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Weather-specific energy offsets: Running the A/C? Kill the dryer

By Rain Noe - June 11, 2008

in Object Culture

In the dead of winter, it seems absurd to be paying for electricity to run a refrigerator and icebox when it's well freezing outside. Similarly, running a dryer in a heatwave seems nuts, particularly when the utility bill shows up. Energy costs are on the rise.

Just a reminder that as temperatures soar and you reach for the A/C button, you can offset your increased carbon footprint, however slightly, through the simplest of product designs: a hanging rack. We picked up the IKEA fold-flat model above for US $17 and are putting the heat to work for us by hang-drying everything. (Our previous summertime energy-saver, a clothesline, was cheaper and folded just as flat, but it wasn't as purty.) Now if we could only figure out how to store meat outside in the winter....

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jinx

16 years ago

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Why doesn't someone invent a vent for the fridge/freezer that flips to intake cold air in the wintertime? And, in the summer, when it exhausts hot air, can't the dern thing point that stuff to the outside?
Same thing for the dryer, only reversed please. Now, get on those design gems.

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Byte

16 years ago

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here in italy nobody has an electric dryer at home, everybody uses that kind of hangers to dry the clothes... italy is a step ahead XD (ironic meaning :P)
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