[Greenbuilding] ENERGY STAR Clothes Dryers Program Launch

[Gennaro Brooks-Church - Eco Brooklyn]

Ben >  I think the best we can do is slow it down.
I agree that is an excellent start! I especially like Bill McKibben in
his book Eaarth when he says we as a society need to "learn how to age
gracefully" and let go of our hot rod teenager lifestyle that is so
wasteful (since he says the lifestyle will soon be wrenched from our
hands anyway whether we like it or not). I like that image of aging
gracefully.

On the topic of clothes lines and Passive House here is a comment that
is hilarious. It is made on a forum discussing a recent Passive House
job here in Brooklyn. The people posting are arguing over clothes
drying vs. machine in relation to Passive house. Then somebody writes
this!! I fell off my seat laughing!

"I live in a passive-aggressive house. It has a clothesline, but you
know, if you don't want to use it, that's fine -- FINE, I said. I'll
just put your wet clohtes in this pile where they can get nice and
moldy."

http://www.brownstoner.com/blog/2012/07/23-park-place-is-officially-a-passive-house/?stream=true#

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 10:30 PM, John Salmen <terrain at shaw.ca> wrote:
> 8 loads would be about 80-100 pairs of jeans – or about 40-60 sheets or
> about 55 sq. metres (600 sq.ft) of the really thick bath towels. Definitely
> something wrong with that scenario on a weekly basis. The average US person
> generates 500 lbs of laundry per year (say 10 lbs a week)... average machine
> is 10-15lbs per load
>
>
>
> I would disagree and say that households are actually very predictable and
> therefore that drying needs are not specific to a household but generic to a
> culture. The generic need that you are talking about is convenience which is
> more about culture and custom than rational – how many machines are running
> right now with one pair of jeans.  This type of convenience is a north
> American thing – like sewer infrastructures. If you really want to discuss
> convenience for an urban person – a laundry service would provide 3 years of
> clean laundry for the cost of a washer dryer combo (not even considering the
> energy and soft costs). When I was urban the place down the street did my
> laundry – I am in the country now so I hang it out to dry. I think this is
> what most of the rest of the world does. I had a friend in univ from Saudi
> who grew up in a basic middle class modern way for the times but they had a
> maid that would take the laundry out and wash it on the rocks in a nearby
> river.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> From: greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org
> [mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of John
> Straube
> Sent: July-22-12 6:24 PM
> To: Reuben Deumling
> Cc: Green Building
>
>
> Subject: Re: [Greenbuilding] ENERGY STAR Clothes Dryers Program Launch
>
>
>
> Interesting! Our firm often gets to do forensic investigations of homes
> which dry clothes (or firewood is another common one) inside during cool
> weather.
>
>
>
> I live in a climate that gets below 30F for months. And I have a very energy
> efficient house with triple glazed fiberglass windows.  Drying clothes on a
> rack is possible, but results in condensation streaming from the windows.
> But I can run a 200 cfm exhaust fan during drying but this costs lots of
> energy too.  I grew up in a very leaky energy inefficient house.  We dried
> clothes inside, although in winter it was often annoying enough that my Mom
> would drive into town to use the laundromat.
>
> The solutions for clothes drying are specific to household makeup, lifestyle
> patterns, house design etc.  Simply saying that any solution that involves a
> clothes drier is bad may be the moral high ground but is unlikely to
> convince a lot of people not on this list (and quite a few on this list
> apparently).  It works for some people, and sure could work for more than it
> does, but ignoring the 8 loads per week households (both my sisters do more
> than this), and ignoring the inconveniences to people in some households is
> not a solution.
>
> Dr John Straube, P.Eng.
> www.BuildingScience.com
>
>
> On 12-07-22 7:22 PM, Reuben Deumling wrote:
>
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 22, 2012 at 3:08 PM, John Straube <jfstraube at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> It is odd to have a discussion on payback when others are saying we should
> not even consider using clothes driers as it is always dry and sunny outside
> when they do their laundry!
>
>
> I live in a climate with rather little sun and high humidity. We dry our
> clothes inside on a rack most of the year.
>
> As for payback, the risk here is to assume the 8 loads/week rates as a
> reasonable figure, because at those rates it will be easier to imagine
> paying these machines back. But if you have one load every two weeks, then I
> suspect you'd never see a payback. And for that matter if you compare the
> heat pump dryer to the clothesline it would be even more difficult to pay
> back the extra cost.  The majority of US households (and it isn't
> dramatically different in other industrial nations) are one- and two-person
> affairs. If we're talking anywhere near 8 loads/week for those households we
> have bigger issues to worry about.
>
>
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