Why wrong board, rural living ect,, .. Saving and producing electric
Kinda sorta falls in there somewhere I think.
First step in going off grid is cutting usage right
Well, my wood burner is indoors. I Modded a gas dryer to a wood dryer, so I don't see why Hot Water won't work though as pointed out it may take longer than normal to dry.
Maybe longer than hot air directly from the heat source too, and be sure you don't have leaks at the dryer!!
One thing you can do is probably take the wires off the heating coil and insulate them for saftey so they can't short out, touch anything, or shock anyone. If same as my electric dryers they will run fine just never heat and that's what you want.
If the dryer has a NO HEAT, FLUFF MODE then use that for drying and you probably don't even need to worry about the element heating anyway. My electrics did not have that mode, but the gas one does.
No need to ruin the dryer, just unplug the wires so you can use em again later if you want too.
Only thing you really need to do then is make a duct to sit in back of the dryer. All the electrics I have worked with have a flat duct comming down the back where the heating coils are, that's where all the air enters the dryer. Just make a duct to sit back there against the existing duct, coffee cans work well for this normally. I use the metal Maxwell house cans, not the plastic foldgers cans. Now run about a 4" duct pipe from the can to your heat source. Since your using a radiator with hot water, place it next to the coffee can. I like the metal tape, the foil or chrome type stuff. Very sticky and not effected by heat easily. Tape it all fairly air tight. Pump in hot water, dry clothes.
I would rather use hot air than water if I could, you might want to place the radiator away from the dryer a bit and run a duct to the dryer, if so wrap it with insulation so it doesn't cool the air running through it.
Me, I have the modded gas dryer sitting next to my wood burner. I had to butcher the inside some because it drew air from two places, from the front bottom for gas burner for hot air and open back section for cooler air and mixed them. So I blocked the burners section off with a coffee can bottom (perfect fit) then cut open the back area a little biger and made a coffee can duct that fits well and holds itself in place. The air intake then is about a 4" duct pipe 6" long or so conected to the coffee can and a foil type dryer hose that runs up to the ceiling and dangles down over the wood burner. With a decent fire clothes dry about as fast as with electric dryer, maybe faster, and with a small warm fire it takes longer but still dry nicely.
Either way we get the advantages of dryer clothes (soft and fluffed) and only have to use the electric motor to tumble them. I like clothes from the dryer better than from the line, so next sumer this modded wood dryer will become an outdoor solar heated dryer. Probably line dry mostly, then warm tumble for a few minutes for the soft and fluff. I hate shift shirts and socks that come off the line sometimes.
I let the dryer vent into the house for now. I just connected a pvc elbow and a straight duct pipe pointing straight up. I put a nylon hose over the pipe as a second lint filter. Now we humidify the dry house air while drying clothes as well. So far alot less static shocks around here already. To move hot air around the house and away from the wood burner I have used a elbow or T pointed at the wood burner. That works like a fan to circulate the air while drying clothes. I took it off when I put the nylon filter on, I will put it back on soon. Trying differnt things.
With the nylon hose we are not getting any lint in the house I can find, the nylon does have a little build up starting that has gotten past the dryers lint filter, so it's a good Idea to use it.
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