So the wife and I are moving to a new apartment come October. It has washer/dryer hook ups, but it doesn’t have a dryer vent to the outside. They suggested an indoor dryer vent that you fill with water. Electric dryer, btw.
Anyone have any experience with these? Good/bad? Do they really heat up the room? Add a lot of humidity?
I used to have one of those water-filled “vents” and it was awkward - it’s little more than a one-quart plastic bowl with a lid that has a fitting for the dryer vent hose to connect to. When the dryer’s running, the water bubbles madly and theoretically, catches whatever lint made it past the lintscreen inside the dryer.
Being so small and light, it’s easily knocked over, spilling linty water on the floor. The hot air bubbling through water does release a fair bit of humidity.
How far is it from the dryer to a window or door that you might be able to run a vent hose to?
BTW: having the plumbing and electric hookups but no vent connection is really weird.
I’ve got you one up. Today I jsut installed the used coin-op washer and dryer I bought for my new apartment. The “vent” in my case is one of the louvred thingies that seemingly goes to nothing but the inside of the wall! :eek:
A while after I moved into this house, I had a plumber in the crawl space for something or other. The dryer was running at the time, and when he emerged, he told me there was no duct between where the dryer vent went into the floor and the terminal vent on the outside wall. I paid him to string a flexy duct from one to the other, and after a couple of months, the dryer was taking much longer to dry clothes.
So, I called the dryer repairman. (No, not Jesse White!) He said the dryer was fine, but that flexy hose was catching a huge amount of lint. I had him install the correct rigid duct, and I still have to clean it out once a year or so. I got a brush-on-a-snake gadget from Improvements.com That’s only 10 feet long, though, so I have to tape it to an electrician’s fish tape. Pretty slick, once I got it figured out.
By the way, for my last two appliance repairs, I got guidance and parts from repairclinic.com and I fixed them myself. It was easier than I thought, and much cheaper.
The lint-catcher-bubbler sounds like it would dump all the water from all your clothes, evaporated, into your house. Do you want that much moisture in there?
I’m glad this topic came up, I’ve been searching for a solution myself.
I’m currently dealing with the second of these types of hook-ups, and the one I have now just sucks.
I was in an apartment a few years ago with a small over/under washer-dryer setup, with the dryer on the top. Sitting atop the dryer was a cylindrical bowl that held about a quart of water. This had a lid that held the flex hose and snapped in place to the bowl. There may have been a couple of slits to let the air out, I don’t remember. I do remember that it worked great; that is, you didn’t know the dryer was on. (And this was a small apartment.)
Now we’re in a townhouse, the washer-dryer (full sized) is in the basement. When I had the room finished, I could have had a duct going up the wall, across the ceiling, and venting into the garage, but the contractor (my BIL) argued that I shouldn’t have the dryer venting into the garage, and convinced us to go the water-bucket route.
:smack:
Long story short, I couldn’t find the type that was in the apartment (it was there when I’d moved in), only a shoe-box shaped container with a vented top.
Terrible, terrible product. The basement fills with steam, and the lint collects so fast that you practically have to change the water during the run. It also imparts a sour smell to the air and the clothes.
So to answer the OP, I hate the one I have, wish I could find the kind I had, and will be watching this thread for advice, too.