My electric dryer is on the way out. We are on propane heat in the house, which is inexpensive partly because we burn a lot of wood in the buck stove, and because we are a large family (six, counting grandpa) and thus we do a lot of laundry. In the winter I route the exhaust from the electric dryer back into the house through a filter made from a pantyhose to pick up lint. If I get a gas dryer, I won’t be able to do that, because you have to vent the gas outside or else you asphyxiate your self and family. But propane is usually cheaper than electricity to begin with. I can’t think of any way to actually do the math to figure out what would be cheaper.
Another consideration: we’ve had propane heat for three years. When we installed the propane tank, they told us that if we didn’t use at least $300.00 year in propane that they might come and take their tank or make us buy it. I’ve never spent $300 yet, and last year my bill was $180 for the whole winter. But I haven’t heard anything from the gas people, either.
Consider the fact that you’ll be running the dryer throughout the year and winter heating is only for a few months.
Also, recycling dryer exhaust makes the room muggy and makes the dryer need more heat (due to increased humidity) to dry the clothes. But in your case since you are burning wood, the humidity will not be a big deal (wood burns dry).
Do no try to recycle the gas dryer exhaust, apart from CO/CO2 its also a fire hazard.
The figures I’ve heard are .75 /load for electric and .25 per load gas.
But these figures may be based on natural gas (which should be cheaper then LP) vs electric in the area that NG is available (and electric is at a higher rate). But even if you are paying less then avg. for electric and higher then NG prices I would still say that a LP dryer should be cheaper to run then electric.
In my 2nd house (just bought) when the electric dryer goes I’m going to get a LP one.
Also using natural gas I have vented it inside many times and have never had any problems. For the last 6 years I has a CO detector that has a digital display and will sometimes show low levels of 5-12 when the car was started in the garage or a lanwmower was being worked on too close tot he window but never anything from the dryer.
Also just a note about LP that I just learned. The more you use it the cheaper the rate - if you just use it for cooking only then you pay the higest rate. This is becsue the price of the tank is figured into the rate. So the more things you hook into the gas line the lower your rate might be.