cloth diapers: added costs of laundry

[preciousstone]

i've read alot about the cost effectiveness of cloth diapers. But i'm wondering about the added costs of laundry. if i went with cloth diapers, i'd want to do all in ones which from what i've been reading would take alot of extra drying etc. thoughts?

[JTA Mom]

Depends on how much per month you are spending on sposies.

Also, the more complicated the diaper gets (from flats/prefolds to AIO), the washing costs increase. Lots of AIO contain man-made fibers like microfiber, which hold on to lots of stuff.

Have you tried out a couple different types of diapers? I ask because AIO seem to be the easiest, but in terms of use, they aren't much different than pockets, but pockets wash a lot easier.

Ami

[leavemealone]

I haven't noticed much of an increase in anything since starting cloth. At first, there was an increase of about $5 every two months on our water bill, but I also didn't have enough cloth to make it longer than one day so I was doing a load of laundry everyday. I now have enough to go about 2.5 days so maybe the water bill will go down slightly. Even if it doesn't, I spent way more than the increase in water on disposables. I don't know about the increase in electricity as we are on budget billing and the amount doesn't change very much. I could look at the actual usage on the bill, but I haven't.

I use mostly pocket diapers. They are very similar to AIOs, but they have much less drying time. It takes me about five minutes to stuff all the diapers after I take them out of the laundry.

[carmel23]

here is a super cool calculator from diaperpin:

http://www.diaperpin.com/calculator/calculator.asp

We had to change the water part of the utility cost, but our detergent (Country Save in 50 lb. bags) was cheaper then what they have there.

Cloth is waaay less then 'sposies. One thing that we did was check our dryer duct and clean it out/replace it. This insures that your dryer is working most efficiently, and keep the lint thingy clear.

[fawnanddoe]

There isn't much of a difference in our bills and I do laundry every day.
I did make some wool dryer balls that I put in the dryer with each load. I used to have to dry some dipes twice, now I don't even have to dry for a full cycle. It also helps that we have a front loader that spins really fast and gets a lot of the water out.

But we've saved SO much money. The majority of our pocket dipes were gifts, I probably spent maybe $60-$80 on some (I have a dozen of those), then I spent $32 on a dozen prefolds, I will say about $80 on covers. I need to wash laundry just about every day, so I will be getting some more prefold's and covers (I'd like to wash laundry every 3 days or so, maybe more!), but I would say $190 spent so far is pretty darn good! I would have easily spent way more on disposables by now with a 4 month old.

[alfabetsoup]

I think others have answered the water bill question so I just wanted to say that one of my main reasons for using cloth is that it really cuts down on the volume of garbage that leaves our house. We are moving to an area where you have to separate your recyclables into 5 different bins, including food waste and those are picked up once a week. Landfill waste is picked up every 2 weeks, the bins are small and you only get one. Using cloth makes this perfectly manageable.

[abharrington]

yes...in most areas water is a much more renewable resource than landfill space.

[Bitzy]

Our water bill has definitely shot up, nearly $30/m! I guess it depends on where you live and how your community bills for water usage.

[octobermom]

Our electricity and water bill remained the same both while using CDs and after and its been several years now. As for actually buying laundry detergent CD maybe added another bottle or 2 a year since we never used a whole lot (on eaither diapers or regular clothes) I'd say nowa big bottles lasts us around 6 months with CD is was more like 4..

Deanna