Incorrect, no connection to outdoors is required for these appliances. In the case of the ventless combo, it literally hooks up to nothing other than the standard washing machine hookup. 1 normal 15 amp power outlet, 1 hot water hose, 1 cold water hose, 1 drain hose. No dryer vents, no other tubes or hoses, no drilling or cutting, no changes at all required. It is literally a drop-in replacement for any washer, but it also dries, with a heat pump, powered from the same circuit the washer uses and the same drain the washer uses.
Also, let me blow your mind a little bit: theoretically, the cold water main running to your house contains enough heat energy to completely heat your house all winter on its own. It is cold to us, but thermodynamically it’s a goldmine and you have an extremely generous supply of it. Water represents an enormous reservoir of heat, and you can play some really fun games with latent heat of evaporation and condensation (which is exactly how heat pumps work in the first place). Dehumidifiers add as much or more heat to a room than a space heater does, using a fraction of the electrical power. That’s the power of the heat contained in water. I’m not saying that a heat pump dryer is doing this with your water supply, simply pointing out that once water is in play, it becomes way more of a complex issue than performance figures on paper actually represent.
Obviously, clean drinkable water is also a scarce resource, so using it directly for any form of heating would be wasteful in its own way, but the point is that it would be technically possible. Including water in the discussion adds a lot of really interesting possibilities to the way we manage heat and energy, and we will eventually need to start understanding how much heat we literally throw away down the drain and how wasteful that actually is. And in the process we’ll learn to save some money and maybe even make our lives a bit more convenient.
Incorrect, no connection to outdoors is required for these appliances. In the case of the ventless combo, it literally hooks up to nothing other than the standard washing machine hookup. 1 normal 15 amp power outlet, 1 hot water hose, 1 cold water hose, 1 drain hose. No dryer vents, no other tubes or hoses, no drilling or cutting, no changes at all required. It is literally a drop-in replacement for any washer, but it also dries, with a heat pump, powered from the same circuit the washer uses and the same drain the washer uses.
Also, let me blow your mind a little bit: theoretically, the cold water main running to your house contains enough heat energy to completely heat your house all winter on its own. It is cold to us, but thermodynamically it’s a goldmine and you have an extremely generous supply of it. Water represents an enormous reservoir of heat, and you can play some really fun games with latent heat of evaporation and condensation (which is exactly how heat pumps work in the first place). Dehumidifiers add as much or more heat to a room than a space heater does, using a fraction of the electrical power. That’s the power of the heat contained in water. I’m not saying that a heat pump dryer is doing this with your water supply, simply pointing out that once water is in play, it becomes way more of a complex issue than performance figures on paper actually represent.
Obviously, clean drinkable water is also a scarce resource, so using it directly for any form of heating would be wasteful in its own way, but the point is that it would be technically possible. Including water in the discussion adds a lot of really interesting possibilities to the way we manage heat and energy, and we will eventually need to start understanding how much heat we literally throw away down the drain and how wasteful that actually is. And in the process we’ll learn to save some money and maybe even make our lives a bit more convenient.