7 ms·

I assume that, if you aren't being sarcastic, you're European? Or at least not American? You're currently down voted, but many Americans probably don't realize

I assume that, if you aren't being sarcastic, you're European? Or at least not American? You're currently down voted, but many Americans probably don't realize that some countries don't allow vented dryers. Vented dryers are standard here and many Americans have never seen anything else. They are indeed terribly inefficient, using the nice, conditioned, inside air once, heating it and then dumping it outside. All the air that is exhausted from the inside has to get replaced with air from the outside and has to be heated or cooled again.

harshreality 2y ago
As one of "[those] Americans", I take it that those dryers remove moisture with a condenser loop and a water collector, like an indoor dehumidifier would?
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- Filligree 2y ago
  Yes, it’s going to either have a piped output or a collection tank. Both are common. The water ends up warm, so a collection tank is more efficient.
- card_zero 2y ago
  Thus dumping the heat inside the house.
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Filligree 2y ago
European, yes. I’ve never even seen a drier with an exhaust, and it didn’t seem like a sensible option to consider. Aren’t heat pumps far more common in America than Europe? Why is it backwards for driers?
- to11mtm 2y ago
  Heat pumps are becoming more common but almost every home or apartment I have lived in used Natural gas for heating and maybe a wall mounted or central A/C unit. Some homes in Detroit don't quite have modern HVAC ducting, instead using 'water circulated' heating. Theoretically they can 'cool' but IDK if I remember seeing that in a commercial/municipal building/school or if that was just a fever dream. That said, some buildings will use a 'shared steam' system (My college had Shared Steam for all the class buildings, IIRC lots of buildings in downtown Detroit have one.) But those examples are in a specific part of the rust belt. Up in the far NE (i.e. Maine, NH, etc) the remote areas use 'heating oil' and that may be harder to change; putting NG lines in would be unprofitable, and when the power goes out a heat pump is going to be, relatively, larger capacity drain than a blower on whatever's burning the heating oil. Only way to mitigate that would be an even larger generator, or an even larger bank of batteries. Which is a long way of saying, 'it depends'. And Heat pumps are 'relatively new' commercially. People won't be driven to replace until the cost of a repair vs cost of a new heat pump unit 'makes sense' financially (i.e. it's possible just getting a heat pump in may be 'cheaper' than whatever repair is needed within a certain timeframe... but to make the determination, someone first has to bother to do the math.)
  - Filligree 2y ago
    > Heat pumps are becoming more common but almost every home or apartment I have lived in used Natural gas for heating and maybe a wall mounted or central A/C unit. A/C units are heat pumps. Are you saying yours can’t do heating as well? We just installed an air-air heat pump at the cottage up in northern Norway. 4kW of heating (or cooling) for 800W of power, all on an off-grid solar system. :)
    - saltcured 2y ago
      Yes. A very common setup in the US would be a central, forced air system with a natural gas furnace and an air-conditioner in the same circuit. Until quite recently, the air-conditioner would not be reversible. I think these were very common in new residential construction from perhaps 1970 to 2010. These would then be seen in a lot of the housing stock people would be reporting about. There also tends to be inertia where the same type of system just gets repaired or replaced rather than switching a house to a new system design. Earlier than 1970, you might less central forced air. That might be radiators or electric resistive heaters in individual rooms, as well as some retrofitted window air-conditioning units. After 2010, you start to see more heat-pump options but they still were not that common. First, lots of residential construction is housing tracts done all by one builder and they make penny-pinching "standardized" decisions rather than deferring to buyers to make decisions about their unit. It was cheaper for them to install gas furnaces. Second, the local energy market made natural gas heating quite affordable and this diminished the monetary value of potential heat-pump efficiency. You might not make up for the extra system cost in reduced energy bills. Also, a gas furnace would likely have a longer operating life than an equally powerful heat pump. Lastly (chicken-and-egg), the lack of a strong market meant that the available heat-pumps were niche products. There were fewer options, higher costs, and few installers who knew how to deploy them properly. There was also less clear reliability info for a consumer to decide whether it was a worthwhile choice, and FUD from early adopters who encountered those under-skilled installers.

harshreality 2y ago

As one of "[those] Americans", I take it that those dryers remove moisture with a condenser loop and a water collector, like an indoor dehumidifier would?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Filligree 2y ago
Yes, it’s going to either have a piped output or a collection tank. Both are common. The water ends up warm, so a collection tank is more efficient.
card_zero 2y ago
Thus dumping the heat inside the house.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

Filligree 2y ago

European, yes. I’ve never even seen a drier with an exhaust, and it didn’t seem like a sensible option to consider. Aren’t heat pumps far more common in America than Europe? Why is it backwards for driers?

to11mtm 2y ago
Heat pumps are becoming more common but almost every home or apartment I have lived in used Natural gas for heating and maybe a wall mounted or central A/C unit. Some homes in Detroit don't quite have modern HVAC ducting, instead using 'water circulated' heating. Theoretically they can 'cool' but IDK if I remember seeing that in a commercial/municipal building/school or if that was just a fever dream. That said, some buildings will use a 'shared steam' system (My college had Shared Steam for all the class buildings, IIRC lots of buildings in downtown Detroit have one.) But those examples are in a specific part of the rust belt. Up in the far NE (i.e. Maine, NH, etc) the remote areas use 'heating oil' and that may be harder to change; putting NG lines in would be unprofitable, and when the power goes out a heat pump is going to be, relatively, larger capacity drain than a blower on whatever's burning the heating oil. Only way to mitigate that would be an even larger generator, or an even larger bank of batteries. Which is a long way of saying, 'it depends'. And Heat pumps are 'relatively new' commercially. People won't be driven to replace until the cost of a repair vs cost of a new heat pump unit 'makes sense' financially (i.e. it's possible just getting a heat pump in may be 'cheaper' than whatever repair is needed within a certain timeframe... but to make the determination, someone first has to bother to do the math.)
- Filligree 2y ago
  > Heat pumps are becoming more common but almost every home or apartment I have lived in used Natural gas for heating and maybe a wall mounted or central A/C unit. A/C units are heat pumps. Are you saying yours can’t do heating as well? We just installed an air-air heat pump at the cottage up in northern Norway. 4kW of heating (or cooling) for 800W of power, all on an off-grid solar system. :)
  - saltcured 2y ago
    Yes. A very common setup in the US would be a central, forced air system with a natural gas furnace and an air-conditioner in the same circuit. Until quite recently, the air-conditioner would not be reversible. I think these were very common in new residential construction from perhaps 1970 to 2010. These would then be seen in a lot of the housing stock people would be reporting about. There also tends to be inertia where the same type of system just gets repaired or replaced rather than switching a house to a new system design. Earlier than 1970, you might less central forced air. That might be radiators or electric resistive heaters in individual rooms, as well as some retrofitted window air-conditioning units. After 2010, you start to see more heat-pump options but they still were not that common. First, lots of residential construction is housing tracts done all by one builder and they make penny-pinching "standardized" decisions rather than deferring to buyers to make decisions about their unit. It was cheaper for them to install gas furnaces. Second, the local energy market made natural gas heating quite affordable and this diminished the monetary value of potential heat-pump efficiency. You might not make up for the extra system cost in reduced energy bills. Also, a gas furnace would likely have a longer operating life than an equally powerful heat pump. Lastly (chicken-and-egg), the lack of a strong market meant that the available heat-pumps were niche products. There were fewer options, higher costs, and few installers who knew how to deploy them properly. There was also less clear reliability info for a consumer to decide whether it was a worthwhile choice, and FUD from early adopters who encountered those under-skilled installers.