Swiss willing to give up tumble-dryer but not hot showers

A fifth of respondents said they could forego the hoover (presumably they would use something else instead). © Keystone / Gaetan Bally

A survey by the Tamedia media group shows which things Swiss people would be most willing to sacrifice in the case of a serious energy shortage.

If reductions in household energy-usage were to be enforced rather than recommended (as they are currently), the easiest thing to forgo would be the tumble-dryer: 63% of those polled said they could hang their laundry outside instead, the survey foundExternal link. The poll was run last week by the Leewas analysis group and involved some 16,000 participants.

Some 56% also said they would be OK with not heating their homes over 19°C – a measure which has attracted some interest after being included in a (provisional) four-stage government plan to deal with possible energy shortages.

These two measures – temperature restrictions and tumble-drying – were the only two to meet the approval of over half of all respondents. At the other end of the scale, just 6% said they could do without their mobile phone, while only 10% were prepared to take cold showers.

The Tages-Anzeiger, meanwhile, reckons that it’s “striking” that in the case of tumble-drying, women were 11 percentage points more willing to sacrifice than men. At the same time, there is no gap between the sexes when it comes to a willingness to keep the temperature at 19°C – a finding which the paper says contradicts studies showing that female perceptions of a “comfortable temperature” are generally higher than for men.