Running your forge with a hair dryer? $Cost$

[Avadon]

I run my brake drum forge with a hair dryer and I know others throughout the world most likely do the same. Did a little googling because I was worried it might be costly. If these estimates are correct, then for how much work the hair dryer does it's actually well worth the price!!



How Much Does It Cost To Run A 1500 W Hair Dryer For 43 Minutes Each Day For One Month (30 Days) At A Cost Of 5 Per KWh?

First you convert Watts to Kilowatts, which would equal 1.5 kW, then you find out what portion 43 minutes is of an hour, which would be 43/60, which then equals 0.716666667. Next you multiply 1.5 by 0.716666667 by 30 by .05, which equals 1.61.

Here was another answer


How much does it cost to run a 1400 W hair dryer 80 minutes each day for one month (30 days) at a cost of 8 ce

Well it works out to 40 hours, so it uses 1400w (1.4Kw) then
40 x 1.4KW x 0.08 = $4.48


And another



You have an 1800 watt hair dryer used 10 minutes a day at 9 cents per kilowatt hour of energy. cost per year?

1800 watts = 1.8 Kilowatts
10 minutes = 1/6 hour
9 垄 = $0.09
1 year = 365 days
1.8 Kw X 1/6 h X $0.09 = $0.027/day (2.7垄/day)
$0.027/d X 365 d =$9.855/year



Pretty cheap when you consider how much air it actually pushes and how handy it is.



(Edited to add: Remember that these values are also for running the heating coils which I'd imagine has quite a bit more power draw then just running the fan of your hair dryer, thus electricity cost should even be significantly less)

Edited November 4, 2009 by Avadon

[David Einhorn]

What, you didn't install a hand-crank on that hair-blower? :D

[chrisfrick]

The only blower I've ever used is a hairdryer that I "borrowed" from my wife (bought her a new one that was "better" before "borrowing" it). What I did, was to remove the heating coils altogether. I then constructed a variable DC power supply, complete with a circuit breaker and an on/off switch. It is capable of running from zero to full blast with a turn of the adjustment knob.

*Most* hairdryers actually use a 12 volt, DC motor and utilize the heating coils to step-down the rectified AC input voltage. The power supply I built will actually run from zero to approximately 32 volts DC (and so will the motor!). Total cost for the blower setup was about $50 US (including the $12 "replacement" hairdryer for my wife). Anyone interested in how to do this can go to either a public library, Radio Shack (in the US), or use the internet to learn how to construct the power supply and hook up the motor.

I'd say that without the heating coils running, you'd be looking at about 1/4 the cost than with them. You'd also be introducing much denser air into your forge, requiring less air blast than you would by blowing in *hot* air.

One of these days I'll grab my camera and post some pics and maybe even a blueprint or just some drawings about how the power supply/hairdryer setup is wired/constructed...one of these days...

-Chris

[Nakedanvil - Grant Sarver]

Worst case in the examples was at 8cents per KWh = only 11 cents per hour.

[ThomasPowers]

Chris with that set up I'd guess you would do better with a car heater fan; also 12v and much better made and without the annoying hair drier whine. Cheap/free from wrecked cars too.