Martin Lewis warning for those using this common household appliance

Martin Lewis has sounded an alarm for anyone opting to use a tumble dryer instead of a dehumidifier. The money-saving expert and familiar face on BBC Sounds podcasts and ITV shared his insights during a recent instalment of The Martin Lewis Podcast.

On the show, which he hosts weekly, Martin explained: "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."

In contrast, a tumble dryer operates by spinning a drum containing damp clothes with an electric motor while pushing hot air through the drum via a fan. Data from uSwitch, the price comparison website, indicates that the average tumble dryer consumes 3kWh of energy per cycle, costing about 83p per cycle under the current price cap.

Regular use of a tumble dryer, estimated at 150 minutes per week, could lead to a weekly cost of £1.72 or an annual expense of £89.44, reports Birmingham Live. According to uSwitch, the average dehumidifier uses approximately 185W to operate and costs around 10p per load/hour. The price comparison site states that households typically use a dehumidifier for about 180 minutes each week.

This equates to a weekly cost of roughly 29p, or around £15.03 annually. Regarding heated airers, uSwitch indicates that the average household operates their dryer for about 116 minutes weekly.

This incurs a cost of 16p per week - or approximately 8p per cycle/hour based on its Power House data. Over a year, a heated air dryer accumulates a cost of £8.31.