RMH clothes dryer?

I've seen folks here posting who live in high humidity areas and/or rainy areas who want to go without a clothes dryer, but can't do so conveniently. An electric dryer is an electric heater/blower with a drum tumbler. Isn't there some way to use the heat from a RMH to effectively dry clothes?

Couldn't a RMH be used to heat an area of hanging, wet clothes and dry them out? There are Stirling fans that are powered by heat and blow air. Couldn't the RMH power a couple of these fans to blow hot air on the clothes?

For that matter, just about any type of stove could be used, I would think, though the rockets tend to be more efficient.

A pipe running up the flue, with a Stirling fan blowing in one end of the pipe and the other end of the pipe aimed at the clothes seems like a workable solution.

If burning waste material in the rocket heater, the fuel should be cheap and plentiful. Maybe add a desiccant to the setup as well to dry the air? Hang clothes in the area, start the stove or heater, and wait.

If combined with water heating and home heating, the efficiency might be good.

If this has already been solved on these forums, leave a link and I'll drop this line of thought.

Should work. I think it would be interesting if a Stirling motor could turn a drum with the clothes in it on top of your thermal mass, thus heating the inside and steaming out the moisture.

On another note, if you design it right you might be able to dry out food in the same area! Just a thought

A double flue (one inside the other) will draw the moist air without need for a fan. Something like this dryer perhaps.


http://www.aprovecho.org/public/Publications/Still-The.Winiarski.Wood.Fired.Agricultural.Food.Dryer.pdf

Pretty cool dryer. It could probably be used to dry the wood or bio-briquettes that will be burned later as well.

Isn't it the heat generated by the electric clothes dryer that uses the most electricity, not the motor that spins the barrel? If so, could hot air from a wood fire (not the smoky air, but clean air passed over something heated by fire) be blown into a standard clothes dryer, bypassing the electric heater and saving electricity? I doubt they make a Stirling powerful enough to spin the barrel full of clothes, but I could be wrong.

Wood gas powering a generator, with waste heat diverted into the clothes dryer, might be more efficient if using a standard, but adapted, electric clothes dryer. We're building a gasifier based on rocket stove technology, so I guess this is something to look into for future applications. We intend to run high-drain appliances as we charge a battery bank.

We use a clothes line in the spring, summer, and fall months. I'd like to eliminate the dryer during winter months and when we hit rainy stretches, but we're going to have to think outside the box a bit eliminate that.

I do like the idea of diverting waste heat from home and water heating to other less frequent applications like food drying, clothes drying, and wood/bio-mass drying. That's why we based gasification on rocket stove technology. When not gasifying, it's still a rocket stove, capable of doing all the other things a rocket stove can do. I like me some flexibility.

Another thought that occurred to me comes from our home heating method we're working toward, which is heating thermatic oil and circulating it to radiators inside. That clothes drying rack made from PVC pipe gave me the idea. Instead of PVC, make it out of metal pipe and circulate the hot oil through it. Maybe that would provide the necessary heat to dry the clothes hanging on those pipes.

Sometimes, there are too many ways to skin a cat. I'm going to stop this thread before my inventive side goes totally rogue toward Rube Goldberg methods.

Here is my take. I have incorporated the use of thermally stable material in mass
using a double bell to capture the heat. This way you have a consistent temperature
over the course of the drying. The dryer can be built for any temperature.

http://www.dragonheaters.com/wood-fired-dehydrator/

Et ALL : i Apologize for drifting off of the subject, but while you are considering how to dry your clothes, perhaps you will give a little thought to - The Right to Dry !
In many Gated Communities across America there is a 'home-owners association' movement to tell their neighbors just how unsightly they find hanging laundry !
This has spread to the point where a few mis-guided municipalities have climbed on the band-wagon and passed local ordinances, banning local 'right to dry ' - If you
think this is a joke, or tongue in cheek, - - look it up ! Big AL

No big surprise there. Home Owners Associations here in my area have banned windmills, artificial lawns, and even solar panels, along with imposing standards on home paint that can be used, number and type of vehicles allowed, and lawn appearance.

Those homes are paid for by individuals, but are really owned by these associations, IMO.