Laundry and off-grid... Hmmm?

[Supervstech]

Am I the only one who's ever had problems with mosquitos and line drying? Ugh!

Do they steal your clothes?

 

[Rednecktek]

What is your professional occupation again?

Ship's electrician/reefer tech/MacGuyver... not a lot of mosquitos out in the blue water. ?

 

[Rednecktek]

Do they steal your clothes?

They sure try some times!

 

[12VoltInstalls]

Ship's electrician/reefer tech/MacGuyver... not a lot of mosquitos out in the blue water. ?

I was joking. Blood, hydrocarbons; Dexter

 

[Rednecktek]

I was joking. Blood, hydrocarbons; Dexter

My lawyer has told me not to talk about that...

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Being off grid, there is what we call a sunroom (6 ft high glass on southwest) where we use this portable dryer to hang small items like socks:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07VK6BY8Y/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1

And this (currently unavailable) for wash cloths and larger:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07486YVCD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o03_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Wife visits her mother and uses her washing machine and clothes dryer.

 

[Zwy]

Am I the only one who's ever had problems with mosquitos and line drying? Ugh!

Must be a pretty warm clothesline to dry mosquitoes. Ever think of turning the temp down?

Or maybe it's some new type of bug zappper?

 

[JJJJ]

Something like this can work, however space is limited.

https://www.amazon.com/Honey-Can-Do-Collapsible-Clothes-DRY-09065-Folding/dp/B08PVYFDCK/ref=sr_1_1

 

[12VoltInstalls]

I’m buying a postage stamp of property soon. I’m looking forward to laundry at home again.

This thread has convinced me that I should consider a propane drier. I’ll have propane for cooking and on-demand hot water heater anyway and for the low consumption of these appliances the cost per btu is of lesser concern to me than either the annual cost (small) or the convenience factor.

Economically, my trip to the laundromat last week for one triple-loader and drying was ~$16, plus the 35 minutes one way driving to town ($5+ gasoline, round trip) makes $40/month, ~$500/year. I won’t use nearly that much propane in dollars for all the cooking, hot water, and clothes drying needs combined.

While I’m extremely thrifty, very often incidentals are way more costly regarding things I value more like my time than small dollars spent to curtail my time. An hour to do laundry hanging/taking in/folding versus my time: if I put a price on my time of $50/hour the $5(wildhat guess) I’d save hanging laundry is like buying carvana stock right now- a fairly dumb move. And there’s times where I can produce way more than $50 in that saved time, or the time freedom with grandkids etc?

I understand why people want to air dry or dry for no cost but that’s not my reality right now. The cost is just way too high.

 

[Hedges]

I’m buying a postage stamp of property soon. I’m looking forward to laundry at home again.

Install a flagpole?

 

[12VoltInstalls]

Install a flagpole?

That too ??
I have new colors already and I need a place to put the cell booster yagi-uda ?

 

[KITROBASKIN]

Cel-Fi for Verizon at this location. The log periodic antenna performed worse than the panel antenna (for receiving signal) due to the mountain between us and the tower. Go figure.

Can the propane dryer be used for anything else? Does it have an always-lit pilot light?

 

[12VoltInstalls]

Does it have an always-lit pilot light?

No! That would be undesirable to say the least.

I don’t mind a standing pilot oven but stove burners, dryers, water heaters, furnaces, residential wall heaters… a standing pilot dryer would scare me.
There was a couple houses and such that blew up near where we lived when I was a kid. And a couple fires from gas stuff. No ovens ever caused these, but heaters, burners, other things with no thermocouple safety. Kaboom.

My ancient magic chef oven has a thermocouple aka proofer on the pilot. Good times.

 

[Hedges]

All my water heaters have had thermocouple on pilot. Have to hold the "light" button down until it warms up, or gas gets cut off.

Oven, I forget now, latest has spark ignitor. Burners of old stove did not. Furnaces I think did. Most have thermocouple millivolt thermostat to solenoid gas valve. The key one that doesn't is gas burner main valve, which are easy to bump and turn on. If pilot is out, big problem.

I think a house would have to be very sealed for pilot to build up to dangerous concentration. But good for igniting anything which does build up.

 

[12VoltInstalls]

most have thermocouple millivolt thermostat to solenoid gas valve.

I will admit to indiscriminate hyperbole on occasion

 

[DrZ123]

Same with us. We have a propane gas drier that we never use. Dry outside in most seasons, dry on pegs behind woodstove when it's raining. Our LG Inverter Washing machine is an awesome off grid appliance in that it has no starting surge, draws only about 200 to 300 watts when running and has a great spin cycle that gets things really wrung out so that they dry fast. Our LG Propane drier (they come with both propane and natural gas jets, easy to swap on installation) draws about 800 watts, probably due to propane ignition heat bar or whatever it uses to keep the flame going.

@ElectricIslander what inverter washing machine and propane dryer do you have exactly? Looking for a similar setup in my off-grid second home. Thx

 

[ElectricIslander]

@ElectricIslander what inverter washing machine and propane dryer do you have exactly? Looking for a similar setup in my off-grid second home. Thx

Both are LG - Washer is LG inverter, dryer is LG propane. When there next will check model numbers. LG seems pretty good for off grid (we have a LG inverter fridge too)

 

[scrubjaysnest]

Laundromat 2 miles from the desert nest. One trip a week, done in an hour and half and get showers at time same time. Unlimited hot water. 2 more miles to the transfer station and done for the week.

 

[OffGridInTheCity]

I have our 'regular' 4500w dryer wired to use solar. The dryer is like the cooktop - it comes on/off to maintain it's temp - it's not a continuous 4500w. So maybe 3000w consumption over an hour.

The issue is that one might go with less inverter capability and think 'I can serialize the use of things' but in practice it's easy to forget and turn on dryer + cooktop + microwave + k-cup all at once while the whole house heat-pump decides to run and wham - you're up to 4500 + 4500 + 3000 + 1500 + 1500 = 15,000w. So I went with dual 12,000w inverters for 24,000w total BUT.... in low PV / consumption times it's not as DC -> AC efficient as only running 1 inverter.

Bottom line, things can run just fine with sufficient solar and inverter in a way you're comfortable with. Efficiency / less inverter power pushes one into serializing PV/solar power consumption and is perfectly OK - but it's not that you can't run big items with sufficient equipment.

 

[yodamota]

We use a direct drive maytag washer. its old, name tag says 11amps at 120v. It stays outside and works most of the time. I definitely don't think clothes get cleaner from it. Lots of fluff on clothes. Id like to get these lower wattage washing machines.

In regards to drying we just use a foldable drying rack. Or the like inside the house when its rainy. Otherwise its all dried outside on the fence.