[Greenbuilding] Laundry day on the GB List

[JOHN SALMEN]

I've had two clients wanting cothes drying racks (that lower from the
ceiling) in laundry areas. Locating and venting these areas without overly
disrupting the house ventilation has been a pain.

Since the areas usually contain the hot water tank I think a good solution
would be to incorporate a heat pump hot water heater (air to water). If the
tank is enclosed (with slatted doors or vent openings) as a drying cupboard
the tank itself becomes a heat source to aid drying or an additional heating
element could be introduced to speed up drying. The byproduct is cooled
dehumidified air which is either a seasonal benefit or penalty. The main
benefit is hot water.

My main motivation for not using a dryer is not just the energy but
extending the life of clothing, bedding, etc. and to reduce the number of
sacrificial socks that dryers seem to consume.
 

JOHN SALMEN ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN
4465 UPHILL RD,. DUNCAN, B.C.  CANADA, V9L 6M7
PH 250 748 7672 FAX 250 748 7612 CELL 250 246 8541
terrain at shaw.ca

-----Original Message-----
From: greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of
jfstraube
Sent: October 23, 2010 7:45 AM
To: Benjamin Pratt
Cc: greenbuilding at bioenergylists.org
Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] Laundry day on the GB List

If you have an airtight house (and you should if you care about the energy
in the exhaust stream of a clothes drier) then dumping the moisture into the
indoors has a high risk of causing moisture damage.  We and others have
definitely have seen this moisture source cause problems.
Exhausting a gas range to the interior is a risk, again, if you have an
airtight house.  A drier tends to have a larger burner that runs for long
chunks of time on full output.  I do not know the relative CO output of a
range vs drier, but I fear for the IAQ if the drier vents indoors.

Does the electric condensing drier save $?  Depends on your relative
electric rates.  A Heat Pump condensing drier does use less than 1/3 as much
electric energy than does a good gas drier, and so if the energy cost of
electric is less than 3 times that of gas (and it usually is around that)
then yes.  But there are places where electricity is quite expensive
relative to gas (some places in New York State come to mind) and other
places (like Portland) where electricity is cheap relative to gas.

I know some of the Miele and Bosch 12 lb capacity driers in Europe and
Australia use less than 2 kWh/load.  And a normal gas drier exhaust 200 cfm
of air, which is not a trivial energy cost in a good home.
I am pretty sure we will eventually move to heat pump condensing driers but
it will take some time to penetrate the US/Canada market.


On 2010-10-23, at 9:58 AM, Benjamin Pratt wrote:

> I believe condensing dryers are electric, while RTs device would allow a
gas dryer to exhaust to the indoors. However, I am not sure about the safety
of doing so. Obviously a gas furnace or water heater exhausts to the
outdoors to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning. A gas range, however, does
not.
>    I need a picture of RT's device to understand it. (Can one purchase
such a device?)  My idea was to harvest some of the heat from the exhaust
duct by making or buying a finned duct and using a fan to cool it. This
would only collect a fraction of the escaping heat, but it would not allow
carbon monoxide to enter the indoor air--if that is something to worry
about.
> 
> Also, I still have the question of whether an electric condensing dryer
would save money over a gas conventional dryer. Anyone have an answer?


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