How Many Watts Does a Hair Dryer Use? Do They Consume Lots of Power?

Electricity and other utilities are some of the highest monthly bills that people have to pay. Unless you somehow live completely off the grid, everyone has to pony up and pay the power company once per month. Electricity costs can be very high, and it leaves people wondering how best to save money on their bills. One efficient way to help understand and reduce an electricity bill is to understand how much power certain everyday household items use. Some items, like your hair dryer, can use more power than you would expect.

How many watts does a hair dryer use? Does it use a lot of power? Hair dryers operate between 800 and 1800 watts on average, which is a considerable amount of power. Luckily, most people don’t dry their hair for long periods of time. The exact amount of electricity your individual hair dryer will consume will be based on your particular model and whether or not it is a heated or unheated hair dryer.

Heated Hair Dryer

The typical range for the power consumption of a heated hair dryer is 800W to 1800W. The higher the heat, the more power is used. Some hair dryers are much hotter than others. Large hair dryers with very high heat will consume power on the higher end of the range, while smaller and cooler dryers will use much less energy.

Wattage Used

Unheated Hair Dryer

Not all hair dryers use a lot of heat. There are low-heat and unheated hair dryers. The heating component in a hair dryer is what uses the most power. Heating elements consume massive amounts of electricity to function. That makes unheated hair dryers much more energy efficient than heated hair dryers, even if they do not dry as effectively.

Unheated hair dryers typically use between 100W and 250W, but some models can consume as little as 70W of electricity per hour. If you are looking to save some money on power when it comes to hair dryer use, you should consider switching to an unheated or low heat hair dryer. The savings will add up, especially if you have a household where multiple people dry their hair every day.

Hair Dryer Wattage Compared

Hair dryers use a lot of power compared to other appliances, but they are saved by their relatively low usage. Electronic devices like ovens, air conditioners, televisions, and computers have much higher run times compared to hair dryers. The average person dries their hair for 15 minutes per day compared to multiple hours used by other appliances. That means that while the total wattage on the label seems high for hair dryers, their overall power consumption will usually be lower than other appliances due to how little they are used by comparison.

Here’s how hair dryers stack up against similar and common household items. In general, hair dryers consume more power than the average appliances.

For the sake of comparison, the appliances featured have similar power usages or have similar daily usage times.

How Much Does It Cost to Run a Hair Dryer?

The reason hair dryers use so much electricity is because of the heating elements. Hair dryers heat hair at temperatures ranging from 80 to 150 degrees Fahrenheit. Generating that much heat using electricity is costly. In order to heat the heating elements inside the hair dryer, the appliances have to draw a lot of electricity. However, hair dryers are used so infrequently compared to other appliances that they do not actually use that much power on an annual basis.

Estimated costs for using a hair dryer on an annual basis range between $15 and $25. That makes the yearly cost of running a hair dryer in a typical household much lower than other appliances despite its relatively high wattage.

Conclusion

Hair dryers use roughly 1800W per hour on average. That may sound like a lot until you realize how little a hair dryer is actually used. Hair dryers are only used for a few minutes per day compared to refrigerators, air conditioners, and lights which can run 24/7 all year. Despite the seemingly high-power usage, the cost to run a hair dryer annually is actually very low due to the low usage. Still, on paper, hair dryers are one of the more costly appliances to run in your home.

Featured Image Credit: Olha Solodenko, Shutterstock