Do dryer "condenser" kits work well enough?
2026-06-15 03:03 UTC
Replies (10)
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@yaroto98@lemmy.world 2026-06-15 03:17
Maybe if you get a dedicated dehumidifier for the room. I don’t see those options doing enough. Dryers output a LOT of water vaper. Especially with heavy loads like towels and sheets. Even then you’d want a continuous draining one otherwise the bucket will just keep filling up.
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@Sickos@hexbear.net 2026-06-15 03:50
Not remotely. I had an indoor vented heated dryer and needed a huge dehumidifier running all the time. It actually just evaporated the water inside too, and made it even more humid. It DID catch the lint though, and I feel like the water helped with that. I would recommend against one that was permanently mounted to the wall, like the one that was linked. Wall mounting is fine, but you’re gonna need to give it a good clean every few loads. It’s gonna get nasty.
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@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 2026-06-15 03:53
I mean, if you can’t have the vent go outside, it’s better than nothing, but it won’t pull a majority out of the vented air without passing over the ice pack multiple times. Only people I’ve ever known to try them thought they weren’t worth a dime
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@Brkdncr@lemmy.world 2026-06-15 04:11
There’s no way I would use this. Buy a ventless dryer.
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@InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works 2026-06-15 04:12
Those condenser kits are mostly bullshit. If you can’t vent outside get a heatpump dryer. They’re expensive to buy, cheapest to run.
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@zigmus64@lemmy.world 2026-06-15 04:42
I have zero experience with these things (never even heard of them), but if you’re talking about some sort of passive system designed to condense water vapor out of conventional dryer exhaust, there’s no way something relying on an ice pack is going to make a meaningful dent in the water content of that air. Dryer vent air can be about 120F at ~20% relative humidity (per a Google search). Looking at the psychrometric chart on engineeringtoolbox.com, if you were to cool that air down to 70F, it would be at 100% relative humidity (otherwise known as the dew point), meaning you wouldn’t have removed any moisture from the air… Practically speaking, you’d basically just be massively increasing the humidity in your space… eventually it would likely condense on any surfaces in your home and increase the likelihood of mold growth.
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@August27th@lemmy.ca 2026-06-15 13:40
Had one of these over 20 years ago, along the lines of the one you linked. It was positively useless. Never again. The air in your home becomes saturated with water so quickly, and your clothes stop drying because the air can’t accept any more moisture. A lot of heat comes out of the vent, ice or an ice pack would be done in less than 10 minutes, you’d drive yourself insane putting new ice in to condense upon, even if it worked, which it doesn’t. It might work if you put a couple of dehumidifiers in the room with it, but there is just so much moisture output from a dryer I am certain it would overwhelm them in short order because they are not built for that crazy level of moisture. Also, even though your dryer has a lint screen, a ton of lint makes it out anyway, quickly clogging the one in the kit, messing with the throughput. So you take the filter out of the unit so it can breathe, and lint gets absolutely everywhere. It sucks. Don’t do it. Live with the outdoor noisy vent until you can save for a heat pump dryer. Don’t waste your money.
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@Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2026-06-15 07:21
Do you need to use a dryer or could you hang clothes up to dry instead? Would be free and doesn’t damage your clothes as much.
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@blackbrook@mander.xyz 2026-06-15 22:17
What do you mean the vent is loud? Is the dryer so far from an exterior wall that there is some kind of fan apparatus to push the air there instead of a simple duct?
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@NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 2026-06-16 01:47
we have tried a similar solution, but stopped using it after ~three months. Humidity is the real problem when venting a drying indoors and it just made that issue more pronounced. For lint and dust we’ve found the best solution to be putting a stocking over the end of the vent that we clean periodically. Either way the humidity requires an open window.