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| Author |
Message |
gracel
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The old-fashioned clothesline, in Michigan
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Oct 19 13:20 UTC 1993 |
I have saved a good deal of gas this summer by drying clothes outside,
using my energy and the sun instead of paying MichCon. (If our children
never wet the bed, there wouldn't be so much laundry, but that's another
matter) Summer, unfortunately, is over. Does anyone have experience in
outdoor clothes drying in winter? This is alleged to be possible, but
I personally have found that as the temperature closely approaches the
freezing point nothing gets dry enough to be worth trying it again.. Is
bright sunshine necessary? Comments, anyone, on this or related matters?
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| 10 responses total. |
rcurl
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response 1 of 10:
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Oct 20 01:17 UTC 1993 |
Yes, it works. But you need clear, sunny, *dry* winter days. The
temperature can be below freezing - the ice sublimates. In Michigan,
winter tends to be gray, with high relative humidity, so ideal days
are few. We always dry clothes outside in summer: the towels are
crisp, and the sheets smell of "ozone" (I know its not, but its a bit
of outdoors indoors).
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gracel
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response 2 of 10:
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Oct 21 12:48 UTC 1993 |
Thanks. I must never have tried it on a good day, such being so scarce.
I first learned about clotheslines at my mother's knee, and she had lines
in the basement available for use in questionable weather -- we don't have
a basement, so that's out. Of course the clothes dryer has its own special
advantages for winter, anyway, that being the time when we appreciate extra
heat in the house.
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rcurl
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response 3 of 10:
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Oct 22 04:14 UTC 1993 |
Do you exhaust the clothes dryer into the house? That is usually, in
Michigan winters, too much humidity, and you get condensation in the
walls. Or do you use an exchanger? We just had a high efficiency furnace
installed, which brings combustion air in from outside, so the house will
retain moisture much better than before - another reason for not exhausting
a dryer directly into the house.
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gracel
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response 4 of 10:
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Oct 24 20:26 UTC 1993 |
Our dryer exhausts outside, but under part of the house (an enclosed back
porch). I was actually thinking of how the machine itself gets warm, part
of why the laundry room is often our cat's favorite haunt on winter days.
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keesan
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response 5 of 10:
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Jan 2 03:25 UTC 1998 |
My landlord, a few years ago, built a small room around the furnace, which
has two holes in the outside wall with 6" ductwork through them, one pointed
up and one down (sort of like the new chimneyless furnaces). He did this so
that he would be allowed to keep his vast collection of junk abandoned by
former tenants stored in the basement, but the inspectors are still fussy.
Anyway, the new furnace room has a 3' passage alongside of the three furnaces
and a water heater, in which I hung three 10' clotheslines. The clothes dry
within a few hours on cold days, overnight otherwise. There is frequent heat
and constant ventilation, and none of the moisture goes into the house. This
arrangement also makes the house much less drafty, since the furnace gets its
combustion air directly from the outside rather than pulling it through cracks
around doors and windows. (Furnaces also need oxygen like people). I would
not advise hanging clothing up while the furnace is running, since it puts
some gas and carbon monoxide into the air of the furnace room, which quickly
blows away. The furnace room also keeps the carbon monoxide and gas out of
the house, by its ventilating effect.
This arrangement will reduce your heat bill, as well, by eliminating
the drafts that pull heated air out of the house, and letting you set the
thermostat a bit lower because it is not drafty.
Clothing will also dry fairly well in even an unheated basement, but
may take a couple of days longer. We always dried clothing on one of those
folding aluminum umbrella-shaped things when I was growing up. (In my
bedroom, it was an apartment with nno basement). Dryers are a totally
unnecessary waste unless, like one of my neighbors, you are trying to
eliminate the head lice that children occasionally bring home from school,
and even then, she said leaving clothes outside for eight days was just as
good a solution. They are made for lazy people. They also wear clothing out
much faster because of the friction.
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n8nxf
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response 6 of 10:
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Jan 4 13:36 UTC 1998 |
Leave clothes out on the line for eight days! Wow. Since kids will go
through several sets of clothes before the head lice problem is resolved,
this could make for a fairly expensive wardrobe.
A furnace that dumps carbon monoxide into the furnace room is a furnace
that needs replacing! That is why furnaces have flues. What your land-
loard did r.e. building a room (Called a mechanical room.) is a very
common practice in the trades. Many of the newer, high efficiency furnaces
and hot water heaters come with ducting such that combustion air as well
as flue gases are taken and expelled outside with the help of an induction
blower. Most houses leak enough air so that makeup air for that consumed
by the dryer, bathroom fans, kitchen fans, etc. is not a problem. Tighter
houses have a problem here and will draw makeup up air down a flue or
chimney unless an alternate intake is provided.
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keesan
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response 7 of 10:
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Jan 6 02:08 UTC 1998 |
Even with a flu, some of the combustion gases go into the basement. And the
reason houses leak air is that air is being pulled out of them by furnaces,
fans, etc. You need to bring air directly to the furnace to eliminate the
drafts. The new furnaces don't have these problems.
My neighbor with the lice bought a dryer specifically to get rid of
them. She also put plastic covers on her mattresses after two months of lice,
which fixed the problem. (It is hard to wash and dry a mattress, but if you
lock the lice away from the people they starve to death).
Children can be dressed extremely cheaply in used clothing. Kiwanis
sells everything from underwear to outerwear. A t-shirt is 25 cents,
underwear 10-25 cents. Eight days worth of clothing would be under $10, much
cheaper than buying a dryer. Kiwanis is open Sat. 9-12 year round.
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n8nxf
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response 8 of 10:
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Jan 6 12:00 UTC 1998 |
All gas appliances dump some combustion gasses into the house. Gas ranges
are the worst offenders, not properly working furnaces or hot water heaters.
If carbonmonoxide is a concern for anyone, a corbonmonoxide detector can be
purchased from most any discount or hardware store for <$40. Get one with
a digital readout.
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rcurl
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response 9 of 10:
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Jan 6 17:31 UTC 1998 |
A high efficiency furnace does not. The combustion system is totally contained
and connected only to the outside (assuming no leaks...). Gas ranges, of
course, put nearly 100% of the water and CO2 products into the house (though
a hood could exhaust some of that), but combustion is usually nearly 100%
and CO is usually not produced. However the odorant put in gas yields a small
amount of SO2 when burnt.
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keesan
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response 10 of 10:
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Jan 6 20:42 UTC 1998 |
Re gas ranges. Houses with gas ranges have measurably higher CO readings,
according to the books, and higher levels of illness in children. We bought
a CO detector for a friend with a gas stove, ran his oven for half and hour,
and had rather high CO levels, even though the kitchen was on the first floor
of a three-story 3000 square foot house. Running the kitchen fan brought the
levels down but not to zero.
As regards leaks, yes, you get some drafts from a leaky house even
without a furnace, but the fan and the stack effect (warmer air rising up a
chimney and being replaced by colder air from outside) increase the drafts.
It is the same as the difference between having a window open in a room, which
causes a little bit of air exchange, and having a window open plus a fan in
another window blowing out, which pulls at least 10 times the air through.
If you have an old furnace and don't want to build a room around it, you can
poke a hole in the wall and run ductwork up right near where the gas flame
is, so that there is the least resistance on that path, and most of the air
sucked in will be through the hole and ductwork. (Make a round hole and seal
around it with caulk, through the basement wall, or remove a window and run
ductwork through there anad then seal around it.)
It is too warm for the furnace to be running today, so I am going to
hang my clothes outside under an awning. If you hang them in the open in cold
weather, they are likely to get rained or snowed on before they have a chance
to dry. Luckily, my landlord also roofed over half of the back yard to store
junk, and I ran a clothesline between two pulleys from the back door to a
corner.
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