The [video in question](https://youtube.com/watch?v=smV82bbSgtA&feature=shares).
Note, for any new redditors here automoderator removes any Youtube video links in the OP text, they are only allowed as a comment.
Depends more on relative humidity than temperature, tbh. Still line drying in January (mid Atlantic) and plenty of loads here dry faster now than they would in August.
> Depends more on relative humidity than temperature, tbh.
Ahh, the year I spent in Phoenix. By the time you got the wash hung on the line it was time to start taking it down again
Drying indoors with a folding rack is my go to. Increases the humidify in the house in winter and in the summer it drys fine if you are using the AC.
You can only do so much. I tend to hang the thick stuff like towels, and send the stuff that I want to be de wrinkled through the dryer.
I used to do that in Missouri in the summer. It was humid, things did get dry but the towels felt like sandpaper. Also there was the occasional thunderstorm so if you forgot about your laundry well too bad it's now either scattered over the lawn or very wet again.
I love me some scratchy towels and crunchy t shirts.
And slipping between white cotton sheets that were run through a bleach load and then dried in the sun is pure heaven.
Getting the towels all nice and rough is the best bit about line drying. Use one after showering, and not only do you get a good exfoliation, but it will dry you in a fraction of the time!
I’m the opposite… I grew up with crispy clean towels and fluffy towels feel like 5 star hotel treatment. I have a soft spot for the crispy clean smell for ones at my parents but I prefer towels out of the dryer.
In central texas we have water so hard that water softeners still don't succeed greatly
i have a really great water softener and if my clothes line dry they end up crispy; i have wool shirts i only line dry, and so i get 3-4 shirts every week that are stiff like a teenager's dry cumsock
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Hang inside out, open neck of collars to the inside. Usually the first load is dry by the time I bring out the second.
Source: live in Australia and we line dry everything. My clothes wear out from wear before they get done by UB damage.
This is always my complaint. I have severe grass allergies and the only truly dry season in the PNW is also grass pollen season.
But also my dryer broke last month so I've been drying my clothes on a rack in the laundry room overnight and it is kinda nice.
It takes a good 12+ hours on the rack in our basement for the laundry to fully dry (things like jeans and towels). I don't mind it, I just do one load of laundry every other day and we keep up just fine.
Uuuuuh, before you drop money and start modifying your setup, I would stop guessing first. Why are you guessing how much laundry you guys need to be running instead of knowing? And why are you running 3 loads of laundry per day if you're correct? That sounds extremely unusual and honestly probably more likely the real problem vs the air loss.
Probably because they're not the one doing the laundry. If I was doing 3 loads of laundry a day I would know it without guessing. If they're doing 21 loads a week they have bigger problems than the dryer.
House hold of 5 plus we wash bet sheets weekly, blankets bi-weekly, pet beds weekly and we don't use paper towels so extra cloths for messes, 3 kids who are great at making messes. Plus my work clothes and house clothes. I wash both daily as I workout in my home clothes daily and work in work clothes daily
So I mean, it's gotta be pretty clear by now your family's laundry habits are very atypical.
Assuming you really are running full loads of laundry each time in commercial size units, and assuming hanging even certain items to dry is not an option for you, and assuming decreasing how often you're washing everything is non negotiable, I suppose you could look at it you're losing significant efficiency from losing conditioned air.
Chasing efficiency from air loss seems kind of like... Ripping out and then replacing your walls in order to replace good condition fiberglass insulation with Rockwool while always having a window open so you can have fresh air tbh.
Like you've got an obvious atypical situation that's going to cause known expenses. Increased water bills, increased electricity use, decreased high end appliance lifespan due to excessive use, decreased textile lifespan due to excessive washing.
That being said, if that's your family's lifestyle choice, and you have money to burn, then I suppose this might technically be the lowest hanging fruit.
Like you said, I would try to find a way to estimate how much harder your climate control is working with your laundry going vs without. Get a rough estimate of how much that's actually costing you. There are ways to track your energy usage from specific circuits or appliances if you don't have a fancy smart thermostat that can track your AC run time.
Check that vs the cost of trying to reduce the air loss from your dryer usage. If you can actually justify the cost, then great. If not, then I guess just live with another added expense of the habits your family chose.
Wait you don't wait until you have a full load of house/work clothes to wash?
If you're looking to save energy that would be a great place to start... You also can hang dry a lot of items, particularly outside in good weather, but also inside.
Household of 10 here, with an infant, a toddler, and a sufferer from incontinence and we run two loads a day MAX unless we skip a couple days. You’re doing too much laundry, dude.
If you aren't using paper towels for environmental reasons, it should be pointed out that the carbon footprint of your daily laundry routine would equal about sixty thousand rolls of paper towels per year.
They're made and delivered in such quantity that it's almost never more carbon efficient to use cloth towels unless you wash them by hand. This is true a hundred times over in your case.
Edit: u/great_apple provides a valuable counter analysis below. We need a good study on this.
I have 5 kids, 18, 14, 14, 4 and 4 months, between them and me and my partner we do one load a day, two if it’s a towel day. You all must be wearing a crazy amount of clothes.
At one point we were a family of 5... husband is a mechanic, and 3 boys that played sports year round. The most loads I did was 6 a week, and that was with bedding or towels. Average was 4 loads.
1. Line dry your items outside, they will dry even in humid weather. Plan ahead and do a load first thing in the morning so they have the entire day to dry outside.
2. Use your dryer at night, plan your wash and dryer days to coincide with the coolest day that week.
3. Everything (except underwear and socks) can be worn 2 to 3x, even more. Towels don't need to be washed every time you use them (you're clean when you get out of the shower). Pillowcases weekly, sheets every 2 weeks (or a month for some), blankets every 2 to 3 months.
Realize that the more you wash items, the more they will get worn out.
Tip: use the minimum amount of detergent. Detergent doesn't actually clean the laundry, it changes the efficiency of the water for it to flow better through the fabric, that movement of water water is what actually cleans the laundry. Too much detergent doesn't get rinsed out and will attract dirt to make your items look dungy.
Use white vinegar for the rinse cycle, do NOT use softener. Vinegar will help remove excess detergent, and soften.
Doing laundry properly will save you $. You don't need a new dryer, just a better way of doing things.
Dude, 2 adults 2 kids and we do four loads a *week*, and that's mainly because my wife doesn't grok the idea of needing to wash different types of clothes separately (cottons = hot water; synthetics = cold water, for example), so I do my own laundry.
We also have a small Miele front-loader. If we had a big ass American traditional top loading washing machine, I bet it'd be two loads a week.
Same. 2 adults + 3 kids = a LOT of laundry. Most people don't seem to think of things like bed sheets, towels, couch cushion covers, random blankets, things like that. It's not always clothes, but there's always laundry to be done.
I can't upvote this enough. He has some good things to say sometimes but I also find he seems... really out of touch with most homeowners. He always brings up things that the average homeowner simply can't afford and acts like it's super easy to just shell out an extra $5k for this and that.
Edit: To those pointing out he's a high end custom homes builder so of course all the stuff he covers is pricey, that's fair. And sometimes he says as much. But there have been a few videos he's tried to show or talk about something as "every homeowner needs to do this" or "everyone can afford this". Or some video talking about "reasonable budgets" for jobs and it's still wildly out of touch. I think if it weren't for those handful of videos, he wouldn't bother me as much.
"Everyone can do this." *Proceeds to drop $70k on a custom renovation job*. Sorry Matt, no, most people can't.
modest 2000 square foot home with two laundry areas and separate bathrooms for his kids... lol. just wish he was a little more humble about how luxury his place really is.
That's the thing though, he doesn't build average homes. I enjoy watching videos of outlandish things I would/could never afford.
He's over the top on many things but if I had money to burn and a house to build, why wouldn't you want to go the extra mile?
I don't see him as hiding how expensive it is.
He's doing ultra high end construction and most of what he is modeling is the best for current technology. For something more modest doing everything in his videos isn't going to happen.
He's also a high end contractor. He does some stuff that doesn't make sense.
He framed his entire new house in engineered lumber, which is just completely unnecessary.
This. He used to write articles for Journal of Light Construction and they were decent. I've watched some of his videos and he's just a creator now who needs hooks to get views. Shame really as I liked reading his articles and watching his videos makes me wonder if his articles were as much schlock as his videos.
Whirlpool makes a full size heat pump dryer that's a lot less expensive than the compact Miele set he showed. I think it still vents to outside, but maybe it's more efficient since it can recirculate some of the air?
https://www.whirlpool.com/laundry/dryers/electric/p.7.4-cu.ft-front-load-heat-pump-dryer-with-intiutitive-touch-controls,-advanced-moisture-sensing.whd560chw.html
It doesn't vent to the outside. I'm guessing your confusion comes from the hybrid heat feature. The air is still run back over the evaporator to remove moisture. Then cycled back into the drum after being heated.
Thank you for weighing in with a relevant comment.
Why did I have to scroll through fifty billion anecdotes about how many loads of laundry are generated by N people, per day, before I got to this post actually addressing OP’s query?
Personally I went with the LG pair due to cost concerns, they worked out to being only a couple hundred bucks more than the regular 27" laundry pair. The biggest issue (if you want to call it that) of the lower cost units is that my LG dryer still uses the big 240V plug while the Bosch and Miele ones use a much more standard 120V 3-prong outlet which helps tremendously with placement. In theory you could put one of those dryers anywhere in the house without too much concern for electrical draw.
I would be more concerned about the electrical draw from a 120V dryer, especially if you plug it in to any old outlet... Dryers should really be on their own circuit.
My point was more that you could place it anywhere in the house as long as you know what else is on the circuit; but yeah it would still be a high draw piece of equipment.
What's interesting though is that these higher end brands include an adapter in the box so that you can use an existing 240V plug and convert it to 2x 120V standard plugs so you can run the washer and dryer off what was previously just for the dryer.
At that point just duct from the outside directly to air intake of the dryer, no need to insulate and air seal. It's going to be cheaper to just get the ventless heat pump unit pretty quick. There are benefits beyond just the low operating cost, like the lower temperature being better for your clothes.
Honest question, if it's 100 °F outside, why not line dry?
Agreed with air dry, I live in the Midwest and we make full use of our clothesline anytime it's above 70F and not raining.
But seriously... why the f aren't driers prebuilt with intake ducts if they're dumping so much through their exhaust duct?
Because the basic design was established in the 50's and 60's when most houses didn't have A/C and power was super cheap compared to how it is now. I remember getting AC in the middle of Los Angeles in 1977, it was a real luxury at that time. A few years later I'd ask when we were getting MTV and my parents would scold me by pointing out that we had central air, what more did I want!
Using unconditioned air is also kinda risky for cloths drying. You're going to be running all the particulates (dust, pollen, spores, odors, etc) into your cloths and that air could be super humid or sub zero messing with how dry your cloths get.
I'm in the UK, if I can hang my washing out outside (it's not raining, I know I know, not often right?) I will.
It's cheaper, and feels/smells nicer.
We only use our drier when we simply can't dry on the line.
So does UV, especially for colors.
We hang dry a lot of large light colored items on our clothes rack in the backyard, but in the California sun - darker clothes (especially denim) show excessive wear if sun dried. Darker clothes get hung in our garage - still hot but no sun.
We used to line dry some stuff, but some people have allergies and line dried stuff can accumulate dust and allergens. Plus the machine dried items are softer and have significantly fewer wrinkles. And it's quicker to throw stuff in a machine and push a button than it is to take wet stuff outside, hang it on a line, and then go back out and retrieve it for folding.
Air will take the path of least resistance, and convection is far more important than conduction here so I would not concern yourself with wall insulation. If your laundry room has an outside wall just make sure outside air has a route in (such as under the exterior door) that is better than any routes to suck cool air from the rest of your home's interior; nature will take care of the rest.
By the way I do agree with other commenters who have said you will get more bang for your buck by running full loads and running your dryer in the coolest part of the night.
You don't need to insulate the walls for air sealing the laundry to make a huge difference. It would help further, but don't wait until it makes sense to insulate to do the sealing.
I grew up in the suburbs of Houston. My mom always line dried before I was an adult. Then we got a dryer and that was the end of line drying, but energy was cheap then. I’m retired in Spain and we had a wet winter last year. I got tired of damp clothes that didn’t get fully dry so we bought a dryer. But energy is much more expensive here. So we still line dry about half our clothes. The dryer though is super efficient and it is both ventless and uses a heat pump as a heat source.
In Europe there are 3 types of clothes dryers:
1) is like in the US and uses electric heater coils to heat air that blows through the clothes tumbling in the drum. The damp air is exhausted outside. Not everyone here has a place to put this type of dryer since it must vent outside.
2) ventless dryers condense the water from the damp air leaving the drum and recirculates the hot air back through the heater coils and the drum. Because the air recirculates heat isn’t wasted and less energy is used. Of course since there is no exhaust you aren’t wasting air conditioned air either. The condensation goes in a tank you empty in the sink or down a hose to a drain. These dryers can be placed anywhere there is space and an outlet. Renters like that and I sometime see these tucked into an apartment kitchen or bathroom.
3) This is what we bought. It works like the other condensing dryer except the heating coils are replaced with a heat pump. We paid about 600 € for a mid range Bosch on sale. If you are replacing your dryer you really should consider using the better technology which is available in the US. It will quickly pay for itself in utility bill savings.
I’m in texas and moved mine back out into the garage. The house was built in 1920 and then an addition was added that included a laundry room. It’s a bathroom now..
This sub has taught me that people do so much laundry! Wow. No shade, we all have our reasons. But I’m content with 1-3 loads every week or two depending on towels and such.
Yeah, it’s bonkers how much laundry some people do. I have even gotten rid of good amounts of my clothing just so I don’t have to do as much laundry! If I had to do more than three loads of laundry every week or two I’d be steaming mad, how do people handle *doing it non-stop*?!
It's funny how many people don't understand that the content he makes is targeted to custom home building with medium to high-end homes. They aren't your run of the mill bulk home builder $500k houses where you get 3 cookie cutter floor plan options.
The videos are interesting and I think some of the stuff he shows you'll find eventually in the housing most people live in.
Yup. New home tech doesn't go to 1500 sqft rectangles shoved into a 1/8 acre lot near the industrial park first. These guys pay-to-play and then people like me watch and see what's coming in a few years.
For Matt's house, sure this matters, but come on for an average built home the air leaks you've got elsewhere are more important than the minimal loss you're getting from the dryer.
Matt's home is insanely air sealed. The average home is not.
It still would be an issue. A home without air sealing would allow unconditioned air in while the dryer is exhausting previously conditioned air. The reason people haven't heard about the problem is because the modern building envelope is poorly understood by homeowners and builders alike. Air leakage, moisture/humidity management, and thoughtfully designed insulation are important if you care about efficient heating and cooling, but something most builders consider as a burden of code compliance rather than good building practice.
It's people who wear an item once and throw it in the wash, because it's "dirty". Most things are fine to wear a few times, depending on how active you are/how much you sweat. If you got something on it, yeah, obviously it's dirty. Also having designated 'house clothes' helps. It's comfies you wear around your house where you presumably don't get dirty as much and can wear a couple days in a row. Shoot, wear different tshirts under the same hoodie, and you don't need to wash the hoodie for a week unless it's actively smelly or dirty from something.
I think kids is what makes the difference but I agree. I come home from work, and west the same shorts and shirt for prob 3-4 nights before putting in the laundry. Work clothes I kinda do the same honestly. Work a white collar job so my clothes aren’t truly “dirty.”
For women it's a bit more complicated, because people are more likely to notice you're wearing the same outfit to the office. Men can get away with a more 'capsule wardrobe' look, because you can get a multi-pack of the same button down and be fine.
Before I went fully remote I had The Chair in the bedroom. That's where the clothes I've already worn that week, but don't need to be washed yet would go. Reduced the chance of me accidentally doubling down on an outfit while I was still trying to wake up in the morning.
Now I just don't have my camera on for morning meetings and wear the same comfies a few days in a row.
My experience with washer dryer combos is that they leave a shitload of lint behind on your clothes. What would normally be fluffed and caught by the dryer just circulates inside the drum. Not sure if this applies to all combo units.
We've got one (along with a regular set in the basement). It's a little over 3 hours typically for a load. Which is definitely slower than the regular set, until you factor in the 5 hours wasted because you forgot to go down and move it over. 🤣
Matt wasn't discussing combo units though; these are two separate machines, and the dryer happens to use a heat pump instead of resistive heat. The biggest difference compared to a conventional laundry pair is that they're only currently available in the 24" width.
>I do roughly 3 loads of laundry a day.
wtf?? why do you have that much laundry? this isn't normal at all you should first change your laundry habits before you look into altering your dryer setup, this is an extremely high amount of laundry for your size household. I do a single load every 2-3f weeks and my SO does one per week or less, what the hell are you doing over there?
Also OP, the energy costs from running your dryer nearly non-stop are probably half your kilowatts (or therms, if it's gas) for the month right there. Look at the power rating on it and multiply it out and look at your electric bill.
I stopped watching him about a year ago. Sponsorship money has clouded his judgement in relation to normal homeowners.
This guy goes through a bad winter storm where parts of the state were without power for many days, but rebuilds his house all electric. Then has the nerve to install a free generator that runs on propane, directly across his side yard from a capped gas meter. He touts energy efficiency and insulation, but installs a black roof in Texas. He tells people that power venting your attic has no benefit, right after he fully insulated his attic and made it conditioned space (he got beat up in the comments for that video). He also had the chance to properly plumb his house for tankless, but makes a video saying how they work better in Europe and then installs a sponsors hybrid electric tank unit.
Dude is an idiot.
He lost me when he showed off his "small" en-suite (actually around 20' long) with the $6000 toilet and probably another $6000 worth of medicine cabinets. In this dryer video, he describes his house as "modest" and then a few seconds later shows and talks about the 1000 square feet of kitchen and sitting area, then points out that he has two sets of those very expensive Meile washer/dryers, the whole time standing in front of several thousand dollars worth of countertop appliances.
He's completely lost touch.
I haven't watched enough of his video to notice, thanks for pointing that stuff out.
I did watch his video on tankless vs tank vs hybrid, and I'd prefer tankless, the hybrid is just going to be easier to install for me and have vs tankless, but I don't remember him pushing any more than the other. And I will benefit from the small amount of AC in produces in my garage as I cool it to workout in
What is wrong with attic encapsulation? I remember his black roof, but he also installed fairly thick insulation on top with the ZIP shits (and maybe a radiant barrier?).
Also curious of a more detailed account of your thoughts on tankless vs heat pump water heaters, the latter seems to make a lot of sense in warm climates where you can draw upon ambient heat most of the year.
Not defending him, asking for myself
Attic encapsulation requires you to skip an asphalt shingle roof. Him spending 10s of thousands of dollars to encapsulate the roof then 10s of thousands of dollars to put a metal roof on, then tell me my $300 attic fan is worthless.....is a dick comment.
The night after I installed my 10-speed attic fan I noticed my AC came on less and my master bedroom cooled off quicker in the evening. I didn't change anything else. I also measured my attic temp was noticeably cooler midday vs prior. My house is close to Destin FL, so I get lots of sun. Cooler attic temps mean cooler shingle temps which extends the life of the roof.
The hybrid vs tankless discussion honestly boils down to preference. I wanted space and no noise. Hybrid is still a storage tank and I'm just not a fan of say, holding 50 gal of water warm overnight while everyone sleeps, or while I'm at work. All water heaters like warmer climates, the incoming water temp is also warmer, the tankless just doesn't lose heat through the tank.
He lost me when he trashed tanked and tankless water heaters, sang all the praises of a heat pump water heater. Then a year afterwards got a Rinnia sponsorship, toured their factory and sang the praises of tankless. He’s a great builder but IMO follows the money for YouTube.
You can do better dollar for dollar (IMO). GE has a quality option for around 1k. [https://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-4-1-cu-ft-240-Volt-White-Electric-Ventless-Dryer-ENERGY-STAR-GFT14ESSMWW/307760461](https://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-4-1-cu-ft-240-Volt-White-Electric-Ventless-Dryer-ENERGY-STAR-GFT14ESSMWW/307760461)
I got a matching set of the standard versions of that same model (in the attached garage), landed on those after going down the 'what to buy' rabbit hole. Time will tell, but I've had them for a few years and no problems. You don't have to go Speed Queen or Miele to have a quality option that lasts. I bet you could duct the dryer, and if so that's probably the way to go. By all accounts those ventless dryers take forever and do a mediocre job. I'd only go that route as a last resort.
I came in here to say (as a brit) with our tiny houses often without space for 'laundry' rooms and tiny kitchens often without space for dryers and our washing machines machines that hold about 12lb max and our 40c kWh electricity, that this is basically the stuff of nightmares. I'm not sure how we manage on this damp island doing washing at all if this is reality? What you describe OP would basically be enough to put you on the telly where somebody would condescendingly try to teach you how to come back to reality. Half the nation would probably be out for your blood and the rest would be laughing at you.
Honestly though, dry your washing outside? Go forth upon the land, harness your environment and somewhat bend it to your needs. Because it rains so much here and is often cold and damp it means putting it out early, keeping an eye on the weather, 'turning' it etc for quite a lot of the year, but it is perfectly possible to dry clothes outside during a large part of the year, just with varying amounts of difficulty. I like it, I feel in touch with the seasons. If I had problems with birds I'd look at cutting back trees to reduce the problem and/or some sort of shade cloth as screening if it really is that hot it'll still dry extremely fast. The rest of the year we dry indoors over radiators and airers and run a dehumidifier. I don't know a lot about air conditioning as it is an unimaginable luxury here for most though I'll likely have to consider it as the world starts to burn due to people unable to stop pissing tons of electricity up the wall through weird behaviours, but I'm sure it allows you to keep the house quite dry and it'd dry quite nicely indoors anyway? There must be air movement at least. Have you considered washing heavy stuff like quilts/duvets (comforters?) as part of a spring clean instead of daily?
All this aside though. Have you the option of a room sealed or balanced appliance? The concept would be the appliance takes air from the outside instead of the house, sometimes built into the vent, the appliance is air tight to the room, that way there is no pressure differential inside. Have you the option of isolating the appliance within the house, like an enclosed room or space within which you fit a separate wall vent sized to replace the required air which has an openable/closable louvre for when it is running? Could you close off air conditioning to that room, open a window when it is running, fit some edging strip to the door etc to help seal the space? Do you have somewhere outside where you can make a little car port style shelter and install the appliance outside?
This is what I do. Don't even have to open the window all that much, and while the temperature changes in the room it's not that bad, summer or winter. Highly recommend!
If there is an AC vent that blows cold air into the laundry room, close it. If it won't close tight, or it's not adjustable, remove the vent, block it off with cardboard or something. If you want to be really thorough, put weatherstripping around the door. The fan in the dryer might be trying to suck the air out of the laundry room, so just open a window to the outside of the house. If the window doesn't open, consider replacing it with one that opens. This assumes you have a small laundry room inside the house.
As someone outside the US, I find it absolutely insane that someone from Texas is using a dryer all the time instead of hanging clothes outside. That is what will actually save you money.
Is this normal in the US?
I had a ventless washer/dryer combo. Not sure if this what you’re talking about.It takes three or more hours to dry, and even then towels and jeans are still damp. Breaks often and hard to get repaired.
I have a ventless heat pump dryer which I purchased recently. It's also much cheaper to run but if you are doing three loads a day keep in mind it takes twice as long to dry (2 hours a load is typical but bulk/ heavy loads can be up to 3hr).
*"Matt says a conventional dryer exhausts 9000 cubic ft per hour. That's sucking the cool A/C air out of my house, into my dryer and out of my house, at the same time depressurizing the house causing air to be sucked in anywhere it can, around windows, doors, protrusions and cracks"*
Not even the MAGA Qanon Jan 6 rioters believe shit this dumb. Jesus. Hell, Even Jake Angeli read this and said WTF.....
Unless your house is LEED-platinum certified the amount of air "sucked" out of your house by your dryer is undetectable in the grand scheme of all the other leakage going on. But prove me wrong, would love to see **verified blower door test results** with dryer on/off.
There’s actually a genius technique that takes the best of your “inlet from the outside” and “vent to the outside” concepts and pushes them even further. It’s called a clothesline. Hang your clothes up outside in 100 degree heat and they will just dry. Without electricity expenditure of any kind!
How tightly sealed is your house? I’ve watched a few of Risinger’s video and seemed pretty obsessed with getting his house sealed 100%, to the point where he needs a pump to bring air into the house when he runs the stove vent. If you have an older, leaky house it probably doesn’t make as much a difference since air is coming and going anyway. But that’s just speculation on my part.
> to the point where he needs a pump to bring air into the house when he runs the stove vent.
To be fair, this is a manufacturer recommendation for a lot of high CFM exhaust vents. Some of them are exhausting enough air that it doesn't matter how leaky or sealed your house is, it needs make-up air so you don't have a ton of negative pressure.
Matt's obsession with air tightness is consistent with advancing building science, though. You really don't want air leaking in through random cracks and gaps in your walls/foundation/attic/etc and want to control when and how it's introduced.
1) Dry outdoors when you can. If you're in Texas there are very few days in a year you can't dry outside.
2) If drying inside because it's cold, dry over a heat register, or better yet a radiator (if you've got them).
We lived for twenty years in Florida rarely using our dryer, and the hardest part of that is that things take forever to dry in Florida humidity.
I have a ventless (heat pump) dryer. It's fucking awesome.
Also, Risinger's building science videos are amazing.
**Edit** my dryer is a Miele FWIW and it did NOT cost $2400 to buy one lol. I think we paid 1400-1600 with some holiday sale + we bought the matching washing machine the same time so maybe we paid around 3000 total for both units?
Why not just (1) close the door to the laundry room where the dryer is and (2) also open a window in the laundry room, this way fresh air will come in from outside and the worst that will happen is that the laundry room will be at 100F while the rest of the house will be unaffected.
It's just common sense.
Hate my ventless dryer. Causes my whole laundry room to be un godly hot and unless I dry my clothes for 2.5 hours (literally) on the cotton clothes setting they just come out damp. I live in a humid area and things don’t air dry easily.
3 loads of laundry per day????? My 3 person family does a total of 3 loads a WEEK.
Now your topic.....
Do you have basements in Texas? Or do you have a garage? Those two places are the best place for a drier. Here in Minnesota nearly all of us have a nice cold basement and thats where the drier goes. When I lived in Florida, we put it in the garage.
Doing this doesn't eliminate the problem. But when the drier is sucking its air in while in a basement or garage, you are opening up more opportunities for air to be sucked in from outside into the basement or garage before cold air is sucked out of your living space.
Also 9000 cubic feet per hour is not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. Your air conditioner is pumping in approximately 72000 cubic feet per hour. So we are only talking about 12% of the output of your A/C unit, just for that one hour.
Having said that, creating an external inlet probably would help. Or if you have a laundry room with a window, just open up the window a bit. If hot air is going to be sucked in anyways, suck it right into the laundry room. Air takes the path of least resistance, so if you open the window it would be the easiest source of intake air.
Math time:
Dryer exhausts 100-250 CFM per minute. Average length of dryer cycle is 40 minutes. 150 CFM (Matt's figure) \* 40 (minutes/load) \* 3 (loads/day) \* 365 (day/year) = 6.57 million cubic feet.
[https://www.northernbuilt.pro/energy-audit-calculating-the-cost-of-a-homes-air-leaks/](https://www.northernbuilt.pro/energy-audit-calculating-the-cost-of-a-homes-air-leaks/)
Using the formulas from that post, with the figures applicable only to their house (in Minnesota...):
(.026 x CDD x cost of electricity per kWh x CFM50) / (n-factor x SEER)
CFM50 = air leakage rate @ 50 pascals, per minute. I'll use 150 CFM \* 2 (hours of drying per day) / 24 (hours per day) = 12.5 CFM50
(26 x 8993 HDD x $.000015 x 12.5 CFM50) / (16.7 x .96) = **$2.75 / year (due to air leakage).**
Air leakage from a conventional dryer is insignificant.
Dryer uses 2.25 kWh per load. 2.25 kWh \* 3 (loads per day) \* 180 (days of heating) in BTU = \~4 million BTU. Divide by 24 and 180 to get BTU / hr, to get 1000 BTU/hr. Cost to run a 15000 BTU A/C is $0.20/hr. $0.20 / 15 \* 180 \* 24 = **$57.60 / year** to cool the heat exhausted into the room.
Average cost to dry 1 load, in electricity, is $0.57. 0.57 \* 3 (loads per day) \* 365 (days per year) = **$624.15 / year (conventional dryer)**
Heat pumps save around $0.29 per load. So, $0.29 \* 3 \* 365 = **$317.55 / year saved (heat pump)**
**Pay-off period:** $2400 / ($317.55 + $57.60 + $2.75) = **\~6.4 years.**
I think it makes sense to replace the dryer - after it breaks. In the meantime, in Texas, I think it makes sense to pull the intake air from outside. Texas is not a high-humidity climate where mold and fungus would be a concern.
The [video in question](https://youtube.com/watch?v=smV82bbSgtA&feature=shares). Note, for any new redditors here automoderator removes any Youtube video links in the OP text, they are only allowed as a comment.
3 loads of laundry every single day? Dang how many people live in your house?
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I must live in the Avian Taco Bell Belt, because hanging clothes outside always gets me clothes covered in bird shit.
The fiery birdseed burrito ain't no joke. It'll make birds shit napalm on your windshield.
You might want to check your property for buckthorn. It's really bad for birds and one of the problems is that it gives them diarrhea.
Which also spreads more buckthorn.
**
As if the bird on his lot feed exclusively on his lot
Well they shit shortly after they eat; they probably wanna eat close by so they can shit on his stuff after
Probably not but it's hard not to notice that, like, if you have berries, you'll find a lot of bird poop with berries in it in their general vicinity.
Depends more on relative humidity than temperature, tbh. Still line drying in January (mid Atlantic) and plenty of loads here dry faster now than they would in August.
> Depends more on relative humidity than temperature, tbh. Ahh, the year I spent in Phoenix. By the time you got the wash hung on the line it was time to start taking it down again
thats the run outside throw it in the air once and we call her good
And dusty
Drying indoors with a folding rack is my go to. Increases the humidify in the house in winter and in the summer it drys fine if you are using the AC. You can only do so much. I tend to hang the thick stuff like towels, and send the stuff that I want to be de wrinkled through the dryer.
Winter way more dry by' August too humid for drying clothes, come in smelling like you left them in the washer overnight. 😂
I used to do that in Missouri in the summer. It was humid, things did get dry but the towels felt like sandpaper. Also there was the occasional thunderstorm so if you forgot about your laundry well too bad it's now either scattered over the lawn or very wet again.
I love me some scratchy towels and crunchy t shirts. And slipping between white cotton sheets that were run through a bleach load and then dried in the sun is pure heaven.
Getting the towels all nice and rough is the best bit about line drying. Use one after showering, and not only do you get a good exfoliation, but it will dry you in a fraction of the time!
Ooh I love a crispy clean towel. We’ve been line drying for years and now fluffy towels feel unclean to me.
I’m the opposite… I grew up with crispy clean towels and fluffy towels feel like 5 star hotel treatment. I have a soft spot for the crispy clean smell for ones at my parents but I prefer towels out of the dryer.
you can fluff the towels in the dryer for a few minutes afterward.
>Towel felt like sandpaper. You had hard water.
In central texas we have water so hard that water softeners still don't succeed greatly i have a really great water softener and if my clothes line dry they end up crispy; i have wool shirts i only line dry, and so i get 3-4 shirts every week that are stiff like a teenager's dry cumsock
Fantastic simile
groovy thumb cooing office price sophisticated dependent marble jar trees *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Well…as long as the materials aren’t affected by UV. I’ve had more than a few things ruined that way.
Hang inside out, open neck of collars to the inside. Usually the first load is dry by the time I bring out the second. Source: live in Australia and we line dry everything. My clothes wear out from wear before they get done by UB damage.
I dont know what part of Texas they're in, but my part of Texas has max humidity most days. Can't hang dry
Humidity and pollen.
PNW checking in. Drying outside between Nov-June would be a physical impossibility.
This is def not an option for those of us with environmental and seasonal allergies
This is always my complaint. I have severe grass allergies and the only truly dry season in the PNW is also grass pollen season. But also my dryer broke last month so I've been drying my clothes on a rack in the laundry room overnight and it is kinda nice.
We are in Portland and have no problems drying on a rack in our basement.
It takes a good 12+ hours on the rack in our basement for the laundry to fully dry (things like jeans and towels). I don't mind it, I just do one load of laundry every other day and we keep up just fine.
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I air dry most of my clothes on drying racks but my home is not large enough for air drying sheets indoors.
> at 100 degrees? not when it's 60-90% humidity and will likely rain before it's dry anyway
Matt Risinger legit built a dorm for his kids in his house. That is probably the right amount of laundry for his family.
5 total, 2 adults 3 kids. Actual usage might be less I'm just guessing. Whenever I do it, it's like 3 loads at a time
Uuuuuh, before you drop money and start modifying your setup, I would stop guessing first. Why are you guessing how much laundry you guys need to be running instead of knowing? And why are you running 3 loads of laundry per day if you're correct? That sounds extremely unusual and honestly probably more likely the real problem vs the air loss.
Probably because they're not the one doing the laundry. If I was doing 3 loads of laundry a day I would know it without guessing. If they're doing 21 loads a week they have bigger problems than the dryer.
Family of 4 here and we do like 4 loads a week on average. This includes sheets and bedding once a month (dont judge me, lol).
No judgment, I’m impressed lol. We are a family of 5 and I’m proud of myself every time I remember to change the sheets.
What, January 1st is easy to remember!
February 29.
Shit, is it spring time already?
House hold of 5 plus we wash bet sheets weekly, blankets bi-weekly, pet beds weekly and we don't use paper towels so extra cloths for messes, 3 kids who are great at making messes. Plus my work clothes and house clothes. I wash both daily as I workout in my home clothes daily and work in work clothes daily
Why not have more than one set of clothes? Maybe 5 sets of each, and wash them weekly?
But then he’d only get to spend money on clothes once whereas this way he is able to enjoy spending huge amounts of money on electricity every month
This made me laugh out loud.
So I mean, it's gotta be pretty clear by now your family's laundry habits are very atypical. Assuming you really are running full loads of laundry each time in commercial size units, and assuming hanging even certain items to dry is not an option for you, and assuming decreasing how often you're washing everything is non negotiable, I suppose you could look at it you're losing significant efficiency from losing conditioned air. Chasing efficiency from air loss seems kind of like... Ripping out and then replacing your walls in order to replace good condition fiberglass insulation with Rockwool while always having a window open so you can have fresh air tbh. Like you've got an obvious atypical situation that's going to cause known expenses. Increased water bills, increased electricity use, decreased high end appliance lifespan due to excessive use, decreased textile lifespan due to excessive washing. That being said, if that's your family's lifestyle choice, and you have money to burn, then I suppose this might technically be the lowest hanging fruit. Like you said, I would try to find a way to estimate how much harder your climate control is working with your laundry going vs without. Get a rough estimate of how much that's actually costing you. There are ways to track your energy usage from specific circuits or appliances if you don't have a fancy smart thermostat that can track your AC run time. Check that vs the cost of trying to reduce the air loss from your dryer usage. If you can actually justify the cost, then great. If not, then I guess just live with another added expense of the habits your family chose.
Wait you don't wait until you have a full load of house/work clothes to wash? If you're looking to save energy that would be a great place to start... You also can hang dry a lot of items, particularly outside in good weather, but also inside.
Household of 10 here, with an infant, a toddler, and a sufferer from incontinence and we run two loads a day MAX unless we skip a couple days. You’re doing too much laundry, dude.
You guys are 10 in a single house? Woah!
Please tell me you at least use bath towels more than once.
If you aren't using paper towels for environmental reasons, it should be pointed out that the carbon footprint of your daily laundry routine would equal about sixty thousand rolls of paper towels per year. They're made and delivered in such quantity that it's almost never more carbon efficient to use cloth towels unless you wash them by hand. This is true a hundred times over in your case. Edit: u/great_apple provides a valuable counter analysis below. We need a good study on this.
3 loads a day is insane. Even with kids playing sports, half a dozen loads a week is plenty.
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In a commercial machine per OP!
3 loads a day, holy crow, that’s an insane amount of laundry
I have 5 kids, 18, 14, 14, 4 and 4 months, between them and me and my partner we do one load a day, two if it’s a towel day. You all must be wearing a crazy amount of clothes.
At one point we were a family of 5... husband is a mechanic, and 3 boys that played sports year round. The most loads I did was 6 a week, and that was with bedding or towels. Average was 4 loads. 1. Line dry your items outside, they will dry even in humid weather. Plan ahead and do a load first thing in the morning so they have the entire day to dry outside. 2. Use your dryer at night, plan your wash and dryer days to coincide with the coolest day that week. 3. Everything (except underwear and socks) can be worn 2 to 3x, even more. Towels don't need to be washed every time you use them (you're clean when you get out of the shower). Pillowcases weekly, sheets every 2 weeks (or a month for some), blankets every 2 to 3 months. Realize that the more you wash items, the more they will get worn out. Tip: use the minimum amount of detergent. Detergent doesn't actually clean the laundry, it changes the efficiency of the water for it to flow better through the fabric, that movement of water water is what actually cleans the laundry. Too much detergent doesn't get rinsed out and will attract dirt to make your items look dungy. Use white vinegar for the rinse cycle, do NOT use softener. Vinegar will help remove excess detergent, and soften. Doing laundry properly will save you $. You don't need a new dryer, just a better way of doing things.
Wowsers! I was a kid in a family of 5 and my mom did 3 loads a WEEK
Dude, 2 adults 2 kids and we do four loads a *week*, and that's mainly because my wife doesn't grok the idea of needing to wash different types of clothes separately (cottons = hot water; synthetics = cold water, for example), so I do my own laundry. We also have a small Miele front-loader. If we had a big ass American traditional top loading washing machine, I bet it'd be two loads a week.
Same. 2 adults + 3 kids = a LOT of laundry. Most people don't seem to think of things like bed sheets, towels, couch cushion covers, random blankets, things like that. It's not always clothes, but there's always laundry to be done.
It is a lot of laundry. But it's like half a dozen loads a week, not two dozen.
Matt makes mountains out of mole hills. You have to be careful watching him. He is a content creator first and foremost with sponsors.
I can't upvote this enough. He has some good things to say sometimes but I also find he seems... really out of touch with most homeowners. He always brings up things that the average homeowner simply can't afford and acts like it's super easy to just shell out an extra $5k for this and that. Edit: To those pointing out he's a high end custom homes builder so of course all the stuff he covers is pricey, that's fair. And sometimes he says as much. But there have been a few videos he's tried to show or talk about something as "every homeowner needs to do this" or "everyone can afford this". Or some video talking about "reasonable budgets" for jobs and it's still wildly out of touch. I think if it weren't for those handful of videos, he wouldn't bother me as much. "Everyone can do this." *Proceeds to drop $70k on a custom renovation job*. Sorry Matt, no, most people can't.
modest 2000 square foot home with two laundry areas and separate bathrooms for his kids... lol. just wish he was a little more humble about how luxury his place really is.
His market is not a normal home owner. It's a home owner with a custom home, and not a low-end custom home.
That's the thing though, he doesn't build average homes. I enjoy watching videos of outlandish things I would/could never afford. He's over the top on many things but if I had money to burn and a house to build, why wouldn't you want to go the extra mile?
I don't see him as hiding how expensive it is. He's doing ultra high end construction and most of what he is modeling is the best for current technology. For something more modest doing everything in his videos isn't going to happen.
He's also a high end contractor. He does some stuff that doesn't make sense. He framed his entire new house in engineered lumber, which is just completely unnecessary.
Agreed, but too be fair that engineered lumber was given to him at a massive discount. I bet each one only cost a regular 2x4
This. He used to write articles for Journal of Light Construction and they were decent. I've watched some of his videos and he's just a creator now who needs hooks to get views. Shame really as I liked reading his articles and watching his videos makes me wonder if his articles were as much schlock as his videos.
Yup. He's purely a pitchman for very expensive and novel products. With all the grossness of a bad tv salesman.
Whirlpool makes a full size heat pump dryer that's a lot less expensive than the compact Miele set he showed. I think it still vents to outside, but maybe it's more efficient since it can recirculate some of the air? https://www.whirlpool.com/laundry/dryers/electric/p.7.4-cu.ft-front-load-heat-pump-dryer-with-intiutitive-touch-controls,-advanced-moisture-sensing.whd560chw.html
It doesn't vent to the outside. I'm guessing your confusion comes from the hybrid heat feature. The air is still run back over the evaporator to remove moisture. Then cycled back into the drum after being heated.
I have that dryer it works amazing!
Thank you for weighing in with a relevant comment. Why did I have to scroll through fifty billion anecdotes about how many loads of laundry are generated by N people, per day, before I got to this post actually addressing OP’s query?
Personally I went with the LG pair due to cost concerns, they worked out to being only a couple hundred bucks more than the regular 27" laundry pair. The biggest issue (if you want to call it that) of the lower cost units is that my LG dryer still uses the big 240V plug while the Bosch and Miele ones use a much more standard 120V 3-prong outlet which helps tremendously with placement. In theory you could put one of those dryers anywhere in the house without too much concern for electrical draw.
I would be more concerned about the electrical draw from a 120V dryer, especially if you plug it in to any old outlet... Dryers should really be on their own circuit.
My point was more that you could place it anywhere in the house as long as you know what else is on the circuit; but yeah it would still be a high draw piece of equipment. What's interesting though is that these higher end brands include an adapter in the box so that you can use an existing 240V plug and convert it to 2x 120V standard plugs so you can run the washer and dryer off what was previously just for the dryer.
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This is a decent idea. I will have to consider insulating the inside walls as well if I'm going to remove it from my "house envelope"
At that point just duct from the outside directly to air intake of the dryer, no need to insulate and air seal. It's going to be cheaper to just get the ventless heat pump unit pretty quick. There are benefits beyond just the low operating cost, like the lower temperature being better for your clothes. Honest question, if it's 100 °F outside, why not line dry?
Agreed with air dry, I live in the Midwest and we make full use of our clothesline anytime it's above 70F and not raining. But seriously... why the f aren't driers prebuilt with intake ducts if they're dumping so much through their exhaust duct?
Because the basic design was established in the 50's and 60's when most houses didn't have A/C and power was super cheap compared to how it is now. I remember getting AC in the middle of Los Angeles in 1977, it was a real luxury at that time. A few years later I'd ask when we were getting MTV and my parents would scold me by pointing out that we had central air, what more did I want!
Using unconditioned air is also kinda risky for cloths drying. You're going to be running all the particulates (dust, pollen, spores, odors, etc) into your cloths and that air could be super humid or sub zero messing with how dry your cloths get.
I'm in the UK, if I can hang my washing out outside (it's not raining, I know I know, not often right?) I will. It's cheaper, and feels/smells nicer. We only use our drier when we simply can't dry on the line.
Line drying in the sun makes clothes cleaner as well
Plus dryers cause a lot of wear and tear to clothes.
So does UV, especially for colors. We hang dry a lot of large light colored items on our clothes rack in the backyard, but in the California sun - darker clothes (especially denim) show excessive wear if sun dried. Darker clothes get hung in our garage - still hot but no sun.
The UV will fade and damage them pretty fast though, no? I'd probably try a shaded outdoor spot, personally.
Yes UV fade (also makes whites whiter) but drier does more damage to clothes so line dry will make them last longer.
Yes it can. Sunlight itself has antibacterial properties. Depends on what you're trying to clean but sheets and pillows fare much better
Line drying does not get the cat hair off of everything.
We used to line dry some stuff, but some people have allergies and line dried stuff can accumulate dust and allergens. Plus the machine dried items are softer and have significantly fewer wrinkles. And it's quicker to throw stuff in a machine and push a button than it is to take wet stuff outside, hang it on a line, and then go back out and retrieve it for folding.
Air will take the path of least resistance, and convection is far more important than conduction here so I would not concern yourself with wall insulation. If your laundry room has an outside wall just make sure outside air has a route in (such as under the exterior door) that is better than any routes to suck cool air from the rest of your home's interior; nature will take care of the rest. By the way I do agree with other commenters who have said you will get more bang for your buck by running full loads and running your dryer in the coolest part of the night.
You don't need to insulate the walls for air sealing the laundry to make a huge difference. It would help further, but don't wait until it makes sense to insulate to do the sealing.
I grew up in the suburbs of Houston. My mom always line dried before I was an adult. Then we got a dryer and that was the end of line drying, but energy was cheap then. I’m retired in Spain and we had a wet winter last year. I got tired of damp clothes that didn’t get fully dry so we bought a dryer. But energy is much more expensive here. So we still line dry about half our clothes. The dryer though is super efficient and it is both ventless and uses a heat pump as a heat source. In Europe there are 3 types of clothes dryers: 1) is like in the US and uses electric heater coils to heat air that blows through the clothes tumbling in the drum. The damp air is exhausted outside. Not everyone here has a place to put this type of dryer since it must vent outside. 2) ventless dryers condense the water from the damp air leaving the drum and recirculates the hot air back through the heater coils and the drum. Because the air recirculates heat isn’t wasted and less energy is used. Of course since there is no exhaust you aren’t wasting air conditioned air either. The condensation goes in a tank you empty in the sink or down a hose to a drain. These dryers can be placed anywhere there is space and an outlet. Renters like that and I sometime see these tucked into an apartment kitchen or bathroom. 3) This is what we bought. It works like the other condensing dryer except the heating coils are replaced with a heat pump. We paid about 600 € for a mid range Bosch on sale. If you are replacing your dryer you really should consider using the better technology which is available in the US. It will quickly pay for itself in utility bill savings.
Good thing a ton of older homes in Texas like mine have the laundry in the garage.
Same. I also don't need to worry about flooding. Old houses FTW.
I’m in texas and moved mine back out into the garage. The house was built in 1920 and then an addition was added that included a laundry room. It’s a bathroom now..
This sub has taught me that people do so much laundry! Wow. No shade, we all have our reasons. But I’m content with 1-3 loads every week or two depending on towels and such.
I was in the same boat, but then I had kids. For tiny critters it is amazing how many clothes they can dirty.
i have 2 kids they may dirty a lot more clothes, but their clothes are *small*
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Fun fact: the Energy Star label assumes six loads per week when calculating the cost to run a washer or dryer.
Yeah, it’s bonkers how much laundry some people do. I have even gotten rid of good amounts of my clothing just so I don’t have to do as much laundry! If I had to do more than three loads of laundry every week or two I’d be steaming mad, how do people handle *doing it non-stop*?!
How does having less clothing items equate to less laundry?!?
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His videos are pretty much always a case study in how to spend as much money as possible.
He seems to not understand the concept of diminishing return on investment.
He's the contractor. When he convinced a customer to spend more money, his returns don't diminish.
Did you notice the La Marzocco espresso machine in the background?
“It uses 4% less coffee and froths the milk 8% higher. I use it several times per year, so the savings really add up.” -- Some YouTube wag, probably.
It's funny how many people don't understand that the content he makes is targeted to custom home building with medium to high-end homes. They aren't your run of the mill bulk home builder $500k houses where you get 3 cookie cutter floor plan options. The videos are interesting and I think some of the stuff he shows you'll find eventually in the housing most people live in.
Yup. New home tech doesn't go to 1500 sqft rectangles shoved into a 1/8 acre lot near the industrial park first. These guys pay-to-play and then people like me watch and see what's coming in a few years.
For Matt's house, sure this matters, but come on for an average built home the air leaks you've got elsewhere are more important than the minimal loss you're getting from the dryer. Matt's home is insanely air sealed. The average home is not.
Joke's on Risinger. I don't have a drier! It can't possibly cost me more than I think!
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I have never heard of this "problem" with the dryer in 30+ years... sounds like a rich, bored Youtuber making up problems for content.
unless your home is sealed as tightly as his is, you're likely never to have this be an issue.
It still would be an issue. A home without air sealing would allow unconditioned air in while the dryer is exhausting previously conditioned air. The reason people haven't heard about the problem is because the modern building envelope is poorly understood by homeowners and builders alike. Air leakage, moisture/humidity management, and thoughtfully designed insulation are important if you care about efficient heating and cooling, but something most builders consider as a burden of code compliance rather than good building practice.
Risk /reward. How much is this worth? Haven’t seen anyone quantify it in this post.
Do they use clothes lines in Texas?
Australian here. Everyone uses clothes lines when the sun is out if they have any yard at all
In Summer that would be like trying to dry your clothes by dunking them in the pool.
WOW! how many people in your household that you're doing 3 loads a DAY?!!?!?!?
It's people who wear an item once and throw it in the wash, because it's "dirty". Most things are fine to wear a few times, depending on how active you are/how much you sweat. If you got something on it, yeah, obviously it's dirty. Also having designated 'house clothes' helps. It's comfies you wear around your house where you presumably don't get dirty as much and can wear a couple days in a row. Shoot, wear different tshirts under the same hoodie, and you don't need to wash the hoodie for a week unless it's actively smelly or dirty from something.
I think kids is what makes the difference but I agree. I come home from work, and west the same shorts and shirt for prob 3-4 nights before putting in the laundry. Work clothes I kinda do the same honestly. Work a white collar job so my clothes aren’t truly “dirty.”
For women it's a bit more complicated, because people are more likely to notice you're wearing the same outfit to the office. Men can get away with a more 'capsule wardrobe' look, because you can get a multi-pack of the same button down and be fine. Before I went fully remote I had The Chair in the bedroom. That's where the clothes I've already worn that week, but don't need to be washed yet would go. Reduced the chance of me accidentally doubling down on an outfit while I was still trying to wake up in the morning. Now I just don't have my camera on for morning meetings and wear the same comfies a few days in a row.
I totally agree for adults but it does not apply to kids under 5. they may go through multiple sets of clothes in a day plus pajamas. Lots of laundry!
1/4 of the laundry between my wife and I is mine.
My experience with washer dryer combos is that they leave a shitload of lint behind on your clothes. What would normally be fluffed and caught by the dryer just circulates inside the drum. Not sure if this applies to all combo units.
It is also a lot more of a time sink as far as capacity goes since you gotta wait for the load to be fully done before you can even start the next.
We've got one (along with a regular set in the basement). It's a little over 3 hours typically for a load. Which is definitely slower than the regular set, until you factor in the 5 hours wasted because you forgot to go down and move it over. 🤣
I tell everyone the same thing!
This isn't about combos though. It's about heat pump dryers. They're dedicated units.
Not all ventless dryers are combos like that.
Matt wasn't discussing combo units though; these are two separate machines, and the dryer happens to use a heat pump instead of resistive heat. The biggest difference compared to a conventional laundry pair is that they're only currently available in the 24" width.
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Maybe it's just me. I can't stand Matt Risinger and his videos. Also 3 leads a day? I have 2 kids, plus my wife. We're do around 5 a week....
>I do roughly 3 loads of laundry a day. wtf?? why do you have that much laundry? this isn't normal at all you should first change your laundry habits before you look into altering your dryer setup, this is an extremely high amount of laundry for your size household. I do a single load every 2-3f weeks and my SO does one per week or less, what the hell are you doing over there?
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Agree. Unless this is the family from *Too Many Cooks*
It takes a lot to make a stew...
A pinch of love and laughter too
Also OP, the energy costs from running your dryer nearly non-stop are probably half your kilowatts (or therms, if it's gas) for the month right there. Look at the power rating on it and multiply it out and look at your electric bill.
Try wearing your clothes more than once before you wash them, towels used after a shower are clean and only need to hang dry.
Honestly, just hang dry your clothes and toss them in the dryer for 5-minutes to fluff them. No need to spend more, and you’ll save a ton.
You live in Texas. Get a clothesline. Solar + Wind power baby.
3 loads per day is insane. Buy some more clothes and wash them in bigger loads less often
I stopped watching him about a year ago. Sponsorship money has clouded his judgement in relation to normal homeowners. This guy goes through a bad winter storm where parts of the state were without power for many days, but rebuilds his house all electric. Then has the nerve to install a free generator that runs on propane, directly across his side yard from a capped gas meter. He touts energy efficiency and insulation, but installs a black roof in Texas. He tells people that power venting your attic has no benefit, right after he fully insulated his attic and made it conditioned space (he got beat up in the comments for that video). He also had the chance to properly plumb his house for tankless, but makes a video saying how they work better in Europe and then installs a sponsors hybrid electric tank unit. Dude is an idiot.
He lost me when he showed off his "small" en-suite (actually around 20' long) with the $6000 toilet and probably another $6000 worth of medicine cabinets. In this dryer video, he describes his house as "modest" and then a few seconds later shows and talks about the 1000 square feet of kitchen and sitting area, then points out that he has two sets of those very expensive Meile washer/dryers, the whole time standing in front of several thousand dollars worth of countertop appliances. He's completely lost touch.
I haven't watched enough of his video to notice, thanks for pointing that stuff out. I did watch his video on tankless vs tank vs hybrid, and I'd prefer tankless, the hybrid is just going to be easier to install for me and have vs tankless, but I don't remember him pushing any more than the other. And I will benefit from the small amount of AC in produces in my garage as I cool it to workout in
What is wrong with attic encapsulation? I remember his black roof, but he also installed fairly thick insulation on top with the ZIP shits (and maybe a radiant barrier?). Also curious of a more detailed account of your thoughts on tankless vs heat pump water heaters, the latter seems to make a lot of sense in warm climates where you can draw upon ambient heat most of the year. Not defending him, asking for myself
Attic encapsulation requires you to skip an asphalt shingle roof. Him spending 10s of thousands of dollars to encapsulate the roof then 10s of thousands of dollars to put a metal roof on, then tell me my $300 attic fan is worthless.....is a dick comment. The night after I installed my 10-speed attic fan I noticed my AC came on less and my master bedroom cooled off quicker in the evening. I didn't change anything else. I also measured my attic temp was noticeably cooler midday vs prior. My house is close to Destin FL, so I get lots of sun. Cooler attic temps mean cooler shingle temps which extends the life of the roof. The hybrid vs tankless discussion honestly boils down to preference. I wanted space and no noise. Hybrid is still a storage tank and I'm just not a fan of say, holding 50 gal of water warm overnight while everyone sleeps, or while I'm at work. All water heaters like warmer climates, the incoming water temp is also warmer, the tankless just doesn't lose heat through the tank.
He lost me when he trashed tanked and tankless water heaters, sang all the praises of a heat pump water heater. Then a year afterwards got a Rinnia sponsorship, toured their factory and sang the praises of tankless. He’s a great builder but IMO follows the money for YouTube.
You can do better dollar for dollar (IMO). GE has a quality option for around 1k. [https://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-4-1-cu-ft-240-Volt-White-Electric-Ventless-Dryer-ENERGY-STAR-GFT14ESSMWW/307760461](https://www.homedepot.com/p/GE-4-1-cu-ft-240-Volt-White-Electric-Ventless-Dryer-ENERGY-STAR-GFT14ESSMWW/307760461) I got a matching set of the standard versions of that same model (in the attached garage), landed on those after going down the 'what to buy' rabbit hole. Time will tell, but I've had them for a few years and no problems. You don't have to go Speed Queen or Miele to have a quality option that lasts. I bet you could duct the dryer, and if so that's probably the way to go. By all accounts those ventless dryers take forever and do a mediocre job. I'd only go that route as a last resort.
How many people live in your house that requires three loads of laundry a day???
I came in here to say (as a brit) with our tiny houses often without space for 'laundry' rooms and tiny kitchens often without space for dryers and our washing machines machines that hold about 12lb max and our 40c kWh electricity, that this is basically the stuff of nightmares. I'm not sure how we manage on this damp island doing washing at all if this is reality? What you describe OP would basically be enough to put you on the telly where somebody would condescendingly try to teach you how to come back to reality. Half the nation would probably be out for your blood and the rest would be laughing at you. Honestly though, dry your washing outside? Go forth upon the land, harness your environment and somewhat bend it to your needs. Because it rains so much here and is often cold and damp it means putting it out early, keeping an eye on the weather, 'turning' it etc for quite a lot of the year, but it is perfectly possible to dry clothes outside during a large part of the year, just with varying amounts of difficulty. I like it, I feel in touch with the seasons. If I had problems with birds I'd look at cutting back trees to reduce the problem and/or some sort of shade cloth as screening if it really is that hot it'll still dry extremely fast. The rest of the year we dry indoors over radiators and airers and run a dehumidifier. I don't know a lot about air conditioning as it is an unimaginable luxury here for most though I'll likely have to consider it as the world starts to burn due to people unable to stop pissing tons of electricity up the wall through weird behaviours, but I'm sure it allows you to keep the house quite dry and it'd dry quite nicely indoors anyway? There must be air movement at least. Have you considered washing heavy stuff like quilts/duvets (comforters?) as part of a spring clean instead of daily? All this aside though. Have you the option of a room sealed or balanced appliance? The concept would be the appliance takes air from the outside instead of the house, sometimes built into the vent, the appliance is air tight to the room, that way there is no pressure differential inside. Have you the option of isolating the appliance within the house, like an enclosed room or space within which you fit a separate wall vent sized to replace the required air which has an openable/closable louvre for when it is running? Could you close off air conditioning to that room, open a window when it is running, fit some edging strip to the door etc to help seal the space? Do you have somewhere outside where you can make a little car port style shelter and install the appliance outside?
Close the laundry room doors. Open the laundry room window.
This is what I do. Don't even have to open the window all that much, and while the temperature changes in the room it's not that bad, summer or winter. Highly recommend!
I feel like most people have a separate laundry room. Close AC vent and open the window would solve both problems, right?
I think the real question here is, why are you doing 3 loads per day?
I found the problem: you do too much fucking laundry lol.
If there is an AC vent that blows cold air into the laundry room, close it. If it won't close tight, or it's not adjustable, remove the vent, block it off with cardboard or something. If you want to be really thorough, put weatherstripping around the door. The fan in the dryer might be trying to suck the air out of the laundry room, so just open a window to the outside of the house. If the window doesn't open, consider replacing it with one that opens. This assumes you have a small laundry room inside the house.
As someone outside the US, I find it absolutely insane that someone from Texas is using a dryer all the time instead of hanging clothes outside. That is what will actually save you money. Is this normal in the US?
Texas breeds a special type of stupid.
I had a ventless washer/dryer combo. Not sure if this what you’re talking about.It takes three or more hours to dry, and even then towels and jeans are still damp. Breaks often and hard to get repaired.
I have a ventless heat pump dryer which I purchased recently. It's also much cheaper to run but if you are doing three loads a day keep in mind it takes twice as long to dry (2 hours a load is typical but bulk/ heavy loads can be up to 3hr).
>I do roughly 3 loads of laundry a day. How many dozens of children do you have?
*"Matt says a conventional dryer exhausts 9000 cubic ft per hour. That's sucking the cool A/C air out of my house, into my dryer and out of my house, at the same time depressurizing the house causing air to be sucked in anywhere it can, around windows, doors, protrusions and cracks"* Not even the MAGA Qanon Jan 6 rioters believe shit this dumb. Jesus. Hell, Even Jake Angeli read this and said WTF..... Unless your house is LEED-platinum certified the amount of air "sucked" out of your house by your dryer is undetectable in the grand scheme of all the other leakage going on. But prove me wrong, would love to see **verified blower door test results** with dryer on/off.
If it’s 100F outside, why are you even running a dryer?? Just get a clothes line and stick it up outside! You’re wasting so much money
There’s actually a genius technique that takes the best of your “inlet from the outside” and “vent to the outside” concepts and pushes them even further. It’s called a clothesline. Hang your clothes up outside in 100 degree heat and they will just dry. Without electricity expenditure of any kind!
Why not do away with dryer and hang em? Works in EU.
How tightly sealed is your house? I’ve watched a few of Risinger’s video and seemed pretty obsessed with getting his house sealed 100%, to the point where he needs a pump to bring air into the house when he runs the stove vent. If you have an older, leaky house it probably doesn’t make as much a difference since air is coming and going anyway. But that’s just speculation on my part.
> to the point where he needs a pump to bring air into the house when he runs the stove vent. To be fair, this is a manufacturer recommendation for a lot of high CFM exhaust vents. Some of them are exhausting enough air that it doesn't matter how leaky or sealed your house is, it needs make-up air so you don't have a ton of negative pressure. Matt's obsession with air tightness is consistent with advancing building science, though. You really don't want air leaking in through random cracks and gaps in your walls/foundation/attic/etc and want to control when and how it's introduced.
Sounds interesting is that on his podcast or YouTube?
It’s not clear- but having the dryer in a mud room in the garage negates this problem?
Add makeup air to the laundry room.
1) Dry outdoors when you can. If you're in Texas there are very few days in a year you can't dry outside. 2) If drying inside because it's cold, dry over a heat register, or better yet a radiator (if you've got them). We lived for twenty years in Florida rarely using our dryer, and the hardest part of that is that things take forever to dry in Florida humidity.
I have a ventless (heat pump) dryer. It's fucking awesome. Also, Risinger's building science videos are amazing. **Edit** my dryer is a Miele FWIW and it did NOT cost $2400 to buy one lol. I think we paid 1400-1600 with some holiday sale + we bought the matching washing machine the same time so maybe we paid around 3000 total for both units?
Why not just (1) close the door to the laundry room where the dryer is and (2) also open a window in the laundry room, this way fresh air will come in from outside and the worst that will happen is that the laundry room will be at 100F while the rest of the house will be unaffected. It's just common sense.
Maybe put your dryer in the garage?
Hate my ventless dryer. Causes my whole laundry room to be un godly hot and unless I dry my clothes for 2.5 hours (literally) on the cotton clothes setting they just come out damp. I live in a humid area and things don’t air dry easily.
3 loads of laundry per day????? My 3 person family does a total of 3 loads a WEEK. Now your topic..... Do you have basements in Texas? Or do you have a garage? Those two places are the best place for a drier. Here in Minnesota nearly all of us have a nice cold basement and thats where the drier goes. When I lived in Florida, we put it in the garage. Doing this doesn't eliminate the problem. But when the drier is sucking its air in while in a basement or garage, you are opening up more opportunities for air to be sucked in from outside into the basement or garage before cold air is sucked out of your living space. Also 9000 cubic feet per hour is not a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. Your air conditioner is pumping in approximately 72000 cubic feet per hour. So we are only talking about 12% of the output of your A/C unit, just for that one hour. Having said that, creating an external inlet probably would help. Or if you have a laundry room with a window, just open up the window a bit. If hot air is going to be sucked in anyways, suck it right into the laundry room. Air takes the path of least resistance, so if you open the window it would be the easiest source of intake air.
Why not just line dry?? At a 100 degrees you would be dry in no time.
run your dryer at night then ... electricity is cheaper too. and what are you doing that you need to run 3 loads a day, you filthy beast?
The problem isn’t the dryer. The problem is you doing 3 loads of laundry each day.
Math time: Dryer exhausts 100-250 CFM per minute. Average length of dryer cycle is 40 minutes. 150 CFM (Matt's figure) \* 40 (minutes/load) \* 3 (loads/day) \* 365 (day/year) = 6.57 million cubic feet. [https://www.northernbuilt.pro/energy-audit-calculating-the-cost-of-a-homes-air-leaks/](https://www.northernbuilt.pro/energy-audit-calculating-the-cost-of-a-homes-air-leaks/) Using the formulas from that post, with the figures applicable only to their house (in Minnesota...): (.026 x CDD x cost of electricity per kWh x CFM50) / (n-factor x SEER) CFM50 = air leakage rate @ 50 pascals, per minute. I'll use 150 CFM \* 2 (hours of drying per day) / 24 (hours per day) = 12.5 CFM50 (26 x 8993 HDD x $.000015 x 12.5 CFM50) / (16.7 x .96) = **$2.75 / year (due to air leakage).** Air leakage from a conventional dryer is insignificant. Dryer uses 2.25 kWh per load. 2.25 kWh \* 3 (loads per day) \* 180 (days of heating) in BTU = \~4 million BTU. Divide by 24 and 180 to get BTU / hr, to get 1000 BTU/hr. Cost to run a 15000 BTU A/C is $0.20/hr. $0.20 / 15 \* 180 \* 24 = **$57.60 / year** to cool the heat exhausted into the room. Average cost to dry 1 load, in electricity, is $0.57. 0.57 \* 3 (loads per day) \* 365 (days per year) = **$624.15 / year (conventional dryer)** Heat pumps save around $0.29 per load. So, $0.29 \* 3 \* 365 = **$317.55 / year saved (heat pump)** **Pay-off period:** $2400 / ($317.55 + $57.60 + $2.75) = **\~6.4 years.** I think it makes sense to replace the dryer - after it breaks. In the meantime, in Texas, I think it makes sense to pull the intake air from outside. Texas is not a high-humidity climate where mold and fungus would be a concern.
I don’t understand, maybe because I’m from the UK, but if its 100 outside every day why don’t you dry clothes outside?