[HN Gopher] Japan's clothes-drying bathrooms
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Japan's clothes-drying bathrooms
        
       Author : Luc
       Score  : 69 points
       Date   : 2024-05-25 13:50 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com)
        
       | kibwen wrote:
       | Very cool, I didn't realize this was a thing. I've actually had
       | the same idea, of having a pole over the tub to hang wet clothes
       | on with a heat pump to blow warm air over them. Even if you don't
       | mind how energy-wasteful tumble-dryers are, the amount of damage
       | they do to your clothes is just astonishing. Every time you clean
       | out your lint trap, you're collecting the shreds that have been
       | torn off your clothes by the dryer. It just feels terrible.
        
         | cpncrunch wrote:
         | Heating an entire room for 3 hours seems a lot more wasteful
         | than heating a small tumble dryer for 1.5.
        
           | kibwen wrote:
           | The objective is not to heat the room, the goal is just to
           | keep the air warm enough and dry enough that evaporation can
           | occur in a timely enough fashion that your clothes don't get
           | musty.
           | 
           | Furthermore, with a standard tumble dryer, you're definitely
           | not just heating a small space. Go look at the outside of
           | your house where your dryer exhaust is and look at all the
           | hot air that it's constantly spewing outside. All that energy
           | is just being wasted.
        
             | Filligree wrote:
             | Dryer... exhaust? A what now?
        
               | leguminous wrote:
               | I assume that, if you aren't being sarcastic, you're
               | European? Or at least not American?
               | 
               | You're currently down voted, but many Americans probably
               | don't realize that some countries don't allow vented
               | dryers. Vented dryers are standard here and many
               | Americans have never seen anything else. They are indeed
               | terribly inefficient, using the nice, conditioned, inside
               | air once, heating it and then dumping it outside. All the
               | air that is exhausted from the inside has to get replaced
               | with air from the outside and has to be heated or cooled
               | again.
        
               | harshreality wrote:
               | As one of "[those] Americans", I take it that those
               | dryers remove moisture with a condenser loop and a water
               | collector, like an indoor dehumidifier would?
        
               | Filligree wrote:
               | Yes, it's going to either have a piped output or a
               | collection tank. Both are common. The water ends up warm,
               | so a collection tank is more efficient.
        
               | card_zero wrote:
               | Thus dumping the heat _inside_ the house.
        
               | Filligree wrote:
               | European, yes. I've never even seen a drier with an
               | exhaust, and it didn't seem like a sensible option to
               | consider.
               | 
               | Aren't heat pumps far more common in America than Europe?
               | Why is it backwards for driers?
        
               | to11mtm wrote:
               | Heat pumps are becoming more common but almost every home
               | or apartment I have lived in used Natural gas for heating
               | and maybe a wall mounted or central A/C unit.
               | 
               | Some homes in Detroit don't quite have modern HVAC
               | ducting, instead using 'water circulated' heating.
               | Theoretically they can 'cool' but IDK if I remember
               | seeing that in a commercial/municipal building/school or
               | if that was just a fever dream. That said, some buildings
               | will use a 'shared steam' system (My college had Shared
               | Steam for all the class buildings, IIRC lots of buildings
               | in downtown Detroit have one.)
               | 
               | But those examples are in a specific part of the rust
               | belt.
               | 
               | Up in the far NE (i.e. Maine, NH, etc) the remote areas
               | use 'heating oil' and that may be harder to change;
               | putting NG lines in would be unprofitable, and when the
               | power goes out a heat pump is going to be, relatively,
               | larger capacity drain than a blower on whatever's burning
               | the heating oil. Only way to mitigate that would be an
               | even larger generator, or an even larger bank of
               | batteries.
               | 
               | Which is a long way of saying, 'it depends'. And Heat
               | pumps are 'relatively new' commercially. People won't be
               | driven to replace until the cost of a repair vs cost of a
               | new heat pump unit 'makes sense' financially (i.e. it's
               | possible just getting a heat pump in may be 'cheaper'
               | than whatever repair is needed within a certain
               | timeframe... but to make the determination, someone first
               | has to bother to do the math.)
        
               | Filligree wrote:
               | > Heat pumps are becoming more common but almost every
               | home or apartment I have lived in used Natural gas for
               | heating and maybe a wall mounted or central A/C unit.
               | 
               | A/C units are heat pumps. Are you saying yours can't do
               | heating as well?
               | 
               | We just installed an air-air heat pump at the cottage up
               | in northern Norway. 4kW of heating (or cooling) for 800W
               | of power, all on an off-grid solar system. :)
        
             | cpncrunch wrote:
             | Modern high efficiency heat pump dryers don't have any
             | exhaust. In the UK dryers have never had an exhaust.
        
       | saagarjha wrote:
       | Is this more energy efficient than a normal dryer?
        
         | cpncrunch wrote:
         | Seems highly unlikely. They say it takes 3 hours. Tumble dryer
         | is a smaller space and doesnt take as long.
        
           | dymk wrote:
           | It uses a heat pump, so it's certainly much more efficient
           | than a dryer that uses gas or resistive heating element.
           | Like, by a lot.
           | 
           | That being said, energy prices in the US are a lot lower, so
           | the incentive to lower energy usage isn't there.
        
             | cpncrunch wrote:
             | Efficient dryers also use heat pumps (ours does).
        
             | saagarjha wrote:
             | Not all of the US, of course. We have plenty of incentive
             | to reduce our energy use in the Bay Area :)
        
           | deinonychus wrote:
           | I used one of these while vacationing last month. The system
           | had a 3 hour timer but you usually had to run a few cycles or
           | be diligent about rotating your overlapping and touching
           | clothes to eliminate wet spots. The unheated fan also seemed
           | to run 24/7 to prevent mold so I am curious what the energy
           | bill for the shower was.
           | 
           | A big factor I haven't seen anyone mention ITT is that you're
           | pretty limited on space on the shower curtain rod. You can
           | only hang up a few garments on there. Which makes sense
           | because our washer was quite small, too, but still produced
           | more wet laundry than the shower could dry. Back to drying -
           | you can go and hang up clothes on hangers to use the shower
           | rod more efficiently but that: 1) is really annoying to do
           | all the time, and 2) still takes a lot of time because now
           | parts of your shirt are almost 3 feet away from the heat and
           | circulating air, instead of 3 inches.
           | 
           | The entire setup was very interesting but required the
           | specific bathroom/shower layout and added a lot of friction
           | to my day. Maybe natives have figured out the annoyances I
           | didn't in my 2 weeks of vacation.
        
       | cpncrunch wrote:
       | Modern heat pump tumble dryers dont use really hot air, so dont
       | damage clothes as much, and are very efficient.
        
         | kieloo wrote:
         | That's what I was told when I bought a Miele tumble dryer. And
         | while it's convenient, I now only use it for socks and bed
         | sheets because it shrinks my clothes a lot. I don't know if
         | it's better than older dryers but it's not great.
        
           | cpncrunch wrote:
           | When you take the clothes out, are they hot or lukewarm? Mine
           | are lukewarm, and it doesn't seem possible that heat could
           | damage (and it never does). Other, regular type (high heat)
           | dryers do regularly damage fragile clothes.
        
             | kieloo wrote:
             | Lukewarm. I'm not sure what causes it but it tends to
             | shrink them quite badly.
        
               | cpncrunch wrote:
               | Is the dryer large enough so that the clothes can tumble
               | (rather than being stuck in place)?
        
               | to11mtm wrote:
               | Good question.
               | 
               | If the clothes aren't moving well enough for them or air
               | to move around, heat pockets can easily lead to shrinkage
               | (or 'cigarette burn' holes in high-polyester shirts).
               | 
               | The scenario where after one long round _some_ of your
               | stuff is dry (or even shrunk /damaged) but others are
               | still damp? Probably a sign of an overload or bad load
               | (e.x. comforters + anything but MAYBE sheets tends to be
               | a bad idea...) Or your socks were still balled from the
               | washer and they should be unballed and rewashed b/c they
               | are probably not that clean.
               | 
               | If you are overloading a dryer, I've found it best take
               | some clothes out and -not- overload it if you can. I had
               | a very 'consistent' clothing load and a _lot_ of free
               | time during covid, and more or less  'found' that with my
               | dryer, splitting an overload into two normal loads takes
               | about as long as
               | 
               | If you -can't-, try to do as many of these as you can:
               | 
               | 1. Do -not- try to bump up the temp to overcompensate for
               | the load size. If anything you may want to prefer a lower
               | temperature.
               | 
               | 2. Prefer shorter 'rounds' of 20-30 minutes, and manually
               | 'rotate/redistribute' the clothing between each round.
               | This way if the clothes aren't tumbling, you are at least
               | making sure there's some rotation. Ideally you're able to
               | get to the thing within a minute or two to check the
               | rotation and re-start to keep this semi energy
               | efficient... This is a bit easier if you're at a
               | 'laundromat' or have laundry as part of a weekend
               | cleaning routine or whatever. The good thing is, this
               | will probably help the overall load finish faster
               | regardless.
               | 
               | 3. Per the comment about the socks... have some
               | mindfulness in transferring the overload. At least in the
               | US it likely means the washer overloaded too (I know
               | other countries may have smaller driers vs washers etc),
               | and I have seen plenty of washes where one of two pieces
               | of clothing just didn't have anywhere to let the water
               | out during the spin. Leave those in the washer till you
               | transfer the others, then try to get the water out. Don't
               | wring the clothing, but consider gently pressing it (for
               | a T-shirt, 'foliding' it and a squeeze over the washer
               | basin will do the job as long as you're gentle about it,
               | or you can 'press' it against, or just run it on a spin
               | or in the next load.)
        
           | konschubert wrote:
           | Mine is always full of lint, and my jeans are now ripping
           | within a year or two, instead of 5 years when I didn't have a
           | dryer.
        
         | prmoustache wrote:
         | That is not my experience.
        
           | cpncrunch wrote:
           | In what way?
        
       | throw383y8 wrote:
       | Dehumidifier in small closed space, like bathroom, Works great.
       | Tumble dryers are horrible for clothes.
        
         | thebruce87m wrote:
         | Agreed. We run one in our bathroom 24/7. Bonus is that it dries
         | the daily towels too.
        
       | grose wrote:
       | I have one of these in my home (in Tokyo). Honestly... they kind
       | of suck. The lint from your clothes clogs your drains and vents
       | even faster than normal (you're supposed to use a plastic slab
       | cover thing over your bath, which requires a lot of maintenance
       | or it gets gross very quickly). It renders your shower unusable
       | for hours at time, so if you live with other people it makes
       | coordination of laundry/showers much more complex. Would not
       | recommend. I got a regular washer/dryer combo unit recently and
       | it markedly improved the quality of my life.
        
         | bemmu wrote:
         | I also live in Japan. Here people bathe in the evening, while
         | I'm finding it hard to shake my habit of taking a morning
         | shower (spend the whole day dirty? ick).
         | 
         | This means if it's raining, we'll have clothes drying in the
         | bathroom, which I'll then need to move out to take a shower.
         | Whether it makes sense to then put them back in to the now wet
         | bathroom with the dryer running I'm not sure.
        
           | grose wrote:
           | Haha, I know exactly how you feel. I too often wondered about
           | the optimal timing for clothes reinsertion... at least the
           | dryer unit is pretty good at drying out the shower which
           | seems to help with mold, so even if you're not using it for
           | clothes it still serves a purpose.
        
           | schumpeter wrote:
           | I find this interesting... I grew up in a Latin family and
           | learned to shower at night. I rationalized it as, not going
           | to bed dirty, and you aren't going to get dirtier just
           | sleeping anyway.
        
             | derefr wrote:
             | > you aren't going to get dirtier just sleeping anyway
             | 
             | I don't shower to wash off dirt; I shower to wash off my
             | own body's excretions. Which definitely _do_ happen while
             | I'm sleeping (and more so, in fact, because body
             | temperature rises during sleep.)
             | 
             | I can shower, dry thoroughly, get straight into bed... and
             | still, the next morning, I'm sticky from sweat; have BO
             | (that deodorant won't mask); and my hair is now stuck
             | moussed by my own overnight scalp oils into looking like
             | Goku.
        
               | bbarnett wrote:
               | Indeed. I think this may be down to individual
               | preferences, with all sorts of things affecting it.
        
               | Retric wrote:
               | > because body temperature rises during sleep
               | 
               | You have that backwards. "People maintain a fairly
               | consistent body temperature during the day which drops at
               | night by around 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. However, some
               | people still feel hot at night due to their unique body
               | composition, sleep environment, something they ate or
               | drank, or other medical reasons."
               | https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-faqs/why-do-i-get-
               | so-h....
               | 
               | Deeper look: "Core body temperature (CBT) reductions
               | occur before and during the sleep period, with the extent
               | of presleep reductions corresponding to sleep onset and
               | quality." https://journals.physiology.org/doi/abs/10.1152
               | /japplphysiol...
        
             | Izkata wrote:
             | In my family, parents showered in the morning and kids
             | showered at night.
             | 
             | I tried switching after moving out but didn't find it nice
             | for the same reason you mention, getting the bed all dirty
             | with whatever sweat had accumulated over the day.
        
             | klyrs wrote:
             | Night sweats be damned.
        
               | sumnole wrote:
               | By an air conditioning unit.
        
               | raydev wrote:
               | As if that stops your body from producing oils and sweat.
        
               | klyrs wrote:
               | Thanks for the useless advice, random internet stranger!
               | Not all night sweats are remedied so easily...
               | 
               | https://www.healthline.com/health/night-sweats
        
             | dymk wrote:
             | I'm in the habit of a shower in the morning and a quick
             | rinse shower before bed. Idk why people limit themselves to
             | grooming only at a single point in the day.
        
             | to11mtm wrote:
             | For me the answer is 'it depends'.
             | 
             | Currently our home's AC is out which has resulted in two
             | showers/day due to the heat. Post exercise is going to at
             | least be a hot rinse.
             | 
             | The irony (pun semi-intended) is my wife has gotten fond of
             | at times hanging clothes in the bathroom during a shower to
             | help remove wrinkles. No, Ironing is better but it's a
             | little less ceremony as well as increasing the overall
             | utility of the water you used in the shower.
        
             | AuryGlenz wrote:
             | I'm simply way too greasy of a person to shower at night.
             | I'd rather sleep through the part where it's built up the
             | most, not waste the first 8 hours of being less greasy when
             | I'm sleeping.
             | 
             | I suppose different genetics in different regions might
             | play into that.
        
             | Nux wrote:
             | Yep, also the Eastern European way. Always found it
             | counterintuitive when watching American films.
        
             | BurningFrog wrote:
             | I've always showered at night, and I now can't fall asleep
             | dirty. I feel all sticky and gross.
             | 
             | I think I wake up still basically clean, not filthier than
             | morning showerers. I am of course a biased observer for
             | that.
        
           | moomoo11 wrote:
           | I'm glad I'm in the US where I shower whenever I want.
           | Morning, middle of the day, and at night again.
           | 
           | I grew up in 3rd world without running water, so I'm not ever
           | going to feel "guilty" or whatever other BS for taking 2-3
           | showers a day.
        
           | rambojohnson wrote:
           | do you sleep walk outside all night?
        
           | langsoul-com wrote:
           | Even in the summer? Most South East Asian nations shower in
           | the evening because of the mad heat and humidity.
        
         | grose wrote:
         | To add on to this: I think they are mostly intended as an
         | "emergency backup" for people who usually hang dry their
         | clothes outside to use when it's raining, etc. If you're not
         | using it as your primary drying method maybe it's not so bad?
         | Having more than one shower probably helps too. Unfortunately I
         | am not blessed with such a large space, and my balcony is
         | pitifully small :)
        
           | qingcharles wrote:
           | Is it common to hang laundry outside in Japan even in cities?
           | The USA has made hanging laundry a no-no across most of the
           | country, for aesthetic reasons I guess. It's very common in
           | Europe, though.
        
             | grose wrote:
             | Very common, although some especially fancy buildings have
             | rules against it. Probably a similar rate as Europe.
        
             | csa wrote:
             | > Is it common to hang laundry outside in Japan even in
             | cities?
             | 
             | Yes.
             | 
             | In fact, the minami-muki (south-facing) places garner a
             | premium precisely for this purpose -- much more of direct
             | sun.
        
             | Larrikin wrote:
             | I've never seen a dryer in Japan except at laundromats and
             | the dorm. If you live in an amazing high rise in Tokyo
             | without a balcony you'll have the fancy in bathroom hot air
             | system. If you live in a crappy place without a balcony
             | (which actually is kinda rare), you'll still have a pole to
             | hang your clothes out the window.
             | 
             | My first time staying there I was told regulations make
             | dryers take so long that it just isn't worth the
             | electricity cost. The one time I used the dryer in Japan,
             | my clothes were just a warm damp after two cycles.
        
               | SapporoChris wrote:
               | I have used dryers in multiple location in Japan with
               | primarily good experience. Coin laundry clothes drying
               | machine: exceedingly powerful, no issues except for cost
               | and convenience. Dryers in hotels: small capacity (7-9
               | kg), 30 minute cycle usually complete in 45 minutes of
               | drying. Bad experience with washer dryer combo, could be
               | programmed to wash and then dry clothing however the
               | installers did not attach vent hose so it would fill the
               | apartment with hot air and lint.
               | 
               | I have also used shower dryers. Very pleasant. Controls
               | are outside the shower and the shower was separate from
               | the toilet. I didn't note any issues with lint, however,
               | I had weekly cleaning service that was probably dealing
               | with it.
               | 
               | I've also lived in Japan without a dryer at all. Hanging
               | clothes on the balcony to dry or inside when it's
               | raining. It seems to me that clothes last a lot longer
               | when they're air dried.
        
         | tjpnz wrote:
         | Our apartment complex is undergoing renovations right now and
         | we're not able to use the balcony for drying clothes - so we're
         | using ours for everything. There certainly are logistics
         | involved and reconfiguring the shower area (wife's up early)
         | every morning is now part of my routine.
         | 
         | Under normal circumstances I do appreciate the quick work
         | they'll make of the occasional pair of jeans.
        
         | ch33zer wrote:
         | For the year I lived in Japan I also found the capacity quite
         | limited, and my clothes dried very slowly.
        
         | crazygringo wrote:
         | I'm confused, how do these generate any lint and how would that
         | clog drains or vents?
         | 
         | Dryer lint is produced by the abrasion of clothes as they
         | tumble in your dryer.
         | 
         | Hang drying doesn't produce lint. It seems like this is just
         | hang drying but circulating warmer drier air to speed it up.
         | 
         | So I must be misunderstanding something. How is this generating
         | lint that clogs your drain? Why do you have to put a plastic
         | cover down at all? I don't put any kind of cover on my floor
         | when I air-dry my T shirts on a rack after washing. (I don't
         | like them shrinking in my dryer.)
        
           | grose wrote:
           | It's not as intense as regular dryer lint. Seems to be like
           | small bits of thread that fall off during the drying process
           | (perhaps coming off during tumble wash and sticking to it
           | while wet?). There's a pretty strong gust of air coming from
           | the dryer. My unit came with panels fitted for the bathtub
           | and instructions to use when drying, it's a bath/shower combo
           | thing.
        
       | matchamatcha wrote:
       | I would like to have this to avoid the mold that seems to appear
       | inevitably in indoor bathrooms.
       | 
       | When I lived in Japan, we used air dehumidifiers, clotheslines on
       | the roof, or the huge tumble dryers at the coin laundry. Tokyo
       | summer sun and wind make clothes dry real quick.
        
         | 123yawaworht456 wrote:
         | uh... mold is not inevitable at all, fren.
        
       | aaron695 wrote:
       | Heat pump dryers dry at a lower temperature, have auto-shutoff
       | with sensors and no venting so are far better for your clothing
       | and the room.
       | 
       | Normal dryers can do some of this, but it seems heat pump dryers
       | are making the leap.
       | 
       | Blurb - https://www.bosch-home.com.sg/experience-bosch/living-
       | with-b...
       | 
       | The catch is heat pump dryers cost more [?]
        
         | everybodyknows wrote:
         | The linked page doesn't say how the extracted water is disposed
         | of. Is a plumbed in-drain required?
        
       | digdigdag wrote:
       | How about we continue using something more convenient like a
       | standalone dryer and focus our energy usage reduction on the
       | largest target -- which is manufacturing by a whopping 76% of the
       | total electricity consumption in the United States
       | (https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/use-of-energy/industry.p...)
       | as well as transportation. Nothing else comes close.
       | 
       | Quirky Japanese technology is not the solution.
        
         | throwaway4aday wrote:
         | Why fight an uphill battle for reduction in manufacturing when
         | you can get rich by being the first to offer cost competitive
         | on-site carbon free power production? Forget marketing rooftop
         | solar to households, you should be selling micro-nuclear to
         | steel and cement plants.
        
           | habitue wrote:
           | As a society, it makes more sense to figure out how to
           | generate more clean energy (rather than to try to reduce our
           | energy usage).
           | 
           | But as an individual who wants to do something, and in
           | principle has an incentive to reduce their energy bill,
           | reducing consumption is the main thing under their control.
        
         | kibwen wrote:
         | _> which is manufacturing by a whopping 76% of the total
         | electricity consumption in the United States_
         | 
         | According to that link, manufacturing represents 76% of
         | industrial energy consumption, not total energy consumption.
        
       | causality0 wrote:
       | _and it's fairly environmentally friendly, as the energy demands
       | of a yokushitsu kansouki are modest compared with a tumble
       | dryer._
       | 
       | [citation needed]
       | 
       | What I really want is a dryer that uses the hot air from my AC to
       | dry clothes.
        
         | HPsquared wrote:
         | Sounds like a good low-cost product. A duct, a box and a few
         | rails to hang the clothes on.
        
         | dymk wrote:
         | The citation is that they use a heat pump. They're 3-4x as
         | efficient at heating compared to resistive heaters.
        
           | causality0 wrote:
           | Tumble dryers can also use heat pumps now.
        
             | dymk wrote:
             | 99.9% of them do not. "Tumble dryer" means resistive or gas
             | heating unless otherwise specified.
        
               | causality0 wrote:
               | What are you talking about? Even ten years ago heat pump
               | dryers made up 43% of dryer sales in Europe, and it's
               | only gone up.
               | 
               | https://storage.topten.eu/source/files/EEDAL15_Eric_Bush_
               | Hea...
        
       | treflop wrote:
       | We used a yokushitsu kansouki a lot when I was traveling in Japan
       | and they were were awesome but I felt it was not as practical if
       | you had a lot of laundry. Plus the having to shower thing made it
       | annoying sometimes.
       | 
       | I do hang dry some clothes at home but at the end of the day, I
       | accept the damage that a dryer does because it allows me to spend
       | a lot less time to clean a lot more clothes and therefore I do
       | laundry way less and spend less time on it.
       | 
       | I did like it for drying out the bathroom quicker so it wouldn't
       | grow mold though.
        
       | jjw1414 wrote:
       | My first thought was of the old "Ronco Shower/Blow Dryer in a
       | Briefcase" skit with Martin Short on SCTV
       | (https://youtu.be/eTHvF2aAi50?si=JmPQsvjV6YtpWjQw). "Why you...."
        
       | prmoustache wrote:
       | I am surprised to hear about the high statistics of tumble dryer
       | usage in the US compared to us europeans.
       | 
       | I mean, it looks to me like people tend to have more space on
       | average in the USA, why wouldn't they want to prefer to dry their
       | clothes outdoor and makes them last longer? Even when I owned a
       | tumble drier, I only used it for emergencies or wet days. I also
       | found out that on wet days a deshumidifier in a large room was
       | still better for the longevity of my clothes than tumble drying.
        
         | ProfessorLayton wrote:
         | Only the most delicate garments get hung dry, but otherwise the
         | dryer is used the vast majority of the time.
         | 
         | As for the wear and tear, in my experience most of it came from
         | the washing machine and not the dryer. Older washers with the
         | agitator in the middle wore out my clothes a ton more than
         | modern front-loaded machines, which also adjust wash time
         | depending on load size. Dryers also have humidity sensors that
         | adjust drying time, which is minimal as the washer spins at
         | 1,200 rpm.
         | 
         | Lastly, hang drying also has its own wear if done outside:
         | Color fading from the sun.
         | 
         | In the end it just isn't worth the hassle (for me).
        
       | adrianmonk wrote:
       | > _It consists of a heat pump embedded into a bathroom ceiling
       | that blows out warm, dehumidified air onto clothes hung below.
       | Heating the room to up to 35C (95F) to 40C, this room-sized
       | clothes dryer can make short work of a load of washing (hung on a
       | rail straddling the room) in about three hours._
       | 
       | This might be fine in cooler climates, but here in Texas, I'm
       | using AC more often than not, and this would fight against the
       | AC, which seems wasteful.
       | 
       | Point being, when something is done differently in different
       | parts of the world, sometimes it's because a different solution
       | works better in different circumstances.
        
         | avar wrote:
         | If you're going through the trouble of embedding an appliance
         | in your ceiling you could just heat insulate the "drying room"
         | from the rest of the house, and place a door on it that
         | wouldn't allow air to pass through.
         | 
         | Given that, I'd expect such a device to be more efficient in
         | Texas, not less.
        
       | Ajay-p wrote:
       | In college my roommates and I discovered way to get free washing,
       | but not drying. This meant we had to hang out clothes in the
       | bathroom. The biggest problem with this was that it made the
       | bathroom off limits to showers for two days, and the clothes were
       | quite stiff and rough.
       | 
       | I'm not entirely sure how the Japanese solution works, but I'm
       | not convinced by this article to dispense with my tumble dryer.
       | There is certainly a need to reduce energy use and the space
       | washer and dryers take up, but not sure this is it.
        
       | sntran wrote:
       | I wonder how useful this is to be placed inside a van for that
       | tiny "bathroom" area. We drive most of the day so the clothes can
       | be dry in there, if the energy usage is efficient.
       | 
       | Of course, clothes can be hung outside for the warmth of the sun,
       | but this seems way cooler.
        
         | avar wrote:
         | If you want something really efficient for clothes drying in a
         | van or mobile home just place a small junkyard car radiator in
         | that tiny "bathroom", and hook the radiator up to your engine's
         | coolant loop.
         | 
         | As you're driving around your engine is already trying to vent
         | heat to the outside, so you're mostly getting the heat "for
         | free". The losses due to extending the coolant loop etc. will
         | be comparatively minimal.
         | 
         | The only tricky bit will be carefully managing thermostats to
         | ensure that radiator won't be melting something is the
         | bathroom, your coolant will get hot enough to boil water.
         | 
         | A "it ain't dumb if it works" variant on that is to literally
         | bolt a box to the top of your hood (depending on visibility
         | etc.), then remove your hood's insulation, and possibly drill a
         | hole to exchange air between the two. Anything in the "hot box"
         | should dry as you drive around.
        
       | nocoiner wrote:
       | ,
        
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