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2007 Winner Entry
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Energy Saving Clothes Dryer |
Category: Sustainable Technology |
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Danny Blount
Sulphur Springs, TX US
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Entered: 10/13/2007
Patented or Patent Pending
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Having been a homebuilder for fifteen years, I know what we do to make a home airtight. However, one particular home appliance actually negates this effort---the clothes dryer.
Clothes dryers literally PUMP the heated and cooled air out of the home! The dryer sits inside the home. Intake air enters the dryer from within the home. The exhaust goes out of the home. This is pumping 12,000 cubic feet per hour of conditioned air out of the home. A 1,500 sq.ft. home with eight-foot ceilings has a total air replacement in one hour of drying time.
A home doesn’t “manufacture” replacement air, so the current dryer design creates a negative pressure situation, (that is, a vacuum), whereby air is actually pulled into the home from the outside through any air leaks in the home. In the summer we pay ever-increasing energy costs to cool the home. For the dryer, we pay for energy to heat up the air that we just paid to cool. The dryer then pumps it outside, creating a vacuum in the home, which pulls more hot air in that we will be paying to cool. This makes no sense at all! Pollen and other allergens, as well as dust and air pollution, are being “vacuumed” into the home as a result of this drying process. Many air leaks in a home are around lights, ceiling fans, etc., so in summer months this is very hot attic air being drawn in. Heating replacement air in the winter can be just as costly.
Clearly illustrated by the dryer drawing, my invention is simply a dryer design with an air intake inlet, which would take intake air from the exterior of the home. An internal duct inside the dryer takes the air from the inlet to the inside of the drying system. By taking intake air from outside of the structure the dryer would no longer be pumping out the conditioned air from within the home. This is a "green" innovation that will greatly reduce the energy consumption needed to heat and cool the home!
The system has been tested in very cold weather, as well as in hot, rainy weather with humidity at 100%. Heavy loads of jeans and towels dried in the normal amount of time.
As we build tighter and tighter homes, it is probably only a matter of time before a dryer is going to pull enough carbon monoxide out of a fireplace or from the top of a gas water heater to kill someone.
In summary, this modification would be cheap and easy for a manufacturer to do. This is a "common sense" modification that should have been implemented a long time ago. I believe that this dryer could actually pay for itself in a very short time with the heating and cooling energy savings.
With dryers having a life expectancy of about ten or so years, within about a decade there could be no more waste of our heated and cooled air as a result of drying clothes.
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Meet the Entrant, Danny Blount
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Profession: Homebuilder |
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Number of times entering contest previously: 0
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What role does Danny believe product design plays in creating a better future?
Greatly reduces the amount of energy required to heat and cool the home.
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