newer washers and dryers

[paulg]

I'm with DBLRINZ

Dblrinz and I are on the same wavelength.
In addition:
We have started our new "victory garden" and hope to raise some food.
I shut off the extra fridge between parties and holidays.
I look at our garbage can contents and try to find out how to reduce our trash.
Personally I don't take "Energy Star" toooo seriously. I buy for the long term and try to use products efficiently. If I think vintage will perform and serve better than new with reasonable efficiency, I use vintage.
Generally I try to do more with less - except when it comes to alcohol. Tee hee.
Still working on reducing "ghost" consumption of appliances due to standby circuitry. Example: I have a DVD player in the family room which is used twice a year! But it consumes standby current all year long. Gotta stop that but it ain't easy.

 

[yogitunes]

you guys make excellent points...

you wanna go green....food for thought...lets hear some ideas of how we "conserve" our individual resources...

i put potato/cucumber/onion peelings around my plants and scrubs...they flourish big time....

i let the water from the tub and washer flow out into the yard...i have the greenish plush lawn without chemicals or watering

what do you think?

 

[davek]

A friend of mine (civil engineer) once repeated something a professor told him: "dilution is the solution to pollution." Take aresenic in drinking water. The current (as of about 2001) allowable amount was about 5 times more than the lowest measurable limit. To pit it another way, if you have one gallon of unacceptable water and add 9 gallons of arsenic-free water, you're left with 10 gallons of "arsenic-free" water in that its arsenic content is below measurable limits.

To put it another way, if you wash the same load in two machines, using the same amount of the same detergent, and both clean equally well, you've put exactly the same objectionable content in the water even if machine A used 12 gallons and machine B used 24. As has already been said, if machine B outlasts machine A and its replacement-machine C, what was green there? I would even guess that the older machine would be easier to recycle.

I don't leave faucets running or anything, but water is not something that's created or destroyed (in general). It's a looping system of rain and flow to oceans. The dirt and detergent are bigger deals than the water use. Don't let anyone make you feel guilty about using faucet water. Bottled water doesn't make sense if you have a filter pitcher anyway.

As for CFLs, I use and like them. I also don't believe that they're the least bit 'green.' Regular bulbs used to be made in the US, and would be shipped in minimal packaging the short distance to your store. CFLs are generally made in China or Hungary, packaged in plastic blister packs, and shipped halfway around the world where they still have to make the same trip that the regular ones did. They're heavier and require more materials as well. Use them if you like them, they might be 'green' by saving you a little money.

 

[toggleswitch2]

~Toggles, I will only disagree with you on the GAS dryer mandate. Never liked them. Turns the clothes yellow, stinks, gas much much expensive in our area than electricity.

Agreed. CAn yellow clothes.But I'd rather gas over nothing since dryers can be seen as wasteful.

Never noticed a smell.

Wow really? Is your electric hyrdo-electric or nuclear? Because it takes three units of gas to make the electricty needed to dry what one unit of gas USED directly would do, therefore gas is usually (in most areas) 1/3 the cost of using electicity for heat.

 

[lavamat_jon]

How about banning tumble dryers full stop?

Have used the tumble dryer only a handful of times this year so far purely in emergency, otherwise opting to dry my laundry on the line or on the clothes horse if the weather is bad. Laundry doesn't shrink, has more "body" to it, towels are still fluffy if shaken out once dry, and things have a more fresher smell.

It's how the majority of UK (and I daresay European) households dry laundry, without wasting electricity or money on something that is simply not needed - even towels and bedding will dry in a matter of hours, and I can easily dry up to 6 loads of laundry inside until I run beyond drying capacity on the clothes horses - or 8 loads or so outside until I run out of line. Hang up tees and shirts on hangers - either directly on the line, on the corners of the clothes horse, or on the special "over the door" hooks you can get specifically for hangers - and you eliminate the energy needed for ironing too - no matter how fast the washer spin speed. Hanging shirts and tees on hangers, I hardly have the need to iron at all - can't remember the last time I actually needed to iron. Again, saving even more electricity which I see as a waste in the home.

Just a thought,

Jon

 

[toggleswitch2]

I'd say have a default to a gas dryer by law in new construction, when it's avaialble.

I never said outlaw conversion (of that laundry room) to electric, or stop selling electrics.

 

[maytagbear]

For some situations,

doing without a dryer is not feasible. I live in a rather marginal neighbourhood, and even if I could hang laundry outside, chances are good to excellent that my nicer things would walk off.

Furthermore, I am not about to expose my laundry to the traffic dirt--I live on a busy, busy state route.

I don't have a car, so I think it rather balances out.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[jdinstl]

Same here, Lawrence...

...my neighborhood is ok....I live in a 6 unit apartment building. 5 of us are just fine, but one couple (who are fighting loudly as I type this) have ruined our equipment in the common laundry area. So I now have a portable in my apartment, and a 110volt chinsy dryer.

I guess in a way that's "greener" than using the 220 downstairs. Probably offset by multiple loads in the portable versus the full size.

John

 

[lavamat_jon]

Still - with all due respect - laundry can be dried naturally without being dried outside.

At uni, I have my clothes horse set up in my rather small bedroom. I still have space to set it up (it's a 3 tier one), without it getting in the way - as well as having room to hang tees on hangers both off the curtain pole and on over the door hooks. I can do a load of laundry in the evening and it will be dry by morning - the fact I always keep my window open probably aids this.

I do not believe there is any situation where a dryer is necessary - if we in the UK can dry laundry indoors in the tinest of our houses, or dry laundry outside even in inner cities - without clothes being covered in dirt/soot - then I'm sure most people in the US - with bigger houses and gardens - can do it .

Jon

 

[jdinstl]

According to Wikipedia...

...another name for "clothes horse" is "winterdyke."

I'll let you all think on that one.

Jon, I've been pondering getting one of these, and I think your post just cinched it.

I have in mind a "laundry center" sort of design with my portable washer, cheesy dryer, small ironing press, and storage. Rather than go verticle (stackable) go horizontal have workspace, albeit compact workspace. The dryer is a ventless that exhausts to the front through the door. I think a clothes horse set up in front of that (not close enough to block flow, but to catch some of the heat) would be beneficial.

Thinking out loud here...

John

 

[lavamat_jon]

Hehe yes - I'm a quarter Scottish, and that's what some of the Scottish side of my family calls them . Always makes me chuckle.

I would imagine it would be quite beneficial - actually Whirlpool here sells a drying rack that goes on top of the dryer and hangs over the front, so you can flat dry woollen sweaters etc whilst using the heat of the tumble dryer.

Only disadvantage is you still have to use the dryer... I've found stuff dries quickly especially if you keep the window open a snick even if its only for an hour or so.

Jon

 

[panthera]

That is not true.

I live in a tiny little flat, more like a broom closet.
The nasty old biddies in the garden tear the clothes off the line when anyone younger than 70 dares to hang them out.

I have clients in my flat regularly and, small as it is, it has to look absolutely professional.

I can not do that and have washing hanging out all over the place drying.

There are places where a dryer is unavoidable and I am in one of them for much of the year. Now, in summer, yes, I can take a good book down to the garden and stand guard (literally) over me clothes while they're drying.

Nor do my clothes dry completely "overnight" in our humidity and my building. Sadly.

Basement was once a coal cellar and anything which is hung down there comes up crunchy.

Attic is now full of advanced electronics and storage battery holders for the coming solar-panels.

 

[iheartmaytag]

Toggles,
Most of our electricity comes from Natural gas, Nuclear, and wind. They have tried, unsucessfully, several times to build two new coal plants but our former Gov. now Secretary of Health vetoed the plans four times. (Rightfully so I might add). Her reasoning, again correct, was that only 20% of the energy produced would stay in Kansas, yet 100% of the pollution would remain for us to deal with.

Kansas sets on some of the largest natural gas fields in the mid west, but we still pay higher gas costs. Because of our greedy, wastful Westar Energy Company our electric rates are also high.

Lavamatjon.
I do dry much of my laundry on the line when weather permits. Kansas has high humidity, high winds that makes conditions for outdoor drying almost impossible at times. The dryer is much more convenient in the middle of the night when the kid is puking to run a load and have it dried. My mother used to use the indoor racks, we just got away from them for convenience and space. You are, however, correct we could get along without the dryer if we were forced to. I could also get along without the dishwasher, but don't plan to do that either. Just call me a lazy American.

 

[andrewinorlando]

"I will only disagree with you on the GAS dryer mandate. Never liked them. Turns the clothes yellow, stinks, gas much much expensive in our area than electricity".

I have to compeltely disagree with that statement....I've had a gas dryer for 35 years, and never, never, never had a single issue with its performance. My clothes aren't yellow and they sure as hell don't stink from the gas burner in the machine. Gas dryers are fast, use a more "moist" heat than electric, though they do cost more and contain more moving parts. Even at $1.60 a therm and .12/kwh, it's still somewhat cheaper to operate a gas dryer than an electric one. A 22,000 BTU gas dryer puts out more heat than most electric dryers, which manage about the equivalent of about 19,000 BTUs in their typical configurations.

 

[toggleswitch2]

I rack dry when I can but the neighbors cook with some rather nasty and powerful spices; so clean clothes stink!

Of coure a dryer running on (inadequate) 110v makes it slow as heck with a 2 to 3 hour drying time. Can't use the dryer either when the _____ (name of spice) is wafting up through the floor and walls. The blower will pull it through the machine.

 

[toggleswitch2]

My understanding is a typical U.S. dryer uses 2.5 +/- kwh per load. Don't know what typical gas usage is.

 

[iheartmaytag]

I understand the spices smelling up the place. We used to have neighbors that were Heavy drinkers and smokers. The exhaust coming from their dryer vent smelled like a bar. I can only imagine what the clothes smelled like when they came out of the dryer.

 

[brisnat81]

According to the energy rating sticker on my Miele Condensor drier, it uses 4.5kw/h per load.

It all boils down to what we're used to, in Australia you dont use the dryer unless you have to. We have an indoor (Garage) and outdoor full size clothes line, and if its wet you hang things on the inside one and its dry within 24 hours. I grew up in a house with a clothesline on the verandah and two clothes horses next to the fireplace in the loungeroom. Everyone I knew growing up had at least 1 clothes horse.

All of the modern appliances I've seen in the last 20 years are still getting about a 10 year life span, which isnt bad for the price.

I think the issue comes back to the lack of 240v in the US. My 3 Gallon a load dishwasher always gets everything clean in 90 - 120 mins. Could the problem be, that without a strong heater, when you reduce the amount of water, you're reducing the amount of heat the dishwasher is trying to operate with?

With the washers, I can wash 5kg of clothes in 50L of water and everything always is bright and well rinsed. Each fill is only about 15L so I guess without an internal heater, thats going to go cold, pretty quickly and then the wash quality will drop off. Its fun to use more, but I have to choose between paying for Recycled or Desalinated water, vs dam water at a lower cost.

Toilet Wise, we've had 6-3L (1.5-.9Gal) Dual flush toilets since the late 80's. Short of dropping a stuffed animal down there they never clog and most people in Australia dont own a plunger. We dont need 5gal flushes to get the job done.

Its not hard to fit a 1gal a minute tap aerator on your hand basins and you notice no difference in the operation.

Solar hotwater has been in use for years here and from 2010 in my state it will be illegal to fit an electric storage tank to a new build (Replacements ok) It'll have to be Solar with gas or electric boost, heatpump or Gas.

The lightbulb thing, I dont see the issue with CFL, they work they same, last for years and with the good quality ones, I really cant see any difference side by side with incandesent. They just work, usually using about 1/4 to 1/5 the power. If they only lasted as long as incandescents I might be worried, but its been years since we've had to change a bulb inside or out here. I doubt in the short term that speciality Incandescents and Halogens will be phased out, it'll just be the standard bulbs for which their are a mirriad of options.

All the Changes in Australia have been without a quality of life impact to the User. They work just as well as the old ones, but use less resources and last about the same time. Australians never had a lot of money up until the 80's and 90's so we're all just used to making do and trying to save money.

 

[toggleswitch2]

~How about banning tumble dryers full stop? Have used the tumble dryer only a handful of times this year so far purely in emergency, otherwise opting to dry my laundry on the line or on the clothes horse if the weather is bad. Laundry doesn't shrink, has more "body" to it, towels are still fluffy if shaken out once dry, and things have a more fresher smell.

Can't ban them in NYC. Too many people in too little space. There is literally nowhere to dry laundry outside of a high-rise. It would look like a turd-world refugee nation here (er MORE like a ....), if it were even possible.

As much as line-drying has its benefits, I find that my clothes are wrinkled, and stiff off the rack, so I stick them in the dryer for 10 minutes. They are dried more thoroughly, fluffed, "ironed" and softened.

As far as drying indoors, I am 75% convinced that that adds lint to every surface around....either that, or my cheap stick-vac is pushing nasty things out of its back hole that is should be holding in.

 

[iheartmaytag]

~How about banning tumble dryers full stop?

Bite your tongue!!! Harder. HARDER!!! I SAID HARDER!!!
Now never speak this nonsense again.