During the winter the dryer wil have to heat the outside air more than the inside air. The net energy cost will be a wash at best, and since electric is often one of the most expensive ways to heat, if the cenral heat is cheaper than electric, it would be better to feed the dryer the warmer air from inside.

Yeah, I didn't think about that, the margin would probably be very small in terms of overall cost.
Thanks for the reply.

Is your dryer in a laundry room.
Put some duct work in to deliver outside air,
and close the laundry room door.

Make sure the duct work to deliver the outside air is bug proof and critter proof. Don't want those creatures coming in the house.

Pooh Bear

There is a product (I don't know what it is called) that lets you vent heated dryer air back into the house. I know my mom bought one of these a few years ago but I don't know if they violate any codes.

The problem with venting dryer air back into the house is the humidity.
All that warm moist air is bad for the house.
It introduces too much humidity into the house.

Pooh Bear

FWIW, there are closed-system dryers out there, called condensing dryers. They're usually made by the European manufacturers (Bosch, Asko, Miele), although there are a few others out there now. They're less efficient than traditional vented dryers. FWIW, the vented European dryers tend to use a lower wattage heaters (~2500 watts) but push more air, while the American ones use higher wattage (~5000 watts) with less airflow. I do have a design for a more efficient clothes dryer on my drawing board here and have some of the parts on my workbench, but haven't had the time to finish building it. I also don't know how to patent it, so, for now, I think it's probably best left in pieces rather than fully assembled.

You go, Sean. I'm waiting for that dryer. :)

I guess I'm wondering why the condensing dryers need even 2.5 kw of heat. I'd think they could go with less. I do know that the condensing models run longer than the standard U.S. "bake the clothes dry" models, so if they use 2.5 kw of heat rather than 5, the savings wouldn't be too impressive if the dryer had to run longer.

Since they are using the condensing process to actually dry the air and then recirculate it, I'd think just a little heat would be enough. Obviously there's something I'm missing.

It takes a lot of power to run a compressor to produce the cool surface for condensing to occur. It is impossible to have a free lunch in thermodynamics, and even a discount lunch can end up costing more in maintenance for a complicated system compared to just burning the watts.

Ah my kingdom for a clothesline!

Rolande

FXSTer doesn't say where he/she lives, but here in the dry dry climate of NM, I welcome the extra moisture that venting my electric drier back into the house provides. And the extra heat. The item that Smile3 mentions may be a water-trap that captures the lint, but also increases the moisture. Anyway, if FXSTer lives in a dry climate, then interior venting should not be a problem.

Actually, I live in Ohio. Winter is of course dry, but summer is terribly muggy. Vent it inside during the winter with a water trap for lint?

This is very much like what we have installed in our house.

Here is a link that might be useful: heat keeper

oooo, that Heat Keeper setup looks much easier than my disconnect hose/plug vent switchover between winter and summer. And it looks like there is a second lint trap specific for indoor venting. Thanks Smile3! FXSTer - just use a gauge to monitor humidity levels and you'll be set to go. I, too, hate losing all that warm, moist air in the winter.

I've seen devices that fit on a dryer vent pipe which capture some of the heat and direct it back in to the house. It's a type of heat exchanger and none of the dusty humid air goes back in to the house. I cannot say how true it is, but I've allways been told that dryers must be vented outside as it can cause mould problems.

However, I've never understood why americans use dryers so much. Even when it's a nice windy day in the middle of summer they use the dryer! I allways figured it was more a habit than a logical choice. A clothes line is free and it's better for the clothing, I also find that I hardly need to iron when it's line dryed as there are few creases. In the winter I use a rack in the furnace room to dry clothes as it's warm and the boiler sucks enough air up the chimney to vent the humidity. I have a dryer (circa 1970-something), but I can't remember the last time I actually used it.

Time. Hanging, drying, retrieving takes longer than throwing the clothes in the dryer and turning it on. The buzzer even signals the end of a cycle.
I really doubt the average homemaker is dying to return to the clothesline.

Conversely, I see my dryer as a labour intensive item that I only use when forced to by the weather or the need to have an item dry as soon as possible.

When I line dry clothes they're allways soft and fairly flat. I rarely iron jeans or jumpers, and only a percentage of the tee-shirts ever need it, they're just not crumpled enough. I find the few faint lines on clothing vanish within minutes of hanging in the closet or being worn. Gravity does a lot of the hard work to pull the creases out. When I use the dryer I end up with a heavily creased and crumpled pile of clothing which takes ages to iron because it's been thrown around hundereds of times and the heat sets the creases firmly.

Not only does the dryer mean I have to spend loads of time ironing, but the dryer itself and the iron both consume large ammounts of expencive electricity. The cost of this electricity directly represents a portion of my time spent at work, thus it would only be fair to factor this time in to the ammount of extra work using the dryer causes. Overall, while the costs of using the dryer are hidden, they're also very real and it is probably costing you much more time and money than you think.

I had one of those dryer vents. It adds a tremendous amount of humidity (mine in the basement so doesn't need more humidity) and does add alot of dust to the room. Really not worth it and I got rid of mine. Just my opinion.

Even at $10 an hour, and $0.20 a kilowatt-hour, you earn enough in one hour to buy 50 kilowatt-hours of electricity. A dryer is going to consume less than 5 kilowatt-hours to dry a load of clothes, costing (at a very high $0.20) about $1.
The iron has not been tuned on in years. Take the clothes out of the dryer at the end of the cycle while warm and hang them up to prevents wrinkles.
A return to the washboard and a wood fire for laundry would also probably save some money, at a huge cost in time.

I have to agree about the clothesline. Couldn't imagine washing clothes, putting in basket, going up to first floor with heavy wet clothes, hanging outside, wait day or so, go back out to get them etc etc. We have 5 kids and there is no way I am going that route. I can see hanging large items, bedding, comforters, sleeping bags, beach towesls, that are easy to throw over line but not every item! Just my opinion though. I do have a few friends that do use lines on occasion because they like them but they don't have large families. I try to dry as short time as possible and take them right out and throw new load in while dryer still warm when I can.

Personally, I don't think it's hard work to hang the clothing out and collect it. This morning I hung out a large basket full of wet clothing, it didn't even take five minutes. It's probably dry now as well, rarely does anything take longer than 4-6 hours.

As for the expence, electricity is much more expencive in Europe than the US, but still $1 for each load dryed isn't as cheap as it sounds. If you used it just once a day for a year that would be $365, and over a decade that's $3650.

It may seem vital for someone with a large family, but then again in the 20 years (give or take a little) it takes for a child to grow up and move on, that dryer could cost you $7,300. If, like many people you use it more the figure can go up hugely, for just two average uses a day it will cost $14,600. For a still realistic three times a day it will cost a staggering $21,900. For almost $22,000 you could send one of those children to university!

Considering energy costs look likely to go up faster than inflation, and that these savings figures don't include interest from being stored in a bank, this price is actually a low estimate of how much richer you could be from simply pulling the plug on your dryer.

The interesting thing is, we're working longer hours in the United States for ever diminishing returns. Given that, it may make sense to make some trades where we take back some of our time, and then use that time to reduce expenses, rather than just continuing to try to earn more money so we can think of additional ways to spend it later on.

So many of the ways we spend money, we do so merely out of habit and not out of necessity. While I can't make the judgment for anyone else about whether the convenience of an electric dryer is worth the cost or not, it is useful to at least stop and consider the true cost of so many things we do mainly just because "it's how we've always done it."

Clothes dryers that vent inside are dangerous due to the exhaust. I just went through this in my city where code requires all dryers to be vented to the exterior. Gas dryers are more dangerous than electric due to the vented gas, however electric dryers are a potential hazard as well due to the polutants formed from soaps, bleaches, mold, etc. caused by heat and humidity. Check with your local building code department concerning requirements for your vent, The additional humidity may not be as desireable to your health as you believe. By the way, my HOA removed my vent (against my wishes and advice) that was installed to code, now they have a problem with the city for violating building codes. Man I hate that!!

It seems natural to me to consider using a vent system similar to a direct vent gas fireplace. This has concentric tubes for exhaust and intake. The common metal wall transfers heat, preheating the potentially cold, ambient intake air. The longer the concentric tube, the better the heat transfer.

The dryer itself needs to be adapted to accept the concentric tube, however. OR the laundry room can be sealed to create the necessary draft.

The PROBLEM is moisture in the tube. As the exhaust air cools from the heat transfer, the water vapor will condense in the tube. This will make lint attach to the tube interior and it will clog up. It's not that different from 'conventional' exhausting, but it will be much worse. Thus, it needs to be designed/installed to allow periodic cleanout, or an additional filter needs to be fitted; and the water condensate needs a path for dripping out.

Try and wash and dry 12 - 15 loads of clothes in one day using a clothesline!! I don't think so.....that's why some of us use dryers...convenience & time savings. Besides, if you ever tried to dry the clothes that come out of my washer after it has spun them at 1200 rpm, you'd have nothing but a wrinkled mess on your hands that the dryer handles with ease and in usually less than 30 minutes...now that's convenient.

I find it converse that here of all places, a forum for renewable energy, people would object so much to the suggestion that they could replace their extremely energy intensive dryers with totally free washing lines. Here in Europe clothes lines are very common, even for large families and I know many people who don't even own a dryer. The process of hanging it outside isn't even time consuming. A full basket of laundry takes me 5 minutes to hang out and another 5 to collect later in the day. I can even combine it with other activities like talking on the cordless telephone or inbetween something else like waiting for the kettle to boil or a TV program to start. I naturally find a moment to do it when the time would otherwise have been wasted waiting for something else.

I have to wonder if the people who think it's such hard work have even personally tried it?

My dryer (Bosch) vents into our sunspace, that is essentially a greenhouse. So the humidity is fine. Doesn't seem to be a problem in summer either. The lint wasn't a problem at all the first two years, but now I am seeing some. Maybe I need to be more vigilant cleaning the dryer screen. I think I cleaned it after every load when the dryer was new. There really isn't too much humidity because things go into the dryer so dryer from the high speed spin of the washer.
Boby

Hello,
As a repairman, I get calls complaining about the time it takes a dryer to dry a load of clothes. The first thing I do is to remove the duct to the outside. If the dryer drys clothes faster, I then clean the vent pipe. I usually will remove the lint from the dryer ducts. Many times it will be stuck in corners that eventually product wads of lint. This also reduces the ability of the dryer to dry a load of clothes. If the filter is not cleaned aftewr each load, the dryer will collect lint quickly. I can tell the world about this problem, but few will listen. This is great, I earn about $75 for cleaning lint from the dryer. It takes about 30 minutes. Many times the lint causes other problems. I get to replace belts and rollers. More money for me. The job takes about the same time, and I make even more money.

When I was a child we didn't have a dryer and when I bought a house we didn't even own a dryer for a few years! I live in NY .
I hang them outside whenever I can. I just see the sun and wind as free so why not use them!!! Dryers ruin clothing quicker also. They make them fade.
Of course we also heat our house with a wood stove.
It does take longer, but I don't watch tv really and i like to be outside.
To each his own.
-renee

Having longer-than-average limbs, I have always hung many of my clothes. Women's clothes do not come in different lengths like men's do, except that you can sometimes get "tall" length women's clothing - and it is generally too long for me! So I hang my clothes for the most part, but usually inside, on wooden racks. It takes room, but is not much of a bother. I do not pay close enough attention to the weather, or am not often home long enough to want to deal with outdoors drying.

DH is the laundry guy around here, since I have to avoid stairs. He will take a load out of the dryer and let it sit in the basket, all rumpled. Each night, before bed, he hangs a shirt and sprays it with water from a spray bottle, then hangs it in the bathroom to dry overnight. Makes a lot of sense, huh?

We are moving in a week or two, to a home with a first-floor laundry. I am hoping to get the laundry done more regularly and with far less re-doing!

My rented townhouse in London had a dryer in the unfinished basement with vent pipe with a damper to allow me to vent it outside, or through another tube into the basement.

I lived alone so didn't have a lot of washing. Hung clothes on a clothesline that I rigged in the back yard in spring, summer and fall, mostly used the dryer in winter.

In winter, in this cold climate, they say that indoor air if unhumidified is dryer than in the desert, which leads to shrinkage of wooden furniture, resulting in chairs, tables and other furniture starting to fall apart.

I tied a pair of pantyhose around the end of the vent pipe in the basement - not to difficult to untie, take outside and shake occasionally, washing it if it got too clogged.

I didn't have a hygrometer to tell me at what level humidity I had, so usually would vent one dryer load, possibly two, into the house, then turn the vent to outside.

But I sledom had even two wash loads at once, let alone three.

It seems to me that the tumbling and super heat in dryers tends to wear clothing out faster than line-drying - but many folks toss their clothes before they're worn out, due to style changes, etc. You know that all of that lint that collects in the trap doesn't come out of thin air.

By the way - when one neglects to clear the trap after each load, it restricts the flow of air, which increases drying time.

By the way, with regard to that concentric pipe leading outside where the cooling damp air drops moisture in the exhaust, that then collects lint ... if you can access it, take a tomato can lid fastened to a stick with a nail to drag it out.

Have a great week, everyone.

If you need some hot air - just come here.

The older I get - the less enthused I am about winter.

ole joyful

Just look at that: ole Ed's the thread killer - again.

o j

I am amused by the people who have probably never let a load of clothes dry sans dryer in their life, yet are so sure it is long and hard and won't get out wrinkles! Yes, the elapsed time is longer than a dryer. But the actual time spent is not much greater, with the exception of a load of socks and underwear (longer to hang up.) If you are smart enough to plan ahead a little, then it isn't much of a challenge to save all that dryer energy.

No, you couldn't do 12-15 loads of laundry in one day that way, but what kind of person has that much laundry to do in one day? Must be that you are so wasteful with your resources that everyone in the family must work 6 days a week, 12 hours a day, to pay the electric bill? LOL If you have that many kids, make them help with the laundry. I am from a family with 6 kids, we hung up all our clothing to dry in WIsconsin. I hate cleaning, but somehow always enjoyed hanging up clothes. Outside in summer, inside in winter. Saves running a humidified in the winter, too.

For shirts it is actually less human time to hang your clothes up to dry. You take shirts out of the dryer, put them on hangers, hang them someplace (inside or outside line, racks, shower rod, pipes, etc.) When they are dry you put them in the closet, already on hangers. You skip the whole loading and unloading the dryer part, and you don't need ironing cuz it isn't wrinkled. I usually dry silk blouses outside since the wind keeps them from having wrinkles, but most things can dry fine in the house. And you save all that time shopping for clothes that shrank and wore out in your dryer.

Once before a trip it was rainy and it wasn't the time of year that the heat was on in the house, so I took a load of clothes over to a friend's house to dry. But at home that is the only time I have used a dryer in the past 14 years. My clothes last forever and don't shrink, so it isn't just the gas/electricity you are saving. In our last house we used the dryer (not hooked up) as a wine rack.

I have spent about a year in Europe, and lived in Ecuador for a year, most people there don't have dryers. U.S. Americans are so wasteful with energy, and they don't even realize the rest of the world is different. Hair dryers are also pointless, but that's another story.

Marcia

My grandmother had only a wringer washer and hung all the clothes. I was always amazed at how fast she could hang them up and fold as she was taking them down. Practice makes perfect. When I was in college in Minnesota, we alway hung the clothes to dry in the basement. We needed the moisture in the house. I was impressive how fast they dried in the cold, still air.

Back to the original post about a heat exchanger for dryers, I've seen one made by Electrolux and available in Europe. Electrolux claims it can save several hundred euros a year. It's quite complex and looks expensive. The heat exchange all appears to take place on the building exterior, thus the condensation can drip outside.

It sure seems like a direct source for exterior air would be great for the dryer. As the dryer exhausts moist hot air, it has to suck in dry air from somewhere. The exhaust (100 degrees?) would be moisture laden and therefore carrying a lot of thermal capacity. And any condensation would actually help transfer heat by making the air-to-air heat exchanger more like a water-to-air exchanger (freezing might be a problem in extreme cold). If the exchanger were something that could be hosed out once in a while to remove lint, it would be almost maintenance free.

Assuming 100 degree exhaust, it shouldn't be too difficult to boost the incoming air to 70 degrees, maybe even 80 degrees. A free source of warm air that might be warmer than household air. The dryer would be pulling makeup air directly from outside, rather than through cracks in the walls, under doors, around light fixtures, etc. In a tightly sealed home, the dryer fan could be more efficient with a direct feed instead of sucking in air from who knows where.

You would then control the source of the dryer air and eliminate the negative pressure in the house. Household air used by the dryer has to be replaced somehow. It comes around the windows, under the garage door, out from the outlets, etc. It can be dirty, dusty, and in most climates it will be colder than household air. If it's cold, it lays on the floor, making your feet cold so that you turn up the heat. Taking makeup air from the house also effects how clean your fuel burning appliances work (a gas water heater or a wood stove may loose some draft from the negative air pressure if they don't have their own direct air feeds).

Even without an exterior heat exchanger, it sure seems like a dryer direct connect for outside air would be a good idea.

Mark

We built a laundry closet in the middle of our apartment and to exhaust the drier to the outside I ran a duct at the ceiling level across my son's bedroom. I plan to box in the duct with drywall, but in the meantime when the drier is running the 12' duct does act as a type of heat exhanger and helps warm the room. I think some type of heat exchanger device to recover the heat in the exhausted air would be great, but it needs to be able to be switched off, because as I've found that heat is not so welcome in the summer.

I've also given some thought to the heat generated constantly by refrigerators and how it would be nice to vent that air out of the house in the summer. We have a range hood exhaust but it is noisy and below the level where most of the heat is...

I am one of those who didn't know how to operate a close-pin. Always used a dryer (although when an Ottawa suburb passed an ordenance against clothes lines because they were eyesores, I was almost motivated to get a clothes line). When we moved to Korea, our apartment had a combined single unit washer-dryer (condenser type). After losing a few battles with the brute on trying to get the dry cycle, and giving up on instructions in Korean, I started using a drying rack. It is so convenient, that when we move back to Canada this summer, I will be getting a rack and not bothering with a dryer except in very unusual circumstances. It sure is a question of habit - of course there are only 2 of us so loads are small.

While I would love to dry clothes on a line, there are a few variables that prevent it:

Allergies! People with air borne allergies should not line dry their clothes - especially outside. This is especially a concern if your allergies cause asthma

Pollution and dust! Here in AZ, if I hung my clothes outside, they could potentially get pretty dirty from the dust and pollution.

Husband complains clothes are stiff! Even with soft water and fabric softener, drying makes my clothes softer.

Having said that, I do dry as many as my clothes as I can inside on a rack, line, or hanger.

How about a contraption of straight 6" metal tube, with a 4" metal tube inside, by which the exhaust air flows though the space between the two pipes, and intake air through the inside of the 4". A tube maybe 4-6' long might do the trick, esp. if insulated on the outside. If the tube tends to build condensation inside, just set it at a slight angle to drain outside. I think I actually may try this...

this year as an effort to "GO GREEN" i began hanging up clothing on a clothes line. Have 4 kids and DH. In the summer in Michigan, i found that my clothes dried on an average every 3rd load, i could hang 2 loads on the line and by the time the third was out of the wash, i could remove the first and hang the third. I like the smell of the clothes, enjoy the money savings on the electric bill and helping the planet. I NEVER thought i would give up the dryer, but glad i have. I still use the dryer for full loads of socks and underware. I refuse to hang panties on the line cuz i work right next to my home. Not something my employees need to see!! lol. I also plan to hang my clothes on their clothes hangers in my basement laundry room for the winter. Try it, help save energy!

Here in central Florida in our new house I installed a second vent tube up into the attic and it terminates in an A/C register box behind the dryer replete with louvered vent that can be closed. During the summer, the vent is opened, the laundry room door shut and rather than using house air that I've just paid to cool, the dryer pulls hot attic air down the tube to dry the clothes with. The dryer still vents outside. It's kind of hard to really get a handle how much if any this saves but our new house runs a very reasonable $135 a month utility bill...all electric and well water so I believe the dryer scheme does play a part in my overall strategy...a bunch of 2% or 3% savings mean little alone but can add up to a significant reduction in your electric bill when they are added together.

Ok take the sealed dryer idea and just add vacuum to the tune of what is it 29" of mercury at sea level that water boils into a vapor.. blow the vapor outside or put a condensing unit on the line and drain it into your sewer drain problem solved.

wow I amaze me.

Bob ¿Ã´

Low relative humidity, not heat, is what dries the clothing in the dryer. Heating the air lowers the relative humidity. It matters more how much of a temperature boost the dryer imparts than the actual temperature of the air, so using outside air should not seriously impact the efficiency of the dryer.

As for line drying, the birds here seem to really like the clothes line, so half of the clothes need to be rewashed. A bear once took an extreme dislike to several items on the line and shredded them. All in all, the dryer is cheaper.

Does anyone have an actual answer to the original question? The best I can come up with is to install a door on the laundry room and a barometric valve in the outside wall. Not an elegant solution.

I ran a second 4" pipe to my attic from a wall vent behind the dryer. It seems most of the negative pressure created by closing the laundry room door gets satisfied by the wall vent with most of the attic air going into the dryer. With my dryer, at least, there is no 'dedicated' air intake and it pretty much draws through various punched vents and off the floor. Regardless, my laundry room doesn't seem to get much warmer or colder than the rest of the house when the dryer is running.

Interesting - I have pondered the apparent waste of heat in winter from vented dryers - I've seen various versions of the diverters but agree, moisture dust and detergent fumes are the issue. Having said that, most Australian homes do not seem to have any requirement for outside venting for dryers - they don't seem to use gas dryers at all of course, and their electricity supply is already 240v - it's mostly a very humid climate, at least on the coast so from that point of view it's insane. Mould is definitely an issue there, the heat is a good thing since what heat people use in winter tends to be rather inefficient non-central heat, but reverse cycle air conditioning is getting bigger there and is probably the most efficient answer since you get more heat from it than you would from plain electric heating alone, and the outside temps lend themselves to rc heat year-round.

I have contemplated some form of heat exchange also and pretty much came up with the idea of one pipe within another as the solution, but added a tapered fin to the cold air pipe, with the low side outside for the condensation. If you went with pvc which would be a little less effective for the condensation you might be able to do a variation on the combo inlet/outlet they use for high efficiency furnaces.

I hadn't considered using outside air for make up air for the dryer or going direct to the dryer....the only advantage would be it's dehumidified air. A dryer is probably less efficient at heating that air going in, especially if the house is heated by reverse cycle/heat pump or geothermal, in which case I suppose the most efficient thing of all would be air drying indoors.

Australians and NZers use clotheslines a lot more than we do in North America and I was a proponent of them when I lived in both countries, but was one of the few who vented their dryer outside.

As for the condensing dryers they do seem to have the same current draw as the conventional ones (bosch 240v/13a) but I have not yet figured out whether they would be net more efficient, or less. One thing is, perhaps they are going to be blowing dehumidified air, I'm not sure. I imagine air passes over the warm coils, into the dryer, exits via the cool coils, condensing the moisture, then into a reservoir and is pumped into a drain. I guess that would be a cheap source of demineralised water for car radiators, batteries etc....provided it wasn't too mouldy/ucky. When I had a dehumidifier in Australia, I kept it pretty clean and would bottle the collected water when I needed it.

True, the condensing dryer would be drawing from the household air, cooling it somewhat, but owing to natural inefficiencies, etc there will be a net gain of heat overall, like if you had a refrigerator. Since there is no outside vent, there won't be the same heat loss, and when you consider how most dryer vents actually allow a fair amount of cold ingress (my dryer is very cold inside when it's not in use) you might be a fair bit better off.

On the same sort of note, it would be nice to have some sort of winter/summer arrangement so you could draw cold into the fridge system in winter, and exhaust the heat out in summer.

Apparently heat recovery units on air conditioners are quite common and in summer you can use them to heat your hot water (some sort of water jacket arrangement on the compressor outside.)

I suppose for that matter you could use a similar arrangement for a clothes dryer or a 'drying room' but a clothesline would be a lot simpler.

I agree North Americans are really sucked into the dryer only thing, and I suppose it is less labour-intensive, but I do intend to set up a clothesline one of these days and use it as much as possible - they are also great for airing things out and can reduce/kill dust mites in things a bit.

On the downside, the uv can fade your clothes. In Australia especially, where it's very strong - I always dried stuff inside out.

I made my own sealed condensing dryer one night from a used 400W dehumidifier and my existing electric dryer by disconnecting the heating elements and looping the vent air through the dehumidifier and back into the dryer. It worked!

But not as well I would have liked. It took about 80 minutes to dry a load of clothes or about twice the time, which is fine. The motor that turns the drum uses about 1500 watts per hour and when combined with the 400W from the dehumidifier uses a total of 2850W when compared with 3750 for a normal load with the factory setup.

All and all it used about 25% less power than my factory dryer setup and didn't burn up my clothes, but 25% didn't seem that great. If you could get the motor to run intermittently at a rate that the dehumidifier could condense, then you would have the best of both worlds since the motor uses so much power itself. No wrinkles, low energy and 80 minute dry time.

I decided that hanging my clothes up inside even in Seattle works great. I hung up a humidity sensor and it varies between 50-60% which doesn't cause any mold or moisture issues in the 24 hours it takes to dry and gets back into the high 40's%.

The first and best step is the get a front loading washer with a high speed spin cycle to get most of the water out and then dry it inside--hands down, until you are ready to modify the dryer.

Christian

Hi Christian,
If your condensing dryer does not vent air outside at all, then it is also saving the energy needed to heat the cold air that comes into the house to replace the air vented out by the regular dryer.
For use, I figure this is about 2KWH per load (a lot), but we are in a cold climate.
The calculation goes like this:
Dryers vent about 170 cfm, and this incoming air must be heated to room temp -- if you assume 30F outside, the heat needed is:

(170 ft^3/min)(68 min/load)(70F - 30F)(0.07 lb/ft^3)(0.24 BTU/lb-F) = 6800 BTU/load or, about 2KWH.

The 2 KWH is about the same as the 2.2 KWH of electricity that is average to dry 1 load of cloths.
So, if you saved 25% of the 2.2 KWH plus all of the 2KWH, then you saved 61% of the total energy -- sounds pretty good to me!

We vent our dryer inside through a pair of panty hose to filter out lint. It works very very well in our dry climate -- not even a hint of moisture problems.

Gary