Ok, so last fall I had too much humidity (cool, damp summer), and now I don't have enough. Life in an older house in Manitoba....
So - one of the things I have done in the past is to reclaim the warm, moist air from the clothes dryer in winter. In my previous house, I had simply cut a bunch of slots in a 5 gallon pail, lined it with a piece of bulk furnace filter material and fed the dryer hose in through a hole in the lid. That worked, but was in the way and not easy to maintain.
This year, I bought a special valve for redirecting the warm, moist air back into the house. To trap the lint dust, I initially tried a water pail sold for that purpose - it's a small (2-3 litre) bucket that you fill with water. The hose is attached to the top and blows over the water - which is supposed to trap the lint dust. I wasn't impressed.
I liked the furnace filter idea better.
So, with the help of a friend who had way better wood working tools than I do, I built this fancy box that holds a 20x20x1 furnace filter.
In the winter I'll set the valve to redirect air into the house, and in summer it gets set to send the hot air outside.
When the filter gets full, its easy to slide out and replace.
So - one of the things I have done in the past is to reclaim the warm, moist air from the clothes dryer in winter. In my previous house, I had simply cut a bunch of slots in a 5 gallon pail, lined it with a piece of bulk furnace filter material and fed the dryer hose in through a hole in the lid. That worked, but was in the way and not easy to maintain.
This year, I bought a special valve for redirecting the warm, moist air back into the house. To trap the lint dust, I initially tried a water pail sold for that purpose - it's a small (2-3 litre) bucket that you fill with water. The hose is attached to the top and blows over the water - which is supposed to trap the lint dust. I wasn't impressed.
I liked the furnace filter idea better.
So, with the help of a friend who had way better wood working tools than I do, I built this fancy box that holds a 20x20x1 furnace filter.
In the winter I'll set the valve to redirect air into the house, and in summer it gets set to send the hot air outside.
When the filter gets full, its easy to slide out and replace.
Update (1/19/10): Humidity on laundry day jumped from just below 50% (we have had a mild spell which tends to not dry the house out as much) to nearly 60% by end of day. It has since (24 hours later) fallen to about 55%.
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