Quote:
Originally Posted by Higgy
Not to sidetrack anything, but your basement looks like the inside of a Tatooine homestead from Star Wars.
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I was thinking, what a neat/weird looking basement too!
Daox, I have a better idea for you - I've been planning to do it all winter, but it's been super busy and I haven't even modded my car in months.
The way I see it, the dryer really has two problems.
1. you pump lots of humid, warm air outside, leaving lots of E to be recaptured
2. removal of air from your home = lower air pressure inside, inducing drafts until pressure reaches equilibrium.
Your method addresses problem 1, but not problem 2. my idea will attack both.
Use metal dryer vent, regular style with the ridges.
In the window where your exhaust air goes out, make another hole for an inlet tube.
Using some 2 or 3 inch pvc, set up an intake to draw cold outside air from a location sufficiently distant from the humid (natural gas exhaust in your case) air exiting your vent - maybe a meter or so?
Around the outside of your 4 inch dryer vent, (I think that's the size) install a 5 inch piece of hvac duct to run the straight length of it.
Connect your inlet tube to the 5 inch duct nearest the window, and ensure that the other end of the inlet is close to the dryer's intake.
Probably want to install a dryer vent "flapper" on the inside of the intake to ensure flow only during operation, and a screen or other guard on the outside to keep critters out. Probably also wrap the hvac duct in insulation.
You could make this design as simple or complex as you wish - from the other stuff you've gone after on your car, I assume you'd be going after the complex version.
For a simpler way, just use two pieces of long metal dryer vent and wrap them around one another - I don't know how well this would work though.
I got the idea from my background in biology and physics and thinking about countercurrent flow in fish gills / thermodynamic systems. Here's a wiki link.
Countercurrent exchange - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I also plan on doing this with my furnace, which is a riskier proposition - need to keep the exhaust air hot enough that it still flows up the flue and out of the house, and also need to figure out what to do with condensation inside the pipe!