Wood boilers and clothes dryer? what do you know

Wood boilers and clothes dryer?

I would like to know what you have maybe seen or done to make your boiler dry your clothes in the clothes dryer.
I have been asked this alot and I have tore my old clothes dryer down and going to retro fit it maybe wiht my own Idea, if you got some tell me.
Do you know if 180 deg. air wood dry your clothes fast or slow or the same as the dryer.

Thanks guys

air temp

I guess I would put a metal meat thermometer in either the dryer or place the thermometer at the exhaust. I would imagine the exhaust would be 10 - 15 degrees cooler than the air being blown into the dryer.

It would certainly keep the house humidified. That's if you don't mind condensation on the windows. Also, remember it will take a fair amount of heat to dry the clothes. A valve of some sort would be required to force the heat to the dryer (as opposed to heating your house). This is all being based off of the fact that you have a wood furnace. If not, it would seem to be a little more trouble than it's worth.

Good luck.

omegajim said:

I guess I would put a metal meat thermometer in either the dryer or place the thermometer at the exhaust. I would imagine the exhaust would be 10 - 15 degrees cooler than the air being blown into the dryer.

It would certainly keep the house humidified. That's if you don't mind condensation on the windows. Also, remember it will take a fair amount of heat to dry the clothes. A valve of some sort would be required to force the heat to the dryer (as opposed to heating your house). This is all being based off of the fact that you have a wood furnace. If not, it would seem to be a little more trouble than it's worth.

Good luck.

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I would vent the dryer the same way as it vents now so it wouldnt have any problems with condensation.
thanks jack

I was on a web site somewhere and a man had a laser heat gun. He took the internal temp of the dryer and said it was 120 to 130 degrees. With this in mind I think its possible to make a setup to dry clothes. I wish I knew where I seen it, but the temp range sounds right. That would be nice to heat the home, hot water, and dry clothes. It would save alot of $$$$.

I think it would be alsome to hook it up so you could still use the dryer the same way as before you put a small heat exchanger in it for summer time, Im tareing my old one down this week and going to make some thing work

Replace the heating elements with a radiator. The drying time may be a little longer, but you would have no risk of a fire. Also part of the hot air could be used to help heat the room. This is where creativity would come into play.

We will just see

Drying clothes

Please keep us posted when and if you get it figured out. I would like to tear into my dryer also, but do not have the time right now. I did talk with a guy last month that had his dryer working with a heat exchanger. He said it worked great until the exchanger vibrated loose. He has not done anything since then. He was located somewhere south of Grand Rapids.

Mike

I've thought of this too, but do not have the equipment, wood heater to start the list with.

I would put the heat exchanger of the wall with an intake duct around it and an air filter. I would think around a dryer lint buildup on the exchanger will be a regular maintinace issue.

you might be able to use an automotive heater core for the heat exchanger. a small one would be about the size of the dryer heater element..

I was thinking of a heater core, I mite just try it. You would have to some how unplug the elec heater in the dryer then maybe put a aqustat some where or a some thing to control the heat.... I dont know but soon I will have my dryer working with my boiler. Its going to be a rigg job for the first time but I would like to make a kit or some thing.

OWB dryer

Hmmm, it wood seem that a water to air HX wood work, but it wood need to be a small one for an appliance. Put a squirrel cage fan on it and blow the heated air into the dryer drum, and vent it out the back. If your boiler temp is set to 180 you should be able to get some good heating out of it.

Maybe I will get an old electric dryer from the dump with a burned out heating element. Then add a small heat exchanger to my OWB water heat loop and see what kind of air temp I can get from it. Might be worth a try. :monkey:

You can use a water-water HX for a hit tub too. I refrained, as you need a lot of bypass plumbing to be able to shock the tub (flat plate HXs do not do well with the high amount of chemicals in a tub, especially during a shock treatment).

i don't see the need for an aquastat. i would think you'd need all the heat you can make. the electric heating coil in a dryer glows red while in use.

Aquastat

Too much heat is not always a good thing... you need the aquastat to keep the boiler from boiling over. Most of the OWBs will allow for 190 as the max temp. You would have to go to a steam boiler to get above 220. Steam is trickey to work with.

Which may be why there are not any dryer hookups that I am aware of from any OWB manufactures. But still, so what if it takes 2x or even 3x the time to dry your laundry in an OWB fired dryer? It is 'free' heat. :sword:

windthrown said:

Too much heat is not always a good thing... you need the aquastat to keep the boiler from boiling over. Most of the OWBs will allow for 190 as the max temp. You would have to go to a steam boiler to get above 220. Steam is trickey to work with.

Which may be why there are not any dryer hookups that I am aware of from any OWB manufactures. But still, so what if it takes 2x or even 3x the time to dry your laundry in an OWB fired dryer? It is 'free' heat. :sword:

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The temp in the dryer is about 140 deg.
So if I get it to 180 it should rock and roll..... Still trying to get time to do it.

God if it didnt smoke so much I would have done it by now. lol

OWB driven clothes dryer

With all that OWB smoke in your eyes all the time, it is no wonder that you can even post messages on the internet. Must be awful! And all the smoke in the dryer that the OWB will produce. Smellyclothes...

Imagine how much better it would be if you had a woodburning stove in the basement that you could just string a clothesline around? :biggrinbounce2:

On a more serious note... for the OWB dryer, with the boiler temp at 180 you would get about 160 out of a HX connected to any device. Rule of thumb, you will get about a 20 degree drop in temp across a HX. 160 should still rock though, if all you need is 140.

betcha spike would weld something up for you, in his state-of-the-art-non-polluting-welding-facility....

cord arrow said:

betcha spike would weld something up for you, in his state-of-the-art-non-polluting-welding-facility....

Click to expand...

:hmm3grin2orange: :sword:

Im seriously questioning wether you are going to be able to get a big enough heat exchanger inside the dryer to pull this off.



The elements in an electric dryer are probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200 degrees and have a large volume of air blowing over them.



Its going to be very hard to get a suficient volume of air to the correct temperature to make this work.

Can't you just attach it over the intake for the dryer? Then run the power from the heating elements to a circ pump?