[Greenbuilding] Laundry day on the GB List (was Re: ENERGY STAR Clothes Dryers Program Launch)

[RT]

Looking at the original subject heading of this thread again, I am  
reminded of a comment made by Richard (?)( the fellow in NYC who was  
plugging his new book here recently), labeling something a "false dilemma".

Here we are in one of the hottest, driest summers in decades (in SE ON  
anyway), in an era when we've %@$#-ed things up so badly as a result of  
profligate consumption (the two being no un-related I suspect) and the US  
officialdumb (sic) is only beginning to think about energy- efficient  
clothes dryers.

In many parts of the non-First World (and even here in the First World)  
people hang their laundry outside to dry year-round-- here in MooseLand,  
even when it's so cold out that the wet laundry freezes solid as a board.

I'm one of nut-bar geezers who think that every dwelling benefits from  
having an attached sun-space on the equator-facing side of the house , no  
matter how small.

And experience tells me that in addition to behaving as a solar furnace  
for the attached dwelling, that sun-space also does double-duty as a very  
good passive clothes dryer, without the issues that may be associated with  
outdoor clotheslines in  rascally bird-plopping, tick-infested,  
atmospheric pollution fallout areas.

A random thought: It would be relatively cheap and easy to add a passive  
solar clothes dryer to any dwelling, even if it's just one that's as deep  
as the distance from the outside edge of the roof overhang back to the  
wall surface.

There is no shortage of high embodied-energy tempered glass in the  
waste-stream which has limited potential for high-grade uses via recycling  
(ie typically broken up for construction aggregate if at all) that could  
be used for the purpose. The necessary support framing would be minimal  
and the project is certainly within the realm of skills of the average  
home handy-person.

About the only real challenge is devising a pulley system that would allow  
the laundry person to stay in one spot (perhaps at a doorway or window or  
a new opening created for the purpose) to hang the wet laundry and gather  
in the dry.

Okay, okay. There is another challenge.

Convincing The Boss of the HouseHold that it can be done in an  
aesthetically-pleasing manner.
--
=== * ===
Rob Tom					AOD257
Kanata, Ontario, Canada

< A r c h i L o g i c  at  Y a h o o  dot  c a  >
(manually winnow the chaff from my edress if you hit "reply")