[Greenbuilding] ENERGY STAR Clothes Dryers Program Launch

[Gennaro Brooks-Church - Eco Brooklyn]

Heat pump condensing clothes driers are a great technology, as are
most things using a heat pump. It is a mystery to me why things don't
make it over oceans (windows, heat pumps, air sealing tapes) when most
everything else travels so freely (drugs, toys, electronics).
I have a Zehnder ERV in my house. I wonder if I diverted the exhaust,
which is always roughly room temperature, into a drying closet before
it went outside if that would work....?

Gennaro Brooks-Church
Director, Eco Brooklyn Inc.
Cell: 1 347 244 3016 USA
www.EcoBrooklyn.com
22 2nd St; Brooklyn, NY 11231


On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 4:29 PM, John Straube <jfstraube at gmail.com> wrote:
> Heat pump condensing clothes driers have ratings of around 250 kWh per year vs 900 for straight electric. These use almost 1/4 as much energy.
> You just can't buy them here. They are available in Australia Scandinavian europe japan.
> Sent wirelessly from my BlackBerry device on the Bell network.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Benjamin Pratt <benjamin.g.pratt at gmail.com>
> Sender: greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org
> Date: Sun, 22 Jul 2012 15:19:50
> To: Green Building<greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Reply-To: Green Building <greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org>
> Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] ENERGY STAR Clothes Dryers Program Launch
>
> As someone who has training in mechanical engineering and industrial
> design, and who likes to take things apart, these are my observations
> about dryer design:
> 1. Todays electric and gas dryers are no more efficient, and not
> substantially different in design. than dryers from decades ago.
> Almost no progress has been made since electronic ignition replaced
> pilot lights.
> 2. Heat recovery in the winter would be a relatively easy
> step--especially with electric dryers. This helps the overall
> efficiency of the home, but not that of the dryer.
> 3. Washers that wring out the clothes better help the overall
> efficiency of the system, but not of the dryer.
> 4. The easiest way to make a dryer more efficient would be to increase
> the amount of air passing through the clothes, and decrease the amount
> of heat. But this probably would increase drying times.
> 5Perhaps its not easy to make a dryer more efficient--at least without
> increasing the drying time. Perhaps this is why dryers haven't changed
> much in decades.
>
>
> b e n j a m i n p r a t t
>
> professor art+design
> the university of wisconsin stout
>
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