I’ve actually seen some fairly simple vacuum pumps which could handle all of that and weren’t maintenance intensive. Of course, I have no idea how much they cost, so that could be a factor.
I doubt that it’d have to be that thick. Plenty of high pressure tanks are made out of thinner stuff.
True.
Except, of course, there’d be no way to conduct the heat once the air was evacuated and with a hard enough vacuum, even the ice would disappear. (Ever heard of “freeze drying?”)
I’m a guy, I don’t have to worry about any of that stuff.
Tucker, the reason behind the water-cooled condenser drying concept is that it makes for easy installation. Just connect the water supply hoses, hook the outlet hose into the drain and plug the cord into a regular socket. In short, the whole idea is to offer a drying function in a machine which isn’t any more difficult to accommodate/install than a regular washer.
Bear in mind, over here most washers are installed under kitchen countertops with cabinets on either side, which can make installing any kind of vent duct a nightmare. Separate laundry rooms, and and all the benefits they bring, are typically only found in larger homes.
For those who can accommodate a separate dryer, but have no vent duct available, you can purchase standalone condensing dryers here. These are slightly different, in that they use a heat exchanger which is cooled by a flow of room temperature air. Just plug it in, load it up and you’re away. I have one of these, and it works great; takes a full load from the washer, and because it’s separate it works independently. The drying times and energy consumption are virtually the same as any vented dryer.
That was odd. Damned hamsters ! Tuckerfan, water in a vacuum will boil until it freezes. That’s why fancy freeze-driers come with heaters for temperature control. Without that it can take half of forever to sublime off a few liters of frozen liquid. Heat is transferred from the walls of the chamber by conduction and radiation. It’s not as fast as hot air would be, but with a good pump, and a heater that’ll keep the temperature up around 0°, you could probably get a load of jeans dry in 12 hours or less. In case you’re wondering, I’ve done a lot of freeze-drying over the years. I’ve also fixed more crapped out vacuum pumps than I care to think about.
Go wash your mouth with soap and sacrifice a goat, or you’ll be the first one to burn at the stake if the next post disappears.
It looks more like a browser problem to me, like the wrong button or input field having the keyboard focus on it. Instead of executing your Ctrl-D or Ctrl-L menu shortcuts it inserted the corresponding ASCII characters. Or something.
Balderdash! I just bought a 5 disc CD changer, radio and tape deck for under a hundred dollars. If I’d bought them all separately it would’ve cost twice that at least!
Thanks for all the responses. I think kirk280980 had the best answer: you need twice as much room to dry as to wash, meaning it was a really obvious reason and I’m a moron, just as I suspected.
Another multi-function unit to avoid is the combined TV and VCR. If you are lucky the VCR will last, at the most five years, while the TV part will go on for much longer. Thus you have to throw away a perfectly good TV because the VCR part is no good.
Also, if you buy a new, separate VCR to replace the VCR function on the TV/VCR, you will sometimes find that pre-recorded tapes have really messed-up brightness control. And something similar may happen if you ever try hooking up a DVD player.
I suspect it’s because the tapes/DVDs have their copy-protect feature kick in when they’re being played back in a configuration that could conceivably be used for copying them.
Re: OP I think you have the idea. I had friends in Berlin who bought one, thinking it would make their lives easier. It didn’t for the reasons listed above. These friends had no excuse - they had ample room for both a washer and a dryer - it just seemed like a good idea at the time.
Re: Umbrenema concept, please don’t make me watch the infomercial.
Re: Multi techno devices in one. On a recent late night showing of Let’s Make A Deal from the 70’s - one of the prizes was a refrigerator with a “built in am/fm radio and 8 track player”. Sure enough, there was a godawful red fridge with what I can only imagine was a superb quality stereo system built into the freezer door.
OK, I grew up in the good old USA and I remember that my mother had a combination washer/dryer unit. It had to have been purchased around 1955. I have memories of that thing but excuse me if they are a little clouded after nearly 50 years.
The washer/dryer combo was sold under the brand name “Easy”. I have no idea what company manufactured it.
As has been mentioned, there are certain limitations to the combo concept. One that I didn’t see mentioned is that if the clothes tumble dry the drum has to be situated with the open end facing you not upwards. Therefore, the door has to seal very well or you can develop some unwanted floor washing.
The Easy model apparantly compensated for the drying problem. If I recall correctly, when we first used it we ran the drying cycle too long and almost set the clothes on fire. They came out with burn marks on them.
Also the machine didn’t compensate or shut off when it got unbalanced. It would get unbalanced, wouldn’t shut off and would start walking across the floor. The only thing that kept it in the house was the hoses that it was trying to rip out of the plumbing. The safety switch was that it would pull its own plug out of the wall. My dad ended up bolting the thing to the floor.
Apparantly, the experiences with the Easy gave it a bad name and it disappeared from the market. Maytag, Kenmore, etc. never got tempted to resell the public on the concept.
