h a l f b a k e r yMagical moments of mediocrity.
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The thing about living on a slope is that your neighbours can see into your back yard. A hazard of this is if you happen to enjoy the pleasures of certain... articles of clothing that you don't want many others to see. Most people do not want their neighbours to think that they are fetishists or have
some kind of weird obsession (especially if you were a single, straight man and you were being seen on a regular basis hanging out women's clothing).
The solution? Use the dryer. Or for the perpetually cheap? A solar or wind powered indoors dryer, perhaps for the garage. It would be shaped like a small four tiered, four-pronged washing line that is rotated at a relatively fast speed while the metal bars would be warmed up like a heater (or would perhaps be good placed infront of a heater).
The panels would be placed outdoors, on the roof, in the back yard, or a wind turbine for winter, and the electricity produced would go towards the clothes line.
Sunlizard
http://www.sunlizard.com.au/
Hot air from the sun [BunsenHoneydew, Jul 31 2006]
Solar Heating and Drying
http://www.heatwithsolar.com.au/
Create a drying room using solar power. [milly, Jan 09 2011]
DIY Heat Exchanger, by Make magazine
http://www.make-dig...m/make/vol18/?pg=58
Low cost air preheater [goldbb, Jan 16 2011]
[link]
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A nicely halfbaked idea. [+] But eliminate the solar/electric/heat conversion cycle; just use a hotbox on the roof and a small solar powered fan to pump hot air into the chamber, a la Sunlizard [link] |
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Save money on expensive solar/wind powered washing lines... |
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Wouldn't it be stranger if your garage door were opened
and the neighbors saw a machine spinning ladies underwear
in circles...? :P |
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First, select a room to use, and put in a few
clotheslines. |
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Second, add a small heat recovery ventilation
system to that room. This is nothing more than an
air preheater that uses warm air from inside the
room to heat fresh air from outdoors; the "used"
air pulled from within the room is discarded
outside, and the warmed air pulled from outside is
directed into the room. |
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The motors for the ventilator's fans (and the motor
for the air preheater, if it's of the rotating type)
don't need to be particularly powerful, and can
easily be powered by small photovoltaic panels. |
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Third, add a solar air heater or solar space heater -
- not an open loop one such as the heatwithsolar
link, but rather a closed loop one, which draws air
from inside the room, heats it, and returns it to
the room. If the room has a south-facing outside
wall, then a passive (natural convection) design
can be used, instead of a fan-forced one like the
sunlizard link. |
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If the solar collector is appropriately insulated, it
should work well in both summer and winter. |
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The combination of an air preheater and closed
loop air heater allow the room's temperature to
become almost arbitrarily high -- the limiting
factors are how much heat is lost through the
walls, how inefficient the air preheater is, and
how much sensible heat is converted into latent
heat by the moisture on the clothing. |
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Meanwhile, since the air preheater doesn't add
moisture to the air, the absolute humidity of the
air entering the room is naturally the same as that
outside the room. But since the room's air will be
hotter than the outdoor air, the relative humidity
can potentially become quite low, thus resulting in
very dry clothing. |
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Fourth (optional), add an ordinary air circulating
fan -- probably a pedestal type fan with an
oscillating mode. Again, this doesn't need to be
powerful, and could easily be powered by PV
panels. |
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This isn't necessary, but reduces how long the
clothing needs to hang to become dry. |
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Most of these components are quite inexpensive,
except perhaps the air preheater... and even that
can be cheap, if you build it yourself. |
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Here in Wales, this wouldn't work. There is no sun and all of the wind contains too much rain to be put to use. Could power it by burning sheep though... |
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A clothesline under a verandah, especially one
with
an uninsulated metal roof, is an excellent option
in
all weather. Even when it's raining, enough solar
energy is re-radiated through the roof to dry
clothes
surprisingly quickly. In hot weather, the clothes
are
protected from UV damage. |
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I don't quite see the point of generating
electricity and then converting electrical energy
to heat, unless you have a large source of easy-to-
harvest energy and no way of putting it to a
better use (such as feeding the electricity grid).
The idea that "this electricity was generated using
solar or wind, so consuming it is green" is simply a
fallacy. |
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"all weather"
It is 15 F=-10 C out. |
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