EDIT: I’ve attached a rough map of the situation. The laundry room is the little room in the middle. The red dot is where the dryer vents into the garage.
My house is weird. Built mid-1970s. Upper Midwest.
One of the weird/annoying things about my house is the fact that the clothes dryer vent opens up into the house’s attached garage rather than venting outside. This is an electric dryer, so the vent is just hot wet air – nothing like CO or anything.
Ideally, I’d like the dryer to vent to the outside and not turn my garage into a stagnant humid swamp every time I dry clothes (most days, actually, because I have many children). But the laundry room isn’t situated in a way that makes outside venting easy. It’s on the main level, right in the middle of the floorplan. No basement access, so I can’t add ductwork through the floor. No usable ceiling access either.
What options do I have to make this mess annoying? Add venting to the garage somehow?
They’re not without tradeoffs, but ventless dryers (aka heat pump dryers) have made a lot of strides the past few years. They tend to take longer than traditional dryers I believe, but use 30% less electricity overall, and don’t need a vent. There’s an $840 tax credit in the inflation reduction act that covers them, but as far as I can find it hasn’t been rolled out yet.
I have a Miele washer/heat pump dryer combo. From my experience, the dryer is about the same as what I’m used to from a conventional dryer (~45 minutes), but the washer takes a lot longer. As I understand it, the washer does a more thorough spin cycle so the dryer has to do less work.
That said, I have been very happy with mine.
They also make these little boxes that are designed to be attached to the vent on regular vented dryers that can’t actually be vented outdoors through normal means.
https://www.amazon.com/VIWINVELA-Indoor-Bucket-4-Inch-Proflex/dp/B09JZ1N5KB
This looks quite promising. Thanks!
TIL that ventless dryers exist. Interesting, thanks.
That is all we have in France, and I believe in Europe. I have never seen a dryer vent outside of on videos.
They barely exist in the US. Europe is far ahead in this regard. In Europe you won’t even find one of those extremely wasteful vented dryers in most shops.
I did some research on the US market for ventless dryers. The pricing is terrible but if climate matters to you, you will take the hit. One thing that really disturbed me is among the few that are available in the US, only a couple of them is not part of the #internetOfShit. So if you want a dryer that does not connect to the network options are very limited. All the non-discontinued Miele models are “smart”, but this one might be worth a look because it’s 110v and not designed to be on a network. Some Whirlpool ones are wifi-free (this was the biggest one I found but it requires 220v). And indeed it’s hard to find ventless dryers in normal sizes. Most are ½ the size of vented dryers.
(edit)
If you don’t find a suitable ventless dryer, consider putting a dehumidifier in a closet & make that the drying closet. You could perhaps rig up a drain so you don’t have to empty tanks of water.
I’ll look into this. I’d prefer to not replace a functioning appliance, but its been a few years since I checked into ventless, so it’s good to know that there is a potential tax credit.