Laundry, ventilation, etc

[Daisy]

I'd really like to get a small tumble drier but there seems to be only one condenser model and that's too big to fit where I want to put it.

I don't want to have to drape a massive tube through the room and out the window, not to mention the neighbours would probably complain.

I'm wondering, just how much difference is there between clothes drying on indoor racks and clothes drying in a tumble drier? Surely the same amount of moisture goes into the air? Stongly tempted to buy the small drier and just make sure the windows are open when drying.

Any opinions on this?

Daisy

[Lobster]

If you can't use a condensing model, can you not fit a permanent vent directly through the wall, terminating in a grill on the outside? It's a fairly straightforward diy or 'handyman' type job and much better to the 'long tube' solution.

David

[David Hansen]

On Sat, 18 Feb 2006 13:18:01 -0000 someone who may be Daisy wrote this:-

Could you provide an outside vent for the machine? This might involve something under the floor, or oblong ducting along the wall might be suitable.

Although the amount of water to be removed is the same with drying racks it is removed from the clothes more slowly and so has more time to escape before the room becomes noticeably damp.

[news12.3.wagtail]

Can't vent it to the outside, because of the terms of the lease.

Thanks for the explanation about the moisture. It seems to me that as long as I make sure to leave the windows open until all the moisture has had time to escape, the end result should be the same.

If mushrooms appear, I'll know I was wrong. :-)

Daisy

[meow2222]

ha. Seriously, mould is quite destructive to health. I would not choose a tumbler at all, but a dehumidifier. Put it where the clothes are hung up, they'll dry rapidly, though not in 30 minutes, energy use is a fraction of that of a tumble, run cost ditto, theyre =A3100 new and much less used, no risk of damp, and they have other uses sometimes too. Tumblers just dont make much sense in my book.

NT

[news12.3.wagtail]

If I had a problem with damp I might consider a dehumidifier. At the moment, the clothes are dried indoors on racks and there's no problem with damp. My reasoning is that using a drier won't create extra moisture, therefore will also not cause problem with damp as long as the windows are left open till all damp is dispersed.

Tumblers make a lot of sense in my book. Drying the clothes inside on racks and radiators is unsightly, and takes up time and space which I can use in other, more life-enhancing ways. :-)

Daisy

[David Hansen]

On 19 Feb 2006 02:57:13 -0800 someone who may be [e-mail] wrote this:-

They speed up the process, which can be useful if one is drying lots of things for a large family. For just one or two people indoor racks, lines and perhaps some towel rails will do the job for much less energy/money.

I wonder what the energy/money equation is for using a tumble drier in a launderette, if one is nearby?

[news12.3.wagtail]

The difference between drying on racks and drying in a drier may not be all that clear-cut. I found an interesting document at

the various ways of drying clothes. It makes the point that drying clothes around the house also has costs, and carries damp risks. I don't know how accurate the comparison are.

As for drying the clothes in a launderette, that seems a rather drastic solution, considering that you'd have to factor in the labour of carrying the wet clothes to the launderette, and then factor in your time spent waiting for possibly a long time for a machine to come free which was not wanted by a washing customer.

Or I suppose you could choose to wash the clothes there as well, so as to get priority on the drier; or you could pay the attendant to dry the clothes. Not my ideal solution though.

Daisy

[meow2222]

I can see I didnt explain. The idea is to put the clothes away in the closet, not drape them around the ktichen. Out of the washer into the closet. The dehumidifier in the closet is your clothes drying machine. It wins over tumblers on every point bar one: they take longer than 30 mins to dry. It means even less of your time is wasted compared to tumblers, less space used, less run cost, less energy use, less noise, etc. Howbig the family is makes no difference to the comparison, other than that with a tumble you have to wait even longer before you can put the clothes away and get on with something else.

NT

[Andrew Gabriel]

My dehumidifier takes about an hour to dry a washing machine load, longer if it was all heavy cottons (towels/jeans). The condensate water is useful for ironing, and the excess is used to water the plants.

Mine is in the airing cupboard. The built-in humidistat switches it off when the washing is dry. I also run it through a plug-in thermostat set to 30C, so it cuts out if the airing cupboard happens to reach its max operating temperature, which can happen if the boiler pipework in there is on at the same time.

[news12.3.wagtail]

Yes I did misunderstand but I still don't get it. A large part of every load is underwear, which I don't usually hang up in a closet, call me oldfashioned. Then there's sheets and so on, which also don't usually get hung up in a closet. So do you put a drying rack in the closet, hang everything on that, and just treat the closet as if it was a big drying room?

I don't mean to sound argumentative. A humidifer does sound like it might be a good option for some loads.

Daisy

[meow2222]

I hang just about everything up, but you can do it however suits you. I've got some extra large hangers for double blankets etc - and I mean large.

Thin things like smalls can just be placed on a shelf, they dry soon enough not to need hanging. It works just like a regular built in wardrobe expect that you dont need to dry stuff, just put it in and it dries by itself.

The dehumidifier extracts all the water vapour, creating a very dry atmosphere in the closet, and moves the air round. This makes everything dry many times quicker than hanging them up would.

If you dont like hanging some items, conventional slatted shelving would also work.

Japanese multi-peg hangers are ideal for some things, and multilayer hangers (one hanger with several cross pieces) are ideal for socks.

Its just less work all round, lower enegry consumption, less run cost, less space used, less noise, tumble load and unload times eliminated, etc.

NT

[news12.3.wagtail]

To be honest, what you describe does not seem to me to be less consuming of time and space and (admittedly trivial) labour than hanging the clothes on airers and racks as I do at present. Throwing everything in a tumbler would be a lot quicker. But if the load dries quicker with a dehumidifier, that's definitely an advantage. Thanks for explaining it. I might give it a try.

Daisy

[manatbandq]

[meow2222]

A quick comparison:

Space:

Full size tumble dryer in kitchen vs little dehumidifier in closet

Time and human energy:

Put clothes into dryer, load by load. When done, hang up in closet. Or just hang up in closet, nothing else.

NT