Frugal and Green

A Heat Diverter for the Dryer Vent

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 19:39:42 -0600

Reading in The Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyzcyn, I came across a reference to something called an Extra-Heat, which you insert in the ducting. The item in the photo above is made by another company, Dundas-Jafine, because it is what Sutherlands carried; but Ace Hardware carries one and Deflecto, the manufacturer (or at least importer) of Extra-Heat is still in business. The device has a screen that you pop off to remove lint, which you shoud do regularly, and a tab that switches from WINTER to SUMMER and back again to open and close the access to the Great Outdoors and block or open the heat diversion. When your dryer is running and it is winter, all the hot air and moisture stay in the house, warming and humidifying it.

Amy says,

When the dryer is running, it produces enough heat to keep a 30’ x 24’ room warm . . . . These devices are generally recommended for electric dryers only. (The Complete Tightwad Gazette, p 279.)

We installed it in ten minutes, as I mentioned, and turned on the dryer, and out came rushing first cool wind, then hot, moist air, as the dryer warmed up. I couldn’t be happier! Our household does perhaps on average a load of laundry a day, and the dryer runs from forty minutes to an hour each time. So that works out to five to seven hours a week of “free” (“recycled”) heat for the basement a week. Would this significantly reduce the heating bill? Not by much: but I’ll bet it would pay for itself in a winter season.

What did it cost?

Eight dollars!

DO NOT USE if you have a gas-heated dryer, because your dryer’s fumes are being vented ou the same path. Keeping those fumes indoors will kill you.

The diverter is against code, so bear this in mind. It is not recommended, by sources on the internet, if your house is new and tightly sealed, because the humidity could build up and cause black mold, or in a closed room for the same reason. However, our diverter is in a largely open basement, in a ninety-year-old house, at my risk. Your mileage may vary, so use at your own risk.

Weather and Disaster

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 06:20:14 -0600

I have always been tempted by disaster, by the belief that there will be one perfect moment when the world balances delicately, inverted like an Ossa dropped by accident from atop Pelion, hanging gently on its peak while a vast bulk of danger trembles below, before tumbling into a haze of rubble and sound and The End below.

The Club of Rome can tell me we are running out of resources and Gore can tell me me are running out of cool breezes and Kunstler can tell me we are running out of civilization itself. Japan is taking over the world, no it is China; wait, is that Russia again? Iraq has the bomb. Iran is about to build it.

Yet things potter along still, and the snow still falls, and men still write newspaper editorials, and other men read them. Can apocalypse be so close?

And if it is, who would not yield like water before it?

So disaster tempts me less than it did, and the world is a far larger place than it was, and more distant, and the eye turns inwards.

Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?

The Springtime of the Soul

Sat, 13 Feb 2010 06:10:12 -0600

The lily I got from the Place That Must Not Be Named (because Lord knows we might have to go back someday) has decided that it is spring, as has the single survivor of the three purple hyacinths. The lily, with its four blooms, is almost three feet tall. The hyacinth is reticent, not yet blooming, cautious but little green arms stretching hopefully towards the window.

They wouldn’t bloom outside, of course, but something set them off here. The lights in the house tell them little, but a little clock in their vegetative souls informs them.

The spring approaches, and we know it before it arrives, if we listen.

6:15 am

Wed, 10 Feb 2010 18:19:41 -0600

Lying there softly weeping, cheeks wet with tears, asking for mama. I did for a quick second best. I promised mama be awake after sleep, and Lucy would come. “Lucy sleepy?” Yes. “Mama sleepy?” yes. “Dada sleepy?” Dada is sleepy too, yes.

It kept her quiet for a while.

Watching Whip It with Bonnie

Tue, 9 Feb 2010 21:17:45 -0600

At the climax! At the championship! What will happen next? Will Juno get to gether with the boy? Will they win? Will her mother accept her?