Clothes Dryers Waste Energy Twice

If your Clothes Dryer, electric or gas unit is located inside your home, it is wasting energy. The bad thing is there is not much you can do about it yet, there are some appliance manufactures that are working to fix this problem. The clothes dryer creates a negitive pressure inside your home, that is it takes the air conditioned air during the summer time from in the inside your home and pulls it into the blower intake of the dryer, heats it up to dry the clothes, then blows it outside of the home. During the winter it takes the air that you have paid to have warmed up and does the same thing, blows it outside. At a flow rate on average of around 200 cubic feet per minute, it would be no different than opening a window, putting a fan in the window, and blowing outside air into the house. If the blower is pulling air from inside the house and blowing it outside, this air must be replaced some how. Well yes, its replace by the air from outside of the house. It comes in from window and door leaks, from the attic it is pulled inside the house from the ceiling vents in the bathrooms from ceiling lights and wall outlets, and the vent unit above the stove. Even thought they have flap doors inside them, they leak badly. So anytime you run the clothes dryer, it is costing you energy twice. The energy to use the dryer unit itself, and the energy used to cool or heat the air inside your house. Some manufacture are designing appliances that pull the air from outside through a secondary supply vent and then after using it blow it back outside, which does not waste energy. But because there has not been much complaining from the American public there are only a couple appliance manufactures that are currently looking into doing this. It is acommon design on forgein appliance manufactures like those from Europe and Japan. If you locate your dryer in your garage and have a vent on the garage door to allow fresh air in, than you are not wasting energy twice, or if you dryer is located outside of the living space of your home. Just a little information to make you think.

David R. (arcandspark)

The new appliances that will use outside air for combustion instead of inside air from the living space will be using something called a Direct Vent instead of Conventional Flue.

"What's the difference between a conventional flue and a direct vent?"

A conventional flue is what most people are familiar with. It typically consists of a double-wall flue pipe going from the top of the heater through the roof, venting outside. The fixture draws its combustion air from the space around it (utility room, garage, hallway, from inside the house). A direct-vent unit vents and draws its combustion air through a specially designed pipe from the outside via an adjacent wall.

This will allow the appliance to operate without wasting cooled or heated inside living space air, thus saving energy and money.

Dave R.

I have decided I would like to try and go into the Alternative Solar Buisness full time so I am looking for Solar Installation companies that are hiring. Anyone interested can contact me through The Dallas Progressive Alternative Energy Meet Up Group. David Rygwalski

We have clothes drying racks we use outside in summer and inside a nice sunny room in winter. The clothes dry within 24 hours and the racks fold up to fit in a closet when not in use. Takes maybe an extra 10 minutes per load to hang and makes folding much easier and quicker when dry. An easy way to save otherwise wasted energy! Plus clothes last longer (notice all the lint in the dryer lint trap? that is your clothes disappearing...). Plus saves cost on wear and tear on your dryer. A clothes rack is much cheaper to purchase and basically no wear and tear.
:-)