Hi all, Newbie here, and this is as good a place to put my first post as any.
I've been battling the electric dryer problem for decades. Fortunately we live way out in the sticks, so during the summer everything goes on the clothes line. There's nothing like sunshine dried country air fresh sheets to sleep on. Jeans and towels only need to be tumbled in the dryer a few mins to get rid of that natural starch nature and hard water provides , especially when the wind isn't there, which isn't very often.
Winters are another story however. We live in Manitoba (Canada), and winters are pretty cold, windy and nasty. Hanging clothes on the line? Forget it. They will dry in a few days, but mostly they just freeze instantly, turn into a para-sail and are blown away, never to be seen again.
A dryer is a must have item during the winter, but it eats electricity almost as bad as the furnace does. I've tried venting it through various home made filters, but they require constant cleaning, and even then there just seems to be more lint/dust in the house.
The humidity is a problem too, especially if your house is well sealed.
The first time I tried venting the dryer inside the house was a disaster. The laundry room become a steam bath, all the paint bubbled and peeled off the ceiling and walls, swelled the drywall, and even warped the hardwood floors.
That was an expensive lesson which took a long time to repair. If you want to try vent your dryer indoors, make sure you leave the door to the laundry room open, and dry at a lower heat setting.
You can also build a multi-stage lint trap, and vent it into the cold air return of your forced air heating system, which should also filter that air one more time.
We burn wood almost exclusively for heat during the winter, and have the furnace fan wired so that it can be turned on to circulate air without the elements lighting up.
This also takes care of the humidity problem when venting indoors, stops the static problem from burning wood, as well as eliminates somewhat that sweltering hot room effect the woodstove creates.
Most electric dryers are 220, the motor/fan assembly is a fairly small unit that runs on 120, the elements are what draws the juice. I haven't tried it (yet) but I think either replacing the element with some DC compatible stuff is possible, and of course a DC motor swap or rewire is doable. It may not heat the air as much with a DC element conversion, but that only means you will have to run it a little longer, which should be a problem if you get the juice for free, right?
When I get my first wind machine up and running, it's definatly on the list of things to do. If there is anything good about freezing cold arctic winters we have here, it is plenty of wind maybe too much for the machines you guys have been building.
I hope to have mine up soon, thanks to a lot of work and great ideas you's have all developed. Saved me a lot of disapointment to be sure, and taking down a wind machine when it's -40f in blizzard conditions, which is why I plan to fly at least 3 before next winter. My electric bill is about $6,000 a year. I'm determined to reduce it to the service fee for having a hook up.