 20 times the amount.