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04-20-14, 12:00 PM | #1 |
Journeyman EcoRenovator
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Ventless washer and dryer vs high efficiency dryer and washer
Im thinking of gettin a washer and dryer . Want to know from someone who has switched . What uses less electricity. If its the washer and dryer combo . Or would a washer and a dryer high efficiency vented use less
LG Electronics 3.6 cu. ft. DOE High-Efficiency All-in-One Washer and Electric Ventless Dryer in White Thats what i plan to get . Any one have any reviews on electricity. Ive heard they take a little more time . But if it takes less money to run . Thats what im for. |
04-20-14, 01:08 PM | #2 |
Steve Hull
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I put a ventless dryer in my son's 5'th wheel (he is in graduate school and living in it). It works by heating up the drum and then spraying cold water on it. One load takes almost 5 hours for a complete cycle (wash and dry). It uses a LOT of water!
There is another type that essentially uses a dehumidifier (ventless also). Do you live alone, with kids, have an elderly parent? One person's long load is just another person's convenience. The problem with venting dryers is that they evacuate all the conditioned air in the home in a short time. Do the math - they use 500-750 ft3 of air per minute. A thirty minute dry uses about 15,000 - 22,500 ft3 per load. Calculate the volume of a home (1800 ft2 x 8 feet tall = 14,400 ft3). If you have kids and run the washer/dryer twice a day (at least we did), then figure all the conditioned air in the home is lost with air from the outside coming in to be heated or cooled. The solution is put the dryer in the garage - or put it in a room where there is a vent for make up air without any connection to the home HVAC. Steve
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The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to stevehull For This Useful Post: | Exeric (04-20-14), nokiasixteth (04-21-14) |
04-21-14, 04:32 PM | #3 |
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I plan to put it outside where the well pump is . With the solar heater . THen plan to put a heat pump water heater stacked with a solar water heater before it.
Reason asking is i plan to do my house to be offset with a solar grid tie . Beings right now i dont have a washer plan to get the one that uses the least electricity so i dont have to stack up extra solar pannels. |
04-21-14, 05:36 PM | #4 |
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A heat pump dryer (especially one with a compressor) is very efficient, but even more efficient and cheaper is to convert a regular dryer to run from a solar thermal panel.
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04-21-14, 06:21 PM | #5 |
Steve Hull
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In Europe they make some very efficient washers and dryers. But imported here to the USA boosts the price massively.
The "wag" in me suggests buying an inexpensive, domestically made unit. Yes, less efficient, but purchase price is a lot lower. And easy/cheap to repair. But this goes against my instinct to buy a quality unit that will last. Have a friend that had a Fisher Paykell washer dryer (made in New Zealand). All the bells and whistles and very fancy and quite efficient. But the repair costs were astronomical and frequent! She finally let it die and bought a Maytag . . . . Bosch also makes a very nice dryer, but $$ I like the idea above of using a solar thermal collector (one post above from NiHaoMike. Perhaps buy a dryer with a dead heating (burned out) resistance element, but with a drum, motor and other controls that works. Couple that with a hot air thermal collector. Now you are cooking with gas (mixed metaphor)!!! Steve
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04-22-14, 07:39 AM | #6 |
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I like that too . But wonder how big of a pannel you would need for a pannel Does anyone know about how many btu it takes to dry a load of clothes ?
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04-24-14, 07:56 PM | #7 |
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Looked it up online . Shows some of the gas ones are 35k btus. Does any one know if thats sounds about right ?
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04-24-14, 08:09 PM | #8 |
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Rule of thumb for solar thermal is 1kW/square meter under ideal conditions, maybe half that under real world conditions. In hot climates, you can use the attic as the solar collector.
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To my surprise, shortly after Naomi Wu gave me a bit of fame for making good use of solar power, Allie Moore got really jealous of her... |
04-24-14, 08:38 PM | #9 |
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Im not sure how hot it gets in the attic here . My roof is a big red tin roof . Faceing kinda south east. But accordin to 150 btu per sq ft . Itd take 233 sq ft to make 35k btu per hour .
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