Solar-powered clothes dryers disallowed by HOA's

[TomOfTarsus]

Ya know, I'm beginning to think we've gone completely knutz in this country. You'd think the folks in Washington, and all the rest of the idiots screaming "Green! GREEN! GREEN!" had invented the concepts of energy efficiency and the re-use and recycling of anything remotely reusable.

Then you read something like this:
Pennsylvania Residents Fight for Right to Hang Laundry - Science News | Science & Technology | Technology News - FOXNews.com

And your jaw just drops. I wonder how that'd go over in Amish country?

A related story: I went to the hardware store to purchase parts to upgrade my solar-powered clothes dryer, and told the fellow that. He was immediately fascinated, wanted to know how it worked. I told him that by controlling exposure to the optimal sun angle and maximizing the exposure area of the damp articles, the solar powered clothes dryer was able to leverage both the incident solar radiation and the secondary solar convective effects, we were able to dry our clothes without ANY use of house power at all! And they smelled wonderful, too!

He was transfixed, and wanted to know what parts I needed. I told him two long pipes, 4 short pipes, 2 "T" connectors (he's taking this all in), and then it dawned on him when I mentioned 8 hooks and 100 ft of clothesline.

It was 5 minutes before he could compose himself enough to start gathering my order.

Have a good one, all! But don't hang your undies in view of the HOA!

Tom

[dmccarty]

Tom,

First of all you need an acronym for your solar-powered clothes dryer, SPCD.

Now that you have a name, SPCD, you can get a tax write off to build and construct you Green Energy Saving Device, GESD, with which you too can save the world.

Once the Feds and the state give you tax credits for your SPCD the HOA will have no choice but too allow the full use of SPCD due to it being a GESD.

Get your Congress Critter working on it ASAP.

I am sure they can find a space for a line or two in the 2,000 page bills they seem to pass lately without reading.

Later,
Dan

[TomOfTarsus]

Agreed! I need to be better at Gobblety-speak! I wonder how many carbon credits I could get for that thing?

(And now I find that under new guidelines, I could get an Federal Energy tax credit or some such thing for the fireplace I put in two years ago! I wonder how far back that goes?)

Anyway, Save the world! Get your SPCD today!

Tom
(who's glad he doesn't have said HOA-types to deal with!)

[Jimbrown]

We have that same stupid restriction in out POA rules. But it is just ignored and no one complains. Of course we do have 40ac lots so you almost got to have binos to see.

We just went thru a similar thing with with rain water catch tanks. The silly committe tht rules on new construction tried to dissallow the tanks as the rules say all tanks have to be hidden or screened. The fact that the tanks were in the back yard and painted the same as the house was not good enough. We finally conviced them that here in Az it really should be law that everyone have catch tanks. Oh well.

[Tig]

I seriously considered a solar powered clothes dryer but being as far north as I am it didn't seem practical. I opted for wind powered instead and I'm quite happy with it. Although I must admit I have not calculated how long the payback is.

[2manyrocks]

That's a good one.

It's so GREEN to fly everywhere giving a lot of speechs and inexpensive, too.

[hitekcountry]

Originally Posted by TomOfTarsus

A related story: I went to the hardware store to purchase parts to upgrade my solar-powered clothes dryer, and told the fellow that. He was immediately fascinated, wanted to know how it worked. I told him that by controlling exposure to the optimal sun angle and maximizing the exposure area of the damp articles, the solar powered clothes dryer was able to leverage both the incident solar radiation and the secondary solar convective effects, we were able to dry our clothes without ANY use of house power at all! And they smelled wonderful, too!

He was transfixed, and wanted to know what parts I needed. I told him two long pipes, 4 short pipes, 2 "T" connectors (he's taking this all in), and then it dawned on him when I mentioned 8 hooks and 100 ft of clothesline.

It was 5 minutes before he could compose himself enough to start gathering my order

ROTFLMAO! That's a good one.

What's interesting is the differences in attitudes in this country from what you would find in other countries. Here in the US using a cloths dryer is considered normal and using a cloths line is considered low class behavior.
In other countries using a cloths line is normal and is preferred for the fresh smell of the cloths and a dryer is considered an extravagant/stupid waste of energy.

Just take a look at your electric meter when your cloths dryer is running.

[dave1949]

Originally Posted by Tig

I seriously considered a solar powered clothes dryer but being as far north as I am it didn't seem practical. I opted for wind powered instead and I'm quite happy with it. Although I must admit I have not calculated how long the payback is.

Steve, you have heard of freeze-dried, right?

Banning clotheslines has to be the epitome of stupid. Don't these people have anything better to do?
Dave.

[Steve C]

I bought a house that was owned by an Amish family. It had the mother of all SPCD's. It ran from the top of my 40 foot silo about 200 feet away to the corner of the house. Unfortunately to span that distance required the use of vynil covered wire cable.

It was hit by lightning and caught the curtains in the basement window on fire. Every place in the house where 2 metal parts are close to each other are charred. It blew a hole in the cast iron soil pipe and burned holes in the galvanized water pipes and the remnants of the heating ducts that the Amish had abandoned in place when they bought the house. It also melted most of the abandoned wiring and recepticals and exploded one of the old fuses in the old electric panel. The Amish fellow who lived there said it was real loud!

All the "j" channel that holds the soffets in place is scorched on the ends where they meet.

So if you chose to have the mother of all SPCD's by all means install a lightning suppression systems.

The first thing I did when we bought the place was to remove the end of the SPCD from the house. I am going to re-install it but it will have a remote location.

You can see the pulley for it on the top of the silo.

[riptides]

Pretty soon we will be down at the creek with rocks to start the cycle anew.