Is there such thing as a hot water heated clothes dryer?

[Coldfront]

Hot water heated clothes dryer, is there such an animal? Or has anyone tried making a home made one? I know the drum and blower would still have to use electricity, but couldn't you insert a small radiator type heat exchanger?

 

[ironman_gq]

I dont know how hot of air you can blow with a hot water system but I do know that a regular dryer will get hot enough to scorch your stuff if its too full and cant tumble properly. You could probably get it to work but it would take a while to dry your clothes compared to a regular one

 

[berry5]

my cousin and i are going to try and build 1, we are going to use a free gas dryer just gut the propane part and install 2 heater cores from a car looks like a ford taurus is a good one to use one of the heater cores wiill be a pre heater the next is the primary we are just waiting for a free dryer have missed a few on craigs list

 

[AOD]

I had a thread about this awhile back, using hot air from a wood furnace to dry clothes with. The biggest challenge is having a way to control it to properly cool down the clothes. I agree that a hot water coil may not be able to put out hot enough air to dry clothes, and the very hot, dry air from a wood furnace is ideal for clothes drying. A compromise could be reached by putting your dryer near a stove or furnace so it's heating element only has to heat air up from 100 degrees instead of cold house air.

I still might pick up a beat up old dryer to mess with the idea and some prototypes tho. I should be able to find an old electric dryer with burnet out elements and wire the controls to run on 110v.

 

[Jkebxjunke]

I had a thread about this awhile back, using hot air from a wood furnace to dry clothes with. The biggest challenge is having a way to control it to properly cool down the clothes. I agree that a hot water coil may not be able to put out hot enough air to dry clothes, and the very hot, dry air from a wood furnace is ideal for clothes drying. A compromise could be reached by putting your dryer near a stove or furnace so it's heating element only has to heat air up from 100 degrees instead of cold house air.

I still might pick up a beat up old dryer to mess with the idea and some prototypes tho. I should be able to find an old electric dryer with burnet out elements and wire the controls to run on 110v.

easy way to control the temp... solenoid valve. use a valve that have the same voltage as the coils... instead of hooking up the wire to the coils.. hook them up to the valve... when it shuts off the power.. the valve will close. Bonus is when you find one with a working moisture sensor... that will shut down when clothes are dry.

 

[KsWoodsMan]

The water in a cars cooling system is around 195 degrees Thats about the same as in an OWB, OK so it is a little more. I've never put a thermometer in a heater vent to see just how hot it gets. But moving air picks up moisture. Hot moving air does it faster.

I dont see any reason why this wouldn't work. It may take a bit longer but should work. The second heater core would only speed things up.

Seems like in one of the other threads on this topic there was a link to just such an ani,mal that is commercially produced. The water shut off solenoid would be a good idea for the cool down period.

 

[PhinPhan]

A quick google search returned this. Curious as to how they did it.

http://www.outdoorwoodfurnaceparts.com/new_page_8.htm

 

[Jkebxjunke]

they dont have much on that site....

 

[mga]

already invented and made for sale......

http://www.trda.org/news/article.asp?articleID=31

picture here:

http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/15/hydromatic-debuts-revolutionary-dryer-miser-clothes-dryer-tech/

search hydronic clothes dryer.....many articles on that.

 

[coog]

I spent years working on my prototype.


http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Clothes_line_with_pegs_nearby.jpg