An electric clothes dryer draws about 21-23 amps on a 240V circuit, running at 5,000-5,500W while it heats. A gas dryer draws only 3-7 amps because it runs on an ordinary 120V outlet and burns gas for heat instead of electricity. A heat-pump dryer sits between the two at roughly 7-10 amps, also on 120V. Which figure is yours depends entirely on which of those three machines you own, and that distinction, not the appliance itself, is what most searches for this question are really trying to settle.
Electric dryers: 240V, 21-23 amps
A standard electric dryer’s heating element is rated 5,000-5,500W. At 240V that is 5,000 / 240 = 20.8A to 5,500 / 240 = 22.9A, which is why installers round it to “about 21-23 amps.” It runs on a dedicated 30A breaker, wired to either a NEMA 14-30 outlet (four prong, with a neutral for the timer and drum light) or an older NEMA 10-30 (three prong, no neutral, still common in houses built before 1996).
The 30A breaker is not a coincidence. NEC 210.20 caps a continuous load at 80% of the breaker’s rating, so a 30A circuit is rated for 24A of continuous draw. A dryer pulling 21-23A leaves only 1-3A of headroom, which is exactly why it gets its own circuit rather than sharing one — there is nothing spare to give.
Gas dryers: 120V, 3-7 amps — the heat is gas, the rest isn’t
“A gas dryer uses no electricity” is a myth worth correcting, because it is the reason a lot of readers land here. The drum motor, the control board, the timer and the igniter all run on a standard 120V, 15A household circuit, drawing somewhere in the 300-800W range depending on model, which works out to roughly 2.5-6.7A. Round that to 3-7A and you have the whole picture: gas heats the air, electricity does everything else. The igniter draws a brief spike above that range each time it fires, but it is a fraction of a second and not something a normal 15A circuit notices.
Heat-pump dryers: 120V, 7-10 amps
Heat-pump dryers are the newer option — no exhaust vent, a slower cycle, and a compressor instead of a resistive element. Typical draw is 800-1,200W at 120V, which is 800 / 120 = 6.7A to 1,200 / 120 = 10A. That is why a heat-pump dryer plugs into a normal outlet instead of needing the dedicated 240V circuit an electric dryer requires — it is doing the same job with a fraction of the wattage.
| Dryer type | Voltage | Typical watts | Amps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Electric (standard element) | 240 V | 5,000-5,500 W | 21-23 A |
| Gas | 120 V | 300-800 W | 3-7 A |
| Heat-pump | 120 V | 800-1,200 W | 7-10 A |
Running vs starting amps on a dryer
Most appliance-amps questions come with a warning about startup surge — a fridge or an air conditioner compressor can pull three to five times its running current for a fraction of a second. A dryer is the exception. The heating element is a plain resistive load with no surge at all, and the drum motor is small enough that its starting current is a mild bump rather than a spike worth planning around. The number that matters for a dryer is the steady running draw, which is also why breaker sizing for a dryer circuit is simpler than for a compressor-driven appliance like a refrigerator — there is no surge to leave headroom for, only the 80% continuous rule.
Why no portable power station will run an electric dryer
This is the honest answer and it disappoints people: an electric dryer is outside what any portable power station on the market can do, and it is not really a capacity problem. Most units, including the largest in our own catalogue, output 120V through a household-style outlet. A dryer needs a 240V split-phase feed through a NEMA 14-30 or 10-30 outlet, which the great majority of power stations simply do not produce. Jackery Solar Generator 5000 Plus, at 5,040 Wh and $3,149 (Jackery Solar Generator 5000 PlusCheck price on Amazon), is one of the largest capacities sold as a portable unit, and its AC output still tops out well under the roughly 5,000-5,500W an electric dryer’s element demands — and even that ceiling is 120V, not the 240V the dryer’s plug is wired for. Voltage mismatch, not battery size, is the wall here.
A gas or heat-pump dryer is a different story, because both run on an ordinary 120V circuit at a fraction of the wattage — closer to the loads covered in our power station sizing for a gas furnace piece, which deals with the same kind of ignition-plus-controls electrical load. If you want to work out where your own numbers land, the amps-to-watts calculator converts either direction, and the appliance wattage chart lists running watts for most household machines including all three dryer types on this page.
What this means for outage planning
If the goal is keeping a dryer running through a power cut, a portable power station is the wrong tool regardless of how much you spend on one — check the cost-per-watt-hour numbers in our power station price index and the same conclusion holds at every price point, because the limit is the outlet, not the budget. The realistic options are a gas or heat-pump dryer as a deliberate backup choice, line-drying for the duration of the outage, or a proper home battery backup system wired through a transfer switch or interlock rated for the dryer’s 240V, 30A circuit specifically — a wall-mounted battery sized and installed for whole-circuit backup, not a box you carry to the laundry room. Knowing which category your dryer falls into, and which category of backup power actually matches it, is the useful outcome of the arithmetic above.
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