The dryer here seems to be plugged into a 120V outlet. It's also on an extension cord. Anyone see anything like that before?
I suppose it's actually a 240V connector which is the same size as a standard 120V connector but having one or more pins turned 90 degrees. Still, those aren't very high current.
Rick C snipped-for-privacy@gmail.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:
That would be a 240V outlet and if it is only wired 120V it is wrong.
Wait... same size? Sounds like "medical grade" or such.
They had a higher current rating. But hospital gadgetry has gotten far more efficient and less power consumptive, so "Hospital Grade" is just a way for the makers of those connectors to suck more money out of a certain demographic, like "medical use". They have now gone full COTS and there are computer carts they use now to run around from office to office taking vitals and other data. Like a Nurse's assistant thing. So most of the outlets I have seen in rooms are standard 120V, likely GFCI.
Over here in Europe we have clothes dryers that use heat pumping instead of electric heating. They use like 700-1000W of power so they could easily work from a standard 120V socket.
I expect things like that not to be common in the USA, where people usually don't care about energy consumption. But maybe when you really need to connect something to a 120V socket, it would be a good option.
(we don't have that issue here as we have 230V and can draw 2500-3500W from a standard outlet)
They no doubt save energy, but at what cost? They don't sound economic.
Sylvia.
They cost like 300 euro more, which we save on electricity costs in about 4 years.
Not a stunning economic difference, but you know what? In Europe we do consider the environment, and are not only watching pennies as a decisiion criterium when buying energy wasting equipment.
Maybe in the US you should start doing that too!
Heat pump machines are an improvement. More sensible is just a fan, dries things overnight, costs far less to buy & run, consumes no space.
Sylvia Else wrote: ============== >
** Plenty to be found in Australia too. Big advantage in premises with limited electric power available. Ordinary clothes driers push single phase ccts to their limit....... Phil
Tabby wrote: ==========
** Ha ha, do exactly that when the weather is rainy myself. Just string a few metres of line up and blow right down it with an 80W pedestal fan.Otherwise, direct solar energy ( plus wind) is free and amasingly effective...
...... Phil
Rob snipped-for-privacy@example.com wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@xs9.xsall.nl:
We do and have for decades. We call them Clothes lines.
Just hang the clothes on the back of the freezer. Make your own heat pump by filling the freezer with bottles of water and periodically putting them outside to thaw.
Or, outdoors as we did growing up.
[At school (campus-wide steam heating plant), we had these large vertical drawers that you'd slide out of this huge assembly; you could drape a bedsheet unimpeded and have it dried in a matter of minutes!]Doesn't work well, here, as there is often a lot of dust in the air. And, when not, then plant-sourced allergens. Who the hell wants to wrap themselves in pollen-laden clothing?
[OTOH, the air *does* smell particularly fragrant! Unless there's a wildfire within a few hundred miles!]
I don't have a dryer myself. I have a washing machine that spins at
1400 RPM and I hang the clothes on a line in the spare room. Dry in a couple of hours, at most half a day when it is raining outside.But I am depicting the situation with dryers as it is here.
Yes that is what I am using as well, I only depicted what a dryer would be here. They are used by people with limited indoor space, or maybe lazy people who don't like to hang the clothes on a line one by one.
Some places have sudden rain showers, which can be a nuisance.
Women used to be always-available housewives and could watch out for the clothes on the line. Not so much today. My gram in New Orleans would shriek and run out to collect the wash at the first drops. They would take essentially forever to dry in the winter, at 90% humidity, and would often come off the line smelling sour and musty.
She had 8 kids and cooked over a wood stove. No time for college or a career.
Wouldn't a lower power dryer just run longer?
The ultimate low power clothes dryer might not have a heater at all. Just a fan and the tumble drum. I wonder how well that would work.
Do the heat pumps also de-humidify?
My electric service is 100A at 240VAC, center tapped which is considered small. 200A is becoming the newer stadard where home have Central Air Conditioning. A typical dryer is on a 20A circuit My heat pump with heat strips has two 30A 240 volt breakers.
Yes, on all natural gas or propane powered clothes dryers. Is the dryer also connected to a natural gas supply or propane tank?
For a "gas" powered dryer, the heat is obtained from burning the fuel, so the dryer only needs a standard 120v cord to run the timer controller and the drum spin/air blower motor.
Yes there are 120 volt dryers. they sit on top of the matching washer. They are made for older apartments or mobile homes. Lowe's and Home Depot both carried them.
Only if in a cooling mode. If in the heating mode, they do not.
This is how many of the "great men of history" had the free time to accomplish what they did, there was always a woman or two around fixing their meals and picking up their poopy drawers off the floor.
Not big surprise women eventually got tired of it...
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