Clothes dryer: propane vs. electric

Re: Clothes dryer: propane vs. electric

Gooserider wrote: »

Would sound to me like a good place to put a water detector / alarm! Gooserider

You’re not kidding. We did after the first failure. I had one in our basement but didn't think of it with the "new" washer on the second (main) floor. After the washer failed that first time we put one in and we did use one of the ones with about an 8 foot lead with sensor and mounted the alarm just above and behind the washer on the wall. It saved us the next two times for sure!

I would recommend everyone using a washer have them, unless it's in a basement on a concrete floor with a nice drain

Re: Clothes dryer: propane vs. electric

Well ours are limited in that they require someone to be home and hear them, but it would be hard to do much to change that, as none are in a setup conducive to automatic shutoffs...

1. Under kitchen sink mostly to catch drain problems...
2. In bucket under T/P valve on water heater - again leak detection, we had a defective burner at one point that kept getting stuck on...
3. In sump pit located above turn on point for primary pump, below turn on for secondary - if the main pump fails, the alarm will sound intermittently as the pit fills to turn on the backup pump.

Gooserider

Re: Clothes dryer: propane vs. electric

(Continuing thread drift) Ok, we did purchase the spin extractor http://www.laundry-alternative.com/products/Spin_Dryer.html We typically get about 1/2 gallon of water out per load before putting them in the dryer. If it is all cotton we get more, close to 3/4 gallon less cotton we get 1/3 gallon. It noticeably shortens the dry time on the sensing cycle on the dryer.

The down side is we can only get about half the washer in the spin dryer so it takes two spins, but they only take min each max.

So how much energy does it take to remove 1/2 gallon with heat?

Re: Clothes dryer: propane vs. electric

actually posted that info here back when i first bought it a few yrs ago.. in the meantime there's some ratings for mine (WD-327*RHD) and lots others on this list (also posted once upon a time

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?fuseaction=clotheswash.display_products_html

the ratings for mine i dont think are entirely correct as this is a listing of clothes _washers_ not driers, and since mine is both i am guessing the numbers are for washing only. still, ill measure a full load sometime soon... often we just line dry as the clothes can be wrinkly sometimes.. they have a new bigger model out with steam cleaning and im thinking of getting that at some point.

fwiw: the brand i couldnt remember the name of is equador and you can see form the list this italian company's all in one washer/dryer products are super efficient but ill share that they got lots of bad points for poor reliability

Re: Clothes dryer: propane vs. electric

Bill I know a ½ gallon of water is right about 4 lbs, that was pretty typical for what we extracted. Since we are still living at my parent’s house with the 4 kids waiting for our house to be done I don't want to mess with their dryer to check consumption If it were my house I would have TED setup to meter the whole thing. I would assumer the power to dry off the ½ gallon or 4 lbs is about what it saves energy wise. I can't image the extractor takes much, I will put a kill-a-watt on it for kicks.

Re: Clothes dryer: propane vs. electric

BB,
Our Kenmore front loader has a mix of water temps to choose from. On reading the manual i found that 3 of the choices will make the warm and cold waters definite temps, not just what comes out the pipe (cold) or mixed 50:50 (warm). There's no heating element, just a temp sensitive mixing valve. I think Cold is 70deg F.

Ralph

Re: Clothes dryer: propane vs. electric

Finally got to it, my little all in one can use between 2 and 3 kwh's per wash/dry cycle. thats a full load of washing,spin drying, and electric by condensing dry. it was more than i expected it to be. depends alot on the materials being dried, it has a "sensedry" thing that usually is accurate (it shuts down when dry) but certain loads throw it off. for example some nylons will make the thing think theyre not dry when they are, and vice versa if its stuffed too full. its wierd to watch the realtime wattage during dry, it will run up at around 1400watts, then bump down to 30w occasionally. it spent more time than i thought it would on the higher settings. so seeing how mucha cycle can use has pushed us into action and we're setting the maxium dry time instead of autosensing so we can be sure not to have expensive/energy inefficient miscalculations. still ,we dry alot so just using it for washing is very very almost (dare i say it) unnoticeable amounts of power.
8)

BB. wrote: »

I am glad it is working well for you... I have heard about them before, and they are supposed to take 3-4 hours just to dry--so a fair amount of energy is still used for the internal electric heater(s) and drum motors.

Looking forward to your kill-a-watt measurements.

-Bill

Re: Clothes dryer: propane vs. electric

jeannie,
welcome to the forum.
this thread is nearly 4yrs old now, but input to a thread is ok to do as long as you realize that some have not been on the forum for some time.
as to venting indoors, that is ok to a point, but you reach a point in the humidity levels that can get uncomfortable and could cause some damage if it condenses in certain places. even molds and mildews may rear their ugly heads.

you beat me to it tony.:p

Re: Clothes dryer: propane vs. electric

jeannie812 wrote: »

To niel-N3GHX

Josh burns wood for heat as I do. The constant dry hot heat of the wood stove in winter makes the house so dry you get a static shock touching anything! Here kitty kitty! I thought it makes venting the electric dryer indoors in winter a good idea. I did say to vent dryer outside in summer.

Sorry I posted to something so old. I was just checking propane vs. electric and stumbled on Josh's post. I didn't check the date, I just jumped in.

I see this site deals with renewable energy?

I wish I could get solar panels but no grants for residential in Wisconsin.. only businesses and agriculture?

My son has the smarts to make solar panels. Wish you guys had a internet game to get him interested.

jeannie,
if you have difficulty in keeping the humidity levels comfortable then by all means vent inside.

no problem on jumping in as i just wanted you to be aware.

yes, we do deal with renewables. let me ask you this, do you have power outages that can last long times? if yes, then he may be interested in a solar backups so he can continue playing his games via battery power. not cheap to do, but the pc won't get a bad shutdown and he can put other things like modems, routers, lights, etc on it for longer timeperiods. how big and how long the loads go for determines how big and costly for the system. you could have a backups without the solar too if he'd not think the outages are bad enough just as long as there is a good quality 3 stage charger to keep the batteries properly charged. some inverters have the charger built into it too.

now he may think of the computer backups that are $29.95. we aren't talking that kind of backups as everything is of higher quality and abilities. you may even put a refrigerator on it to prevent food spoilage, but the system will need to go larger yet in that case.

as to the solar panels being homemade, we don't recommend that as nobody can make them at home as well or as cheaply as commercially made ones and the commercial ones come with a long term warranty too.

yes, incentives vary from non-existent to excellent depending on where you are. the photovoltaic panels, or pvs as we call them, are the cheapest right now than they have ever been. they still cost though.

there is another method of utilizing solar pvs that is grid tied and this is usually without battery backup, but is also out there with battery backup. gt systems are the ones that get the incentives anyway. this type of system offsets your electric consumption by the amount of solar power produced and thus saves some on the electric bill. with the gt system without battery backup, when the grid goes down, as in outage, there will not be any power available from the pvs either as this is a safety precaution called anti-islanding to protect linemen from getting unexpectedly shocked.

i know it's not easy getting kids interested in something so maybe dangle carrots to see if he bites?