The air conditioner: a blessing on very hot and humid days. But heat and humidity make for a lot of laundry. The clothes dryer sucks up that expensively conditioned air, heats it back up then dries your clothes with it and expels it outside. Meanwhile a few yards away the air conditioner generates comparably hot air with its heat exchanger.

The proposition is simple. The dryer air intake is from immediately next to the air conditioner exhaust. Various chambers or dedicated fans might be devised or it could be as simple as a tube. This dryer would be similar to a Franklin stove in which air used for combustion is drawn from outside and exhausted without mingling with the inside air, but using the source of unnaturally hot air generated through air conditioning.
-- bungston, Jul 11 2011

Manly air freshener Manly_20air_20freshener
Shameless Elf-promotion [8th of 7, Jul 12 2011]

my *natural* idea... Raptor_20Lines
[xandram, Jul 12 2011]

Refrigerated Hot Water Heater Refrigerated_20Water_20Heater
[DIYMatt, Jul 13 2011]

Air conditioner to dry clothes (idea from 2002) Hangered Clothes Cl...g (Washing) Machine
Please read second part of short idea. [pashute, Jul 17 2011]

Compressor type clothes dryer http://www.amazon.c...ctric/dp/B0011YNAWE
[EricNutsch, Jul 18 2011]

I like it, but will add that air-conditioned air is usually low in humidity, which is good for drying clothes.

My dryer is about four feet from my AC unit, so hook me up.

There is some interest in supplying dried air instead of cooled air for in-home comfort, BTW.
-- baconbrain, Jul 11 2011


Only usable in the summer; where I live, we use the AC only 3-4 months out of the year. It would have to be easily connectable/disconnectable and inexepensive enough to make it worth buying for those of us in the Great Frozen Wilds. Otherwise, I like it.

[+]
-- Alterother, Jul 11 2011


Houses could be many times as efficient if builders were more adventurous. The waste heat from the refrigerator could be used to heat water, for instance.
-- DIYMatt, Jul 11 2011


That refrigerator idea would be so easy.
-- bungston, Jul 11 2011


And we now have very efficient heat pump water heaters, but the cool air generated by them is still wasted. Why not make use of it? Commercial systems can use a single large heat pump to make cooling water and heating water with a single machine.
-- cblunds, Jul 12 2011


It sounds very logical, except for the UK, where no one has an airconditioner.

My money is on the Apocalypse Now Sock Drier (TM), it is a RC model Bell Huey helicopter, with clothes pegs in place of rotors. Should you find a pair of socks not dried in time, clip them on the pegs and it'll spin them dry to a tinny MIDI rendition of the Ride of the Valkyries...suitable for all the Vietnam vets in your life...
-- not_morrison_rm, Jul 12 2011


Well, I live in the US and don't have an air conditioner OR a dryer, but it's still a good idea. (Actually, we own an air cond. but are too lazy to get it out of the attic!!- might have to soon though, as it is really hot now.) +
-- xandram, Jul 12 2011


// RC model Bell Huey helicopter //

Alternatively, a fixed-wing model that trails your washing behind it like a banner ...

Does an opportunity exist for airports to offer a combined High-bypass fanjet static thrust test facility and Clothes Drier ? All that energy ... OK, so the washing might smell of jet kerosene, but many men might see that as a bonus <link>
-- 8th of 7, Jul 12 2011


//[DIYMatt] why not post up the refrigerator, water heater idea?'//

Done.
-- DIYMatt, Jul 13 2011


I like both ideas... Why not combine all three in some 2nd law defying mad assembly? I can see the opportunity to use both Fridge and AC heat on the drier... and maybe on the Shower, too....
-- daseva, Jul 13 2011


The temperature of the hot air produced by the A/C's condenser is not particularly high.

The temperature of hot air needed for clothes drying inside a tumble dryer is fairly high. (Relatively, anyway).

I think that the future of indoor clothes drying will surely be heat pump dryers, or perhaps mechanical steam compression dryers.

MSC is the fastest solution -- the downside being that some clothes don't like the high temperatures.
-- goldbb, Jul 15 2011


I had to defrost the freezer bit of my fridge/freezer at the weekend. It seemed a bit silly that all the waste heat being generated by the fridge (which was still on) couldn't be diverted to the freezer to defrost it faster.

I think, in general, what is needed are some ISO standard plugs and sockets for waste (hot or cold) air, and every appliance should come with half of a heat exchanger built into it, so that any two appliances can be plugged together.
-- hippo, Jul 18 2011


I like your idea. There is always the issue of how to connect point a to point b, especially in a retrofit type application. I have thought on these type things for a while and have decided that using a heat pumping for every application directly to its immediate environment is usually most efficient over all.(fridge to room to AC etc)

A unit that i would like to own is a compressor type clothes dryer. They have them in Europe, and are starting to get them in the US. The unit works like your defroster in a car, by heating cooling the air, removing the moisture then heating it with the other side of the cycle. They dont require a dryer duct and are completely self contained; and way more efficient.
-- EricNutsch, Jul 18 2011


Re the compressor dryer - many years ago I was impressed to encounter a washing mashine in a Danish laundromat which got to 100C - boiled clothes. Now that's some clean. In the States it gets as hot as your hot water heater gets it - maybe 120? I wonder why the American approach to clothes cleaning appliances differs from the European? The Europeans did not seem radically dirtier than Americans.
-- bungston, Jul 18 2011


In hot weather, why not directly take advantage of the warm air and the phenomenon of evaporation to dry clothes, if only there were some way to suspend wet clothes in the air - perhaps using some kind of line? Hmmm, a "line" for hanging out clothes - but what on earth would someone call such a radical invention? And you'd need a way to secure the clothes to one of these suspension lines, to avoid them getting blown off in the breeze - like a peg or something.
-- zen_tom, Jul 18 2011


It's weird - US washing machines just don't wash things very well. I used to live in the US and we had a big, traditional GE machine which would churn clothes around for half an hour, relying on bleach-based washing powders to remove dirt. My current machine is a Miele and spend about 3 hours soaking and washing clothes at up to 90C - and also it spins at 1400rpm so the clothes come out nearly dry.
-- hippo, Jul 18 2011



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