[Greenbuilding] ENERGY STAR Clothes Dryers Program Launch

[Gennaro Brooks-Church - Eco Brooklyn]

I've been reading this post with interest. I grew up in places without
electricity or running water. You pulled the water out of a well,
washed the clothes by hand, and put them out to dry. In the winter you
wore more clothes, in the summer you stayed indoors during mid-day
(unless you were a mad dog or Englishman). I didn't walk barefoot over
hill and dale to school but you get the idea.
Then I moved to the US when I was 17 and was blown away by all the
gadgets like dishwashers, steam showers, and one car per person. I
soon learned that some of it was great and some of it was wasteful. I
continue to explore what is valuable technology and what is unneeded.
I have allowed myself to be convinced that a dishwasher is better than
hand washing (it may save water but I remain dubious if it indeed does
save more once you calculate in the energy to make and run it....?)
With clothes washers I think there is no going back to hand washing
regardless of how much energy you save.
For clothes dryers I think a lot more needs to be done to integrate
them into the overall building. A skyscraper for example could easily
include a clothes drying shaft that actually created resources -
definitely water and maybe heating or cooling. A single home could
also integrate it, as Bob Waldrop does during the winter to recover
humidity. My boiler is 98% efficient but it still gives off a steady
stream of warm air...the technical challenges of using boiler exhaust
to dry clothes may be dangerous but they can be overcome. My radiant
floor heating tubes could easily be routed to a drying closet. With
intelligent design you could easily hang a load of laundry in a small
closet, a needed solution for space starved urban areas...
As to whether clothes dryers will disappear or not, that addresses the
larger issue of waste and consumption that has ravaged our planet for
the past hundred years. I think people will buy mechanical clothes
dryers as long as they can but even a gluttonous people like the North
Americans would adjust if it became financially impractical. I say
financially because it is clear that ecological impracticality is
irrelevant for almost everyone as long as it is not a major nuisance.

Going forward I bet people buy less clothes dryers because I suspect
the energy crisis of the 70's is a minor preview of what the future
holds, although it won't be purely limited to oil. Environmental
imbalance will create all sorts of problems from food, water, housing
and transportation disruptions. We see it happening now but the major
players (ice caps, rain-forests, sequestered CO2, oceans) have not
collapsed yet. When they do we will be in for quite the ride. It will
then be seen whether outer space is to earth as the Pacific Ocean was
to Easter Island or whether it is simply a major culling of the human
race. Either way, the Energy star ratings of clothes dryers will be
pretty irrelevant.

That in my opinion is our future.

>
> I wish we had the old solution, which was a pole placed in the back yard of
> the building so that all the rear facing apt's could attach clotheslines
> from their windows to the pole. And that, of course, wouldn't work with high
> rises.
>
> David
>
>
> At 11:17 PM 7/21/2012, Bob Waldrop wrote:
>
> Indoor drying products/resources --
>
> Home Despot $79 retractable clothes line, http://tinyurl.com/cjkbpxa
>
> Walmart Clothes drying racks -- http://tinyurl.com/bmsqb5q
>
> http://frugalliving.about.com/od/clothingcare/ht/How-To-Line-Dry-Clothes-Inside.htm
>
> Bob Waldrop, in sunny 109 degree F Oklahoma, where clothes dry really
> quickly on the line
>
> On 7/21/2012 9:31 PM, David Bergman wrote:
>
> Dense urban living has many environmental advantages, but solar clothes
> drying -- especially in high rises -- is not one of them.
>
> David Bergman  RA   LEED AP
> DAVID BERGMAN ARCHITECT / FIRE & WATER LIGHTING + FURNITURE
> architecture . interiors . ecodesign . lighting . furniture
> bergman at cyberg.com    www.cyberg.com
> 241 Eldridge Street #3R, New York, NY 10002
> t 212 475 3106    f 212 677 7291
>
> author - Sustainable Design: A Critical Guide
> blog - www.EcoOptimism.com
> adjunct faculty - Parsons The New School for Design
>
>
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>
> David Bergman  RA   LEED AP
> DAVID BERGMAN ARCHITECT / FIRE & WATER LIGHTING + FURNITURE
> architecture . interiors . ecodesign . lighting . furniture
> bergman at cyberg.com    www.cyberg.com
> 241 Eldridge Street #3R, New York, NY 10002
> t 212 475 3106    f 212 677 7291
>
> author - Sustainable Design: A Critical Guide
> blog - www.EcoOptimism.com
> adjunct faculty - Parsons The New School for Design
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Greenbuilding mailing list
> to Send a Message to the list, use the email address
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>
> to UNSUBSCRIBE or Change your List Settings use the web page
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