Drying Clothes Views
Several types of devices are available for indoor drying. A drying rack or clotheshorse can help save space in an apartment or clothes lines can be strung in the basement during the winter. Small loads can simply be draped over furniture or a shower curtain pole. The drying time indoors will typically be longer than outdoor drying because of the lack of direct solar radiation and the convective assistance of the wind.
An average-sized wash load will convert approximately 3165 joule of ambient heat into latent heat that is stored in the evaporated water. To determine how much heat has been converted in drying a load of laundry, weigh the clothes when they are wet and then again after the clothes have dried. The difference is the weight of the water that was evaporated from them. Multiply that weight in kg by 440, which is the heat of vaporization per kilogram, to obtain the number of joules that went into evaporating the water, or multiply by 0.3074 to get kilowatt-hours. (Note: If the moisture later condenses inside the house, the latent heat will be converted back into ambient heat which could increase the temperature of the air in the room slightly.)[8][9] To obtain a good approximation of the effect this would have in a particular situation, the process can be traced on a psychrometric chart.
Laundry may be dried outdoors when the temperature is well below the freezing point. First, the moisture in the laundry items will freeze and the clothing will become stiff. Then the frost on the clothes will sublimate into the air leaving the items dry. It takes a long time and it is usually much quicker to dry them indoors; however, indoor drying removes heat from the air so it is a trade-off between speed and energy efficiency.
As of October 2009, the states of Florida, Colorado, Utah,[11][12][13] Hawaii, Maine and Vermont had passed laws forbidding bans on clothes lines. Similar bills were under consideration in Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon and Virginia. At least eight states restrict homeowners associations from forbidding the installation of solar-energy systems, and lawyers have debated whether or not those laws might apply to clothes lines. A British filmmaker, Steven Lake, is planning to release a documentary in 2011 titled Drying for Freedom about the clothes-line controversy in the United States.[10]
Drying Clothes Images
