Feb
21
A “Gotta Have It!” Item Is Coming to Market
February 21, 2008 | 5 Comments
The biggest energy hog in the home is the clothes dryer. In the U.S. they are so appallingly poor in efficiency that the U.S. Department of Energy has no models awarded an “Energy Star.” While the refrigerator might be your biggest user, its likely quite efficient as they are essentially heat pumps or deep cooling air conditioners that can be had in very efficient models.
Michael Brown of Kissimme, Florida is the inventor and founder of the firm Hydromatic Technologies. His brainstorm has resulted in a fresh look at the direct to air method of clothes dryers and came up with something out of his work experience from working with boilers. You might recall that a lot of space heating is done with boilers that heat working fluids and send the fluids off to remote locations to provide the thermal energy for warmth.
The business of his firm is starting off with a kit to replace the heating unit in home laundry dryers called the “Dryer Miser.” While that isn’t a sexy sounding gadget with lots of bells and gee whiz, the home laundry dryer is for most of us an essential tool. About 15,000 Americans per year discover that the current application of technology could be a house fire when the high thermal energy gets together with the dry lint and ignites. Not to mention that lots of dryers leave a burnt odor from the overheated lint, from both the natural fibers and the synthetics. UGH!
The plan is to sell the updates for dryers at $300 that should need about 20 minutes of technician time. The company thinks they have a kit ready for about 40% of the Whirlpool units out there now. They expect that the kit will be made available for other makes and models over time.
Time for a fact check? Well, the DOE link above just doesn’t have a dryer link on the appliance page that I could find. Mr. Brown is offering that the kit can improve the drying time by 41%. The thing runs on 110 volts, not the usual 220 volts with 30 or 50 amp breakers required. Something is definitely up here. Mr. Brown is careful not to make claims, but the obvious is impressive, while the Communications Officer Geo Morales states that the energy savings could be 50%.
The unit is simple – the electricity is used to heat a fluid and the fluid used to heat the airflow. This offers some considerable control advantages, reductions in the level of heat applied and power is applied in a non-combustible atmosphere. There must be a homeowners insurance advantage in this someday.
The company web site is claiming an assist from NASA, who does offer technical assistance, that the unit has been inspected by such luminaries as an engineer at MIT and that its been tested and surpassed the requirements of the Department of Energy with a declaration that the product is market ready. With an international patent application and a unit in testing at Underwriters Laboratories that could see the seal of approval as early as April of 2008 the opportunity to acquire a major improvement to your home’s energy demands should come this fall.
The company has shown the product at the International Builders Show in Orlando Florida earlier this February. It’s reported that large foreign appliance makers have expressed interest in integrating the technology in their products. Some think the unit could be more efficient than the more efficient heat pump designs or condenser types found for sale in Europe and Asia.
Its not at all often one finds a huge improvement that will come to market with all of the pre marketing things done. While the price at $300 seems pretty steep, the benefits could be quite valuable. One utility in Florida has expressed an interest in the product as a “rebate” product that could be an assist to both the purchase and reduction in demand on the grid.
It will be hard to top this, if the 50% reduction is a fact that would be great. There are other opportunities of course. There are lots of electric heating devices that could use improvement, a lot of home heat pumps have resistance heating for the periods when the heat pump can’t keep up with demand, and other ideas that will be welcomed at the company.
It looks like the U.S. will finally get a clothes dryer worthy of an Energy Star. A 50% reduction in laundry drying is nationally a multibillion dollar assist in conservation.
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Will this let you hook up you heat pumps to run your clothe dryer?
I am also curious if this allows the clothes dryer to be run with a heat pump hooked up.
Why hasn’t this happened yet? I almost had a fire last week, and I found this by looking for a safer dryer. The site that sells it doesn’t email me back. I’m interested, but as far as I can tell it has never been made. What’s up?