What about electricity + water + detergent costs?

Question

I know that cloth diapers in itself are cheaper than disposables, but what about all the laundry? using more water, electricity, and buying more detergent.. What were your costs before and after starting with cloth?

Answer

It takes more water to make a disposable diaper than to wash cloth diapers. I haven’t seen any change at all in my water bill. I use a pricey detergent but you don’t have to, all in all it saves SO much money, even with the small extra costs. Still significantly cheaper than sposies

Answer

I have to bulk my diapers up as I have a front loader and like it to be 3/4 full to truly get everything clean. Therefore, when my son’s little laundry basket is full (his clothes and bibs, etc) I go through our laundry and add in socks, underwear, etc to his stuff. I do a quick wash (half hour) cycle with just diapers and then add the rest in on a heavy duty load. I then dry it all on delicate. Since I have to do all that other laundry anyway, the only extra cycle I even have to do is my quick wash and that doesn’t use much water. There hasn’t been a water bill increase at all. As for detergent, I have to use Tide Free because of my own allergies. I just don’t use the pods anymore and buy large containers of the liquid. It doesn’t cost me much more.

Answer

each diaper change costs about $.01 for detergent, water and electricity. definitely still way way cheaper than disposables.

Answer

I have two babies they're both in diapers and I do my laundry maybe twice a week and I don't do big loads I also wash my family wipes as well so I have a little bit more laundry I have well water so I've never had to worry about that my electric bill isn't any higher then it usually is and I wash laundry like crazy because we're a family of 5 so two extra loads a week really isn't that big of a deal

Answer

main cost seemed to be time. I never noticed an added cost on any of our utilities, a littleore for soap I guess but really not very noticeable. :) definitely not like buying box after box for disposable diapers. that I definitely noticed, like hundreds and hundreds of dollars. vs the roughly one hundred dollars for enough diapers for a couple years....

Answer

I think the cost is negligible compared to what you’re already paying for water, electricity, etc. We also are on “time of use” for our electricity, so we do our laundry after 8pm when it’s cheaper. We also air dry instead of using the machine to help diapers last longer. We use Tide detergent, which is super cheap anyway and available at Costco. We only do 2-3 extra loads per week, so the added water isn’t significant compared to our normal water use (plus water is really cheap in our region).

Answer

i haven't noticed change. i live on a well so i dont pay for water. i hang dry my diapers and use same detergent as for baby clothes.

Answer

I haven’t noticed a significant difference in the almost two years we’ve been cloth diapering. It’s 1-2 extra loads a week for me.

Answer

I noticed zero change in my water or electricity bill. I pay $30 every 9 mo for detergent.

What about electricity + water + detergent costs?

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