Possible laundry solution

[65NW]

CHP, capture waste heat from generator to power dryer.
You could set your electric dryer on heat fluff, use a small generator (but big enough to start motor), run on light load while getting closer to 100% efficiency. As a swag, maybe 66% possible.

(exhaust pipe heat exchanger should be good, don't want cooling air going over clothes unless completely odor free. Water cooled should work but is a much larger generator. Air to air heat exchanger in cooling air might work. Yeah, not everything is cost effective if you do one load a week.)

My generator is not anywhere near my house. Not walking laundry down to my solar system.

Yes, all technically feasible I get it. But in practice I'd be more likely to put a diesel parking heater in a dryer before I used recaptured generator heat.

And while were at it, why not run the generator exhaust into the cold side of a heat pump. Then you could use it to heat your house or whatever.

 

[Hedges]

There is no additional energy available using hot exhaust for cold side of heat pump. Just use the high grade heat directly.
Heat pump works with large quantity of free low-grade heat.

CHP for laundry wouldn't be practical, except for a laundromat.
I think it could make sense for domestic heat. Put all waste heat in an insulated tank and circulate to radiators. Or maybe circulate directly without storage. Same goes for fuel cell CHP (there were some using piped natural gas.)

 

[65NW]

Regarding the diesel heater, my thought was to have the elements disconnected in the winter but the signal runs an ac relay which controls the power to the diesel pump. That way you start the dryer on sensing mode, its running and then start the heater. It will run until the humidity sensor turns off the heating elements. The heater detects the pump is off and shuts down. (Or some other controller for the pump)

Might run into trouble if the elements are cycling on and off during the cycle or if the heater never gets the air hot enough.

 

[65NW]

There is no additional energy available using hot exhaust for cold side of heat pump

Oh, agreed. But if you already had a heat pump system that was near your generator shed, you could feed more heat into an existing system rather than make a new one.
Only point I was making.

High grade heat recovery if you had somewhere to put it anytime your generator is running would be great. There may be a mismatch in usage between when your generator is running and when you want to do laundry.

 

[hugemoth]

David McLuckie on YouTube attached a diesel heater to a dryer

 

[DPC]

I was going to suggest that as a possibility but that Scotsman beat me to it.

 

[65NW]

I was going to suggest that as a possibility but that Scotsman beat me to it.

Hellllewww