clothes dryer output heat

[philwire]

Well, it's that time of the year again, white shtuff falling from the sky... The cold season is kicking in.

In winter, every time I start up the clothes dryer I find it a total waste of heat. I know it's very humid hot air, so it's not very useful unless you plug some kind of filter or something... I've seen a few items on a few websites that are more for people who don't have any outlet for the waste air at all. The biggest problem with those is always the excess humidity they release into the house.

I don't have a garage yet, but plan to in 4 years when I will renew the mortgage. If it'd be an attached garage (on the side of the house where the dryers output is located), would it be profitable to have the clothes dryer's output duct make some kind of serpentine across the garage's walls/ceiling before dumping it outside, so that the hot air at least tries to heat the garage for a few degrees?

Or any ideas on how to reuse that waste heat?

 

[mad57]

I would think that a short run with a radiator of some sort to "catch" the heat would be better, dryer vents get clogged with lint and fuzz so i would limit the length to short as possible. also unless you did tons of laundry it would have to be a small area to heat like the dog or cats water bowl

 

[TravisT]

Our drier vent snakes about 10 feet under the slab of the house because of the location of the laundry room. We constantly have problems with our clothes not drying. I believe this is due to the added back pressure from the 90° bends along with the length of the line. Good idea, but i think you would cause more problems than good here.

 

[Gary S]

Build a heat exchanger. Years ago when I had my dryer in the garage, I built one. I used 1/2" aluminum tubing that I attached to plywood ends. With about 20-24 of those tubes mounted parallel to each other, I capped the ends. I used a small fan to blow through the tubes and pick up the heat from the dryer that was blown through 90 degrees across the tubes. It worked great. All the moisture went out with the dryer fan, while the heated tubes produced a lot of free heat.

 

[philwire]

Thanks for the input, I'll take that into consideration when the right time will come. mad57 you're right about the wool/lint buildup..

It's just really a shame all that nice heat has to go outside!

 

[HoosierBuddy]

DON'T do anything that adds unnecessary restrictions to your drier vent. Even a short run will tend to clog up with lint over time. Once blocked, you have an extremely dangerous situation that leads to dozens of housefires.

A common sign that your drier vent is partially plugged is when your drier takes longer than usual to dry clothes. If you notice this, I'd recommend pulling the drier completely out, start at the vent connection and clean the entire assembly. I use a shop vac when I do mine. If you have any metal pipe, you may have to disassemble it.

Back to the OP...I'd just file this one under "bad idea" and move along.

AND, if you've made the extremely wise choice to have a natural gas drier (which cost about 1/3 as much to operate) then I'd say VERY bad idea, because the drier vent also serves as the flue.

Phil

 

[philwire]

Build a heat exchanger. Years ago when I had my dryer in the garage, I built one. I used 1/2" aluminum tubing that I attached to plywood ends. With about 20-24 of those tubes mounted parallel to each other, I capped the ends. I used a small fan to blow through the tubes and pick up the heat from the dryer that was blown through 90 degrees across the tubes. It worked great. All the moisture went out with the dryer fan, while the heated tubes produced a lot of free heat.

Looks nice, did you have time to take a pic? or draw a plan?

 

[93sr20det]

If you have already low house humidity from running the heater you should run it into the house. Last year our house humidity got down to below 20% from running the heat to much. I had 2 humidifiers and a spray bottle of water spraying down the curtains to get it back up to 50-60% which is comfortable and keeps wood from drying out. I had plans to reroute our dryer into the house to add both heat and humidity.

 

[philwire]

AND, if you've made the extremely wise choice to have a natural gas drier (which cost about 1/3 as much to operate) then I'd say VERY bad idea, because the drier vent also serves as the flue.

Phil

Can't, natural gas does not go around here.. they stopped at the city next to where I live

 

[z28snksknr]

My dryer duct goes into my garage and across the floor out the sidewall. It leaks enough on the way out it heats the garage a little when its on. I'm not a fan of the humidity, but it's tolerable.

They sell kits at Lowe's / HD to reclaim that heat, although there is no way to turn it off in the summer, so "free heat" in the winter = "expensive cooling" in the summer, unless you got fancy with a baffle or something. It probably is a drop in the bucket and >10 yr payoff for materials, so I'd pass on the idea.

 

[Jackfre]

Our drier vent snakes about 10 feet under the slab of the house because of the location of the laundry room. We constantly have problems with our clothes not drying. I believe this is due to the added back pressure from the 90° bends along with the length of the line. Good idea, but i think you would cause more problems than good here.

You should look at a Tjernlund Dryer vent booster. As to the original poster, it is just not worth doing. You have the lint, moisture and how do you feel about the garage smelling like Downy all the time. How often do you run the dryer. Before I went to do anything I think I'd pt an hour meeter on it and see how much it is really running. What you really want is to put up a clothes line.

 

[philwire]

As to the original poster, it is just not worth doing. You have the lint, moisture and how do you feel about the garage smelling like Downy all the time.

I understand, however I still meant to make it dump outside, with a detour across the garage; not to make it dump directly into the garage.

 

[koditten]

As dirty as shops get anyways, a bit of lint is not going to make a big mess. I have to blow everthing off several time a year anyways. My front garage is not in the vacinity the dryer exit, so I can't really comment. But my dryer does vent strait in to the basement and the extra humidity is welcome. We keep the lint at bay by placing a knee high on the dryer vent. My dryer is electic, so no gas vent isues.

I have an appointment reminder that comes to my phone. It tells me to "change my ***** hose" every quarter

 

[philwire]

They sell kits at Lowe's / HD to reclaim that heat, although there is no way to turn it off in the summer, so "free heat" in the winter = "expensive cooling" in the summer, unless you got fancy with a baffle or something.

I was thinking maybe a "winter duct" where it would snake through the garage before going outside, and a "summer duct" that would dump outside using the straightest route.

 

[Jackfre]

I understand, however I still meant to make it dump outside, with a detour across the garage; not to make it dump directly into the garage.

I have always had reading comprehension issues

 

[lzenglish]

I have had my dryer heat exchanger, or "exaust diverter" hooked up for 15 years now. Very simple plastic box with a door that opens and closes to allow the 5,000 watts of wasted exaust heat to warm my garage. In the summer, I turn the damper to allow for the exaust to flow outside in the normal configuration. Of course there is nothing really free in life, so the draw back is a possible fine rust to your tools, and small amounts of lint. Mine has a fine screen on it, so I get very little lint in the garage. I usually spray my rollaway tool drawers with a lite coat of WD-4 at the start of the winter season, and do not have that much of a rust problem anymore.

Wayne

 

[Larwyn]

My mother in law's dryer vented into her garage for many years. When I set out to "straighten up" her garage last year I found a bout a 30 gallon trash can full of dryer lint in that corner of the garage. I ended up installing a 90 degree ell at the wall and ducting the dryer outside. Only took about 6 feet of metal duct but it actually does make that corner of the garage almost as warm as the corner with the water heater (when the dryer is running of course). I made no effort to construct a heat exchanger, just 6 feet of metal duct, so I'm sure most of the heat is exhausted outside.

My dryer is in the garage and does contribute to heat. Unfortunately it also works the same in the summer as in the winter, so we use the clothes line out back most of the time in summer. That works out better for me anyway as my dryer and MIG welder share the same circuit.

 

[Nor*Cal]

$11 HD solution if you do not mind some humidity. Works great at a friend's high altitude cabin where the air is incredibly dry.

 

[danski0224]

If you have already low house humidity from running the heater you should run it into the house. Last year our house humidity got down to below 20% from running the heat to much. I had 2 humidifiers and a spray bottle of water spraying down the curtains to get it back up to 50-60% which is comfortable and keeps wood from drying out. I had plans to reroute our dryer into the house to add both heat and humidity.

I would look into building deficiencies. Your house has a problem somewhere that is enabling airflow from outdoors to indoors, drying the indoor air.

As a side benefit, heating costs will go down and humidity will go up.

 

[Teken]

$11 HD solution if you do not mind some humidity. Works great at a friend's high altitude cabin where the air is incredibly dry.

Thank you so much for providing the link and offering up this alternate solution . . . .

 

[TravisT]

You should look at a Tjernlund Dryer vent booster.

Don't want to hijack the thread, but have you used one personally? I've had many people recommend like-products, but no one had ever used them, so I was always a little leery of dropping the $ on one.

I think a good cleaning would make things a little better, but the pipe is larger in diameter and longer than the dryer vent cleaners I could find locally.

Edit: Grainger's price on those vent boosters are $415!

 

[cactiki]

What about using a dryer as a heater? I mean just run it without any clothes in it, you could aim the vent where you need it. Maybe even leave the door open? Just wondering.......

 

[Provincial]

What about using a dryer as a heater? I mean just run it without any clothes in it, you could aim the vent where you need it. Maybe even leave the door open? Just wondering.......

I did this when I was young and stupid. Disconnected the duct from the heater element to the tub and pulled off the belt. The fan ran off the motor and blew the hot air out into the shop. It put out a lot of hot air, but didn't heat the shop that much. I should have made the shop air tight and insulated, instead it had lots of air leaks and no insulation.

The power bill that came later was a killer! This was 40 years ago when I was paying .03 per kwh.

 

[Solarguy]

I have a question and I am trying an easy way to find the answer. I could turn off all of the power in the house and then turn on the clothes dryer and read the meter on the outside of the house and get the answer. I need to know if anyone knows the actual power used in one hour to dry about 20 washed T-shirts ? I am not talking about what the name plate on the clothes says. That is the max. per hour used not the actual heat supplied to the clothes. The motor uses about 200 to 350 watts of power and the heating element cycles on and off during the drying cycle. The reason that I need to know the answer is that about 8 years ago I decided to design a solar heat exchanger used to dry clothes. I need to know how many Btu's I have to supply to the clothes in 1 hour to dry them. AL

 

[mdbeck1]

Well, it's that time of the year again, white shtuff falling from the sky... The cold season is kicking in.

In winter, every time I start up the clothes dryer I find it a total waste of heat. I know it's very humid hot air, so it's not very useful unless you plug some kind of filter or something... I've seen a few items on a few websites that are more for people who don't have any outlet for the waste air at all. The biggest problem with those is always the excess humidity they release into the house.

I don't have a garage yet, but plan to in 4 years when I will renew the mortgage. If it'd be an attached garage (on the side of the house where the dryers output is located), would it be profitable to have the clothes dryer's output duct make some kind of serpentine across the garage's walls/ceiling before dumping it outside, so that the hot air at least tries to heat the garage for a few degrees?

Or any ideas on how to reuse that waste heat?

For a long time I used the drier to heat the garage. Yes, it put a lot of moisture in the air but the garage was a lot warmer.

I have had my dryer heat exchanger, or "exaust diverter" hooked up for 15 years now. Very simple plastic box with a door that opens and closes to allow the 5,000 watts of wasted exaust heat to warm my garage. In the summer, I turn the damper to allow for the exaust to flow outside in the normal configuration. Of course there is nothing really free in life, so the draw back is a possible fine rust to your tools, and small amounts of lint. Mine has a fine screen on it, so I get very little lint in the garage. I usually spray my rollaway tool drawers with a lite coat of WD-4 at the start of the winter season, and do not have that much of a rust problem anymore.

Wayne

I had one of these on the drier for a while. Then I found that the main exhaust hose went up the wall and wandered for 20 additional feet before exiting the eave in the roof. By bypassing the hose through the roof in decreased the run time of the drier. Some research yielded that clothes driers are designed to move the air a certain distance. IIRC it's about 12 feet. If you add 90 degree curves it cuts down on the distance.

$11 HD solution if you do not mind some humidity. Works great at a friend's high altitude cabin where the air is incredibly dry.

When I was young I worked in an appliance store for the summer. We installed these quite often.