Ventless Clothes Dryer
 

Has anyone lived with a ventless clothes dryer? My laundry area is in the middle of my house and the venting we have used is causing problems, may have hastened the destruction of my old dryer, and is probably dangerous. I can buy a dryer designed not to vent to the outdoors, but I wonder to what extent it will heat up my house. I live in Texas and it will be plenty warm on its own. It should condense the moisture from the clothes and drain it away. I hope it is a small enough hose to go into the same pipe my washer drains into. I would love to have any information you might have. I have found a sale of over half off one of these normally very pricey dryers. Thanks for any help you can offer.

I am sure good instructions will come with the dryer. Since it is not pulling air to be heated there should be no moisture to worry about. Enjoy your new dryer.

I never knew that they made them and would love to know how they work

a dryer produces both heat and humidity which are normally vented to the outside

I assume a vent less version vents heat and humidity into the house

if I does beware of excess heat and mold growth

I wonder about that, too, scorpion. I live in Texas also and the last thing you need here is more heat and humidity in the house in the summer.

We use them a lot here in UK. My utility room is in the centre of my house no windows. If I use tumble drier and close the door (for the noise) the room does get a bit humid. But if I leave the door open there is no problem at all and it doesn't make the rest of the house warm. Wish it did would save my heating bills.

If there is the slightest chance of lint, DO NOT CONNECT TO WASHER PIPE.....IT WILL CLOG.

I was wondering about lint too. Can you get one of those booster fans that attaches to your vent pipe to help. Our son had one installed on theirs and says it works great. Their dryer is vented through the attic, same as ours.

http://laundry.reviewed.com/features...entless-dryers - Here are some reviews, not specific dryers but ventless in general.

I am lucky I can dry my clothes on the clothes line about 6 months of the year. In the winter, I only put sheets and towels through the dryer, I hang everything else up in my laundry room.

When I first saw ventless dryer, all I could think is humidity, but then I realized that I am adding to the humidity in my home by hanging clothes to dry inside, but not increasing the heat. I do not have humidity issues, so it is not a problem.

Then I realized that my cousin in NZ has a dryer that does not vent outside, but it does vent through the door into the room. It is not an issue for her as her laundry is in a separate wash house, not attached the her home. Plus all my family in NZ use their clothes lines almost exclusively, electricity is expensive.

It is interesting how laundry facilities vary around the world. When I think about my NZ family all but one have their laundry/wash house either outside in another building, or built onto the exterior of their house. When my Kiwi Grandmother moved to Canada and eventually built a house, she did the same thing, she put her laundry in an enclosed porch. Luckily we are in a part of Canada where it does not get too cold and we do not have to worry about frozen pipes.

Thank you guys for your input. Tothill, our area averages over 60 inches of rain a year and the expected hi next week is 94 degrees. It is not fun to manage an outside clothesline. I have a baby sister born in the early 60's. I remember running madly out to retrieve diapers from the line when we would have a cloudburst. Lol. But since my old dryer broke I have discovered ways to limp along using a box fan and a drying rack in my hall. Drying in the fresh air is a nice idea, but not one I think I want to live with.

AZ Jane I really appreciate the link. I have invested a bunch of time reading the installation instructions and operation manuals online to try to figure out what might work, but had not discovered this link. Misty's Mom I did discover the idea of a fan in the vent to improve its functioning. There also exists a long vent dryer that is designed allow up to 160 feet of vent. I never found how it worked that is different from a standard dryer. The thing that has helped me decide to try the Heat Pump Ventless dryer is a sale. My Sears sales lady found a competitor's ad online that makes the dryer less than half the regular price when she matches the advertised price. I don't want to miss this chance and then discover that I cannot make the venting work out. This sale makes the dryer much more comparable in price to a unit with standard venting. The new dryer is 7.4 cubic feet so is not compact. I would like to streamline my laundry effort to get to my sewing. Even the predicted longer drying time might be tolerable as long as it does not overheat the house. I plan to order it and give it a try. The dryer I am replacing is 38 yrs old and event with some repair costs has served us well. But nearly everything seems to have broken- probably partly due to deteriorating venting . Thanks again.

DH did something to my washer to make it spin super fast. The clothes are almost dry when they come out of the washer. Many of my thin summer shirts I hang up right from the washer. He said it was a spin speed limit on machines and he upped the limit or something when he changed a bearing. LOL It sounds like a jet engine but it's been two years and still working just fine. I thought I'd be getting a new washer after about a month of his experiment.

I have one and love it. They are not cheap but are tanks - mine is a Bosch. I got it when we needed a stackable washer/dryer for a small space. It has worked very well. Do not hook it into a pipe because it will have a method to remove the lint. Kind of yucky all that wet lint but it works. We live in Florida and kept it in one are sometimes with the door shut and sometimes not. It got warm but it was not obnoxiously hot! Good luck!

Many years ago we had a ventless dryer. It was made that way. There was a container in the bottom to collect water from the clothes and the lint.

I allowed a tenant to use one of them in the 80's, (maybe they're better now)...but it made black mold grow all over the wall. It was awful. You're already in a wet/humid area...I'd be very cautious!

I was in Lithuania for three weeks teaching 85 teenagers to speak English. (Wisconsin English) They had a vent-less dryer that no one knew how to use. There were no instructions in English nor in Lithuanian. If the pans were not emptied, it wouldn't dry the clothes. I finally figured it out. After that it worked well.

I usually hang my clothes outside whenever I can, sometimes even in the wintertime. But my dryer is not vented. When I use it, it is usually cold and the furnace is running and there is very little humidity in the house. We need that in the winter. With my old dryer, there was enough humidity in the air to peel the tape from the dry wall in the corner of the wall and ceiling. Now with my new front loader, the clothes spin so fast there is very little water left in them. Some things feel dry enough to wear. I have 4 lines in my laundry room and a clothes rack (I hang things up that are heavy and still damp), so we are happy to get the humidity into the house when it is cold outside.

I can't speak to your issue about modern ventless dryers, but, back in the mid 60s I had a Maytag Porta-dryer which didn't need to be vented. It could be - but it was a 3"vent hose I believe, because eventually we vented it when we moved. I used it in an apartment when I washed diapers in my Sears porta-washer which if I remember was sort of full sized, but small capacity. it washed 20 diapers and the dryer dried that. We lived in a residence hall and I hooked the washer up to the sink and the dryer vented into the room. I put an old stocking (those were the days) over the vent with a rubber band to catch the lint. Drying outside wasn't an option, and we only had two rooms so hard to hang things all over. It was before Pampers. I don't remember much humidity but we lived in the northeast and had a room air conditioner back then. Anyway, this is a nice walk down memory lane and I guess I'm not surprised there is a solution to almost every problem.

I hope you will let us know what you end up with and how it works.

ewww. I dont want to do that EVER.

We took our vent off the dryer because we thought/were told that in the winter it would keep the house warmer and in Minnesota we can have some wicked winters. Then I found out that if you have a gas dryer, which we do, we could so easily asphyxiate ourselves by not having it hooked up to the outside which for the past 42 years we have had it vented. And we are still here!!!!! The vents on or for dryers are there for a purpose, and if it isn't, get one and make sure you are vented to the outside! WE have had our dryer since 1972. And it still works - must be the vent and hose from the dryer to the window to outside. Good luck to you. Edie