Below is the breakdown of the cost for washing diapers in the Diaper Pin household. There are many factors that change from home to home that we have detailed below. Refer to the list so you can intelligently adjust our numbers to match your methods.

Water, Gas and Electric (with cloth diapers)

Diaper Pin's utility bills(water,gas and electric) for September through December of 1999 was $494.87. By this time we had a toddler and a newborn in cloth diapers.

Water, Gas and Electric (without cloth diapers)

Diaper Pin's utility bills(water,gas and electric) for September through December of 1998 was $468.35. This was before we started using cloth diapers.

We are comparing a 4 month span during the same time of year between two consequetive different years. The main difference in Diaper Pin's household during this time was the switch to cloth diapers and a new baby. This cost includes washing clothes for an extra person as well.

Cost of Washing Diapers

Here we subtract $468.35 from $494.87 and come up with $26.52.

This amount takes into account liberal water use. During fall of 1999, Diaper Pin was using the wet pail method with a pre-wash, soak, full wash and double rinse. Most of the diapers were hung dry. Also included in the cost of washing diapers are diaper covers, doublers and washcloths.

Also included in this amount is the cost of washing newborn clothing (which we did not have the previous year). We estimate this to be 20%.

$26.52 - %20 = $21.22

Total # of Diapers Washed

According to our estimation our newborn daughter used 70 diapers per week, our toddler son used 37 diapers per week (he used disposables at pre-school) making a total of 107 diapers used and washed.

107 diapers X 17.4 weeks = 1861.8 diapers used in 4 months.

Also, during these early months we fell back on disposable diapers when we could not keep up with laundry. This amounted to 7 packs of 24 diapers each totaling 168. This number subtracted from 1861.8 brings us to 1693 cloth diapers used.

Cost per of water/gas/electric use per diaper

• different washing methods (wet pail vs. dry pail, soak vs. no soak)
• drying methods (machine dry vs. air dry)
• cost of heat, water and electricity (electric powered dryer vs. gas powered dryer, coin operated machines)
• capacity and efficiency of washer and dryers

• All washes included doublers and liners (used mostly at night-time) we did not itemize this in our estimates.
• washing: wet pail, soak, hot wash, extra rinse.
• drying methods: mostly air dry and occasional machine dry.
• energy: our dryer is powered by gas and electricity
• capacity and efficiency: extra large capacity Kenmore washer. The dryer is Whirlpool. Both machines are 5 years old. Diaper Pin washes between 25 to 30 diapers per load.