In Durango clothes dryers seem to be fairly rare. You can buy them, but they seem pretty expensive. One reason they aren’t used much is because of the way electricity is sold.
In Mexico you pay a basic rate for electricity. Once you go over a certain amount of electric use they bump you to a higher rate–not just for the overage, but for your entire bill. Worse still, once you trigger the higher rate, you stay at that rate for several months. I don’t know what the exact amount of the higher rate is, but from the people I’ve talked to it sounds like it is a pretty drastic increase.
It makes sense why people wouldn’t want to use an electric dryer because it would have a high chance of pushing your bill over into the extremely high usage bracket. Gas dryers would quickly empty the small tanks that most people use to power their water heater.
The constant sun makes it easy to dry clothes on a line. As long as they get direct sunlight they will dry very quickly. However everything ends up with a slight “crispy” feel. Mexicans try to compensate with vast amounts of laundry softener.
It’s the same situation in Guadalajara, hardly any dryers and fairly expensive washing machines. In fact, the 2nd hand furniture/ appliance market is pretty expensive generally because things get used until they can’t be fixed any more and tend to go to a friend of your brother-in-law’s cousin before they are put on the market… On the plus side, when it comes to selling your own 2nd hand stuff things tend to keep their price/value…
I love this blog by the way, really useful info for people thinking of making the move, glad to have been able to participate in some small way.
Saludos!