1
00:00:03,360 --> 00:00:06,360
Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

2
00:00:06,440 --> 00:00:13,600
Speaker 1: stuff Works dot com. Say then, everyone, and welcome to

3
00:00:13,720 --> 00:00:16,720
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren Foke OBAM

4
00:00:16,840 --> 00:00:20,160
Speaker 1: and Laurena. Here's someone on Facebook. Wanted to know about

5
00:00:21,040 --> 00:00:24,799
Speaker 1: some tech related thing, right, yeah, Thomas on Facebook road

6
00:00:24,800 --> 00:00:27,120
Speaker 1: in and to to us two guys and one gal

7
00:00:27,360 --> 00:00:31,240
Speaker 1: here at tex Stuff. Hey, nol you were represented. Nol

8
00:00:31,400 --> 00:00:35,400
Speaker 1: Is is smiling from behind his barrier, very gentitely, raising

9
00:00:35,400 --> 00:00:38,919
Speaker 1: the roof. I believe, yes, I think so um, but yes, yes,

10
00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:41,519
Speaker 1: so so Thomas wanted to know now that we have

11
00:00:41,600 --> 00:00:46,160
Speaker 1: done an episode about washing machine, how dryers were Okay,

12
00:00:46,400 --> 00:00:49,960
Speaker 1: all right, excellent. Yeah, and guys, remember we asked at

13
00:00:49,960 --> 00:00:52,120
Speaker 1: the end of every episode if you have ideas, send

14
00:00:52,159 --> 00:00:54,520
Speaker 1: them in and we mean it. Yeah, do that. So,

15
00:00:54,640 --> 00:00:57,760
Speaker 1: first of all, we're talking about dryers. So what was

16
00:00:57,840 --> 00:01:02,440
Speaker 1: the first clothes dryer, Lauren? The Sun? Yeah, that thing

17
00:01:02,560 --> 00:01:05,920
Speaker 1: is just pulling so much double duty, I mean triple duty,

18
00:01:06,040 --> 00:01:10,200
Speaker 1: like like quintuple duty. What's what's above quickly, Yeah, like

19
00:01:10,240 --> 00:01:12,800
Speaker 1: infinite duty. Yeah, there's a lot of duty going on

20
00:01:12,880 --> 00:01:17,520
Speaker 1: with the sun, including drying our clothes. So clearly, if

21
00:01:17,600 --> 00:01:21,119
Speaker 1: you've ever had to dry close without having the use

22
00:01:21,120 --> 00:01:23,600
Speaker 1: of a dryer. I've done this. I think a lot

23
00:01:23,600 --> 00:01:25,399
Speaker 1: of people have done this at some point or other.

24
00:01:25,480 --> 00:01:27,600
Speaker 1: Maybe fewer today than back when I was a kid.

25
00:01:27,959 --> 00:01:29,880
Speaker 1: But it depends on where you live. If you're in

26
00:01:29,880 --> 00:01:32,399
Speaker 1: the middle of a city, perhaps yeah, maybe not so much.

27
00:01:32,520 --> 00:01:34,520
Speaker 1: You might have gone to a laundromat or something. But

28
00:01:34,959 --> 00:01:37,800
Speaker 1: most of if you look at history, most people use

29
00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:41,479
Speaker 1: the sun in some form or another by laying wet

30
00:01:41,480 --> 00:01:43,880
Speaker 1: clothes that have just been washed out on on on

31
00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:45,880
Speaker 1: a rock or hanging it on a line or over

32
00:01:45,920 --> 00:01:48,280
Speaker 1: the branch of a tree yep, and just letting the

33
00:01:48,320 --> 00:01:51,000
Speaker 1: sun do its thing evaporate all that water. Usually take

34
00:01:51,080 --> 00:01:54,200
Speaker 1: you know, a couple hours um depending upon where you

35
00:01:54,200 --> 00:01:56,120
Speaker 1: were at, how hot it was, how humid it was.

36
00:01:56,960 --> 00:02:01,200
Speaker 1: Humidity could slow things down, obviously, not only dried up

37
00:02:01,240 --> 00:02:04,000
Speaker 1: the clothing, it would also cause colors to fade over time,

38
00:02:04,120 --> 00:02:06,800
Speaker 1: sometimes pretty quickly, depending upon the dye being used. Now,

39
00:02:06,840 --> 00:02:09,360
Speaker 1: sometimes you plan for that, that was what you wanted.

40
00:02:09,400 --> 00:02:12,000
Speaker 1: In fact, the Romans used to use various types of

41
00:02:12,040 --> 00:02:14,960
Speaker 1: minerals and rub them in on the cloth. They would

42
00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:18,079
Speaker 1: make during the drying process. An arctic to um specifically

43
00:02:18,120 --> 00:02:20,520
Speaker 1: fade or or even bleach it. Yeah, so that way

44
00:02:20,560 --> 00:02:23,040
Speaker 1: you get that nice white toga look, um, and then

45
00:02:23,080 --> 00:02:25,600
Speaker 1: you can go to all the parties because in Roman

46
00:02:25,680 --> 00:02:29,560
Speaker 1: times they were all toga parties. Okay, I was gonna

47
00:02:29,560 --> 00:02:31,120
Speaker 1: see if I can get an eye roll, but instead

48
00:02:31,160 --> 00:02:33,400
Speaker 1: of Lauren just gave me the staring right into my

49
00:02:33,480 --> 00:02:37,080
Speaker 1: soul look, which is terrifying. So we're gonna move on. Okay.

50
00:02:37,200 --> 00:02:41,760
Speaker 1: So so wash your technology evolved, Um it really intricately,

51
00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:45,480
Speaker 1: as as you may have heard in our previous episode.

52
00:02:45,560 --> 00:02:49,440
Speaker 1: But since the sun is relatively effective and drying clothes

53
00:02:49,560 --> 00:02:54,000
Speaker 1: this way is not really difficult, backbreaking, time consuming work,

54
00:02:54,400 --> 00:02:57,119
Speaker 1: dryer technology didn't really develop along the same lines. Yeah,

55
00:02:57,200 --> 00:02:59,079
Speaker 1: it just it wasn't as big a deal because yet,

56
00:02:59,120 --> 00:03:00,840
Speaker 1: to wash something you had to put in a lot

57
00:03:00,880 --> 00:03:04,120
Speaker 1: of effort, right, you had to, especially before the washing machine,

58
00:03:04,120 --> 00:03:07,160
Speaker 1: you had to scrub things manually or stomp on them

59
00:03:07,320 --> 00:03:09,840
Speaker 1: or beat them against rocks or throw them away and

60
00:03:09,840 --> 00:03:12,040
Speaker 1: get new stuff. I mean, it just was not easy

61
00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:15,600
Speaker 1: to do, and so there was a need to develop

62
00:03:15,720 --> 00:03:18,880
Speaker 1: automation there. It just it felt like there's this is

63
00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:23,560
Speaker 1: so much work. It's it's the woman's dread as we

64
00:03:23,600 --> 00:03:26,760
Speaker 1: said in the last podcast, according to one quote, so

65
00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:29,480
Speaker 1: that made sense. But for drying, like you said, it

66
00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:32,239
Speaker 1: was it was free to dry it by the sun,

67
00:03:32,320 --> 00:03:34,000
Speaker 1: so you didn't have to you know, put in any

68
00:03:34,120 --> 00:03:36,880
Speaker 1: kind of expense there except maybe for a clothesline and

69
00:03:36,920 --> 00:03:39,600
Speaker 1: maybe some maybe some closed pins, but that's about it.

70
00:03:40,200 --> 00:03:42,640
Speaker 1: And uh yeah, you just had to lay it out

71
00:03:42,640 --> 00:03:44,800
Speaker 1: and collect it. That's all the labor that was involved.

72
00:03:44,840 --> 00:03:48,120
Speaker 1: So it wasn't as imprintant to develop a dryer, but

73
00:03:48,320 --> 00:03:52,080
Speaker 1: it didn't make things convenient, right, You couldn't have dry

74
00:03:52,160 --> 00:03:55,320
Speaker 1: clothes very quickly using that rate. So if it happened

75
00:03:55,920 --> 00:03:59,080
Speaker 1: or something like that, Yeah, So there certainly were people

76
00:03:59,120 --> 00:04:01,080
Speaker 1: who were thinking there's to be a way to dry

77
00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:03,520
Speaker 1: close even if the weather is bad, or to do

78
00:04:03,560 --> 00:04:05,600
Speaker 1: it more quickly than just putting them all on the

79
00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:07,640
Speaker 1: sun for a few hours. And I'm sure that a

80
00:04:07,640 --> 00:04:09,600
Speaker 1: lot of people were doing this. But the history of

81
00:04:09,640 --> 00:04:11,760
Speaker 1: this kind of thing is a wee bit contentious, as

82
00:04:11,760 --> 00:04:13,840
Speaker 1: we find out every time we look into the history

83
00:04:13,840 --> 00:04:16,200
Speaker 1: of something. Yeah, as it turns out, when you want

84
00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:18,559
Speaker 1: to look at the history of something that's been around

85
00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:21,400
Speaker 1: for at least a couple uh, like like a century,

86
00:04:21,480 --> 00:04:24,120
Speaker 1: or more, and especially something that was done by the

87
00:04:24,240 --> 00:04:27,160
Speaker 1: lower classes who were not writing about it or or

88
00:04:27,279 --> 00:04:31,640
Speaker 1: certainly not contributing to scientific journals very frequently, or perhaps

89
00:04:31,880 --> 00:04:36,120
Speaker 1: didn't bother to patent something, then it's hard to find

90
00:04:36,560 --> 00:04:40,520
Speaker 1: reliable records. So here's a big caveat for all the

91
00:04:40,600 --> 00:04:45,159
Speaker 1: historical stuff you're about to listen to, dear listeners. The

92
00:04:45,360 --> 00:04:49,760
Speaker 1: caveat is that we did a lot of background research

93
00:04:49,839 --> 00:04:52,520
Speaker 1: to try and verify as many claims as we could,

94
00:04:52,560 --> 00:04:55,560
Speaker 1: and a lot of them are unverifiable, meaning that there

95
00:04:55,560 --> 00:04:59,440
Speaker 1: are no primary sources that are definitive. There are a

96
00:04:59,480 --> 00:05:02,120
Speaker 1: lot of sources that quote each other, but it becomes

97
00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:05,160
Speaker 1: kind of a circular thing. Yeah, which does happen on

98
00:05:05,200 --> 00:05:09,120
Speaker 1: the internet. Uh, not entirely and frequently right, Um, But

99
00:05:09,279 --> 00:05:10,919
Speaker 1: so so, most of what we're going to tell you

100
00:05:10,960 --> 00:05:13,960
Speaker 1: comes directly from the U. S. Patent Office. That's what

101
00:05:14,040 --> 00:05:17,400
Speaker 1: I relied upon most heavily. Although our first example is

102
00:05:17,440 --> 00:05:20,560
Speaker 1: not among them because it wasn't a United States invention,

103
00:05:20,600 --> 00:05:23,120
Speaker 1: it was actually a French one. This is one you're

104
00:05:23,120 --> 00:05:24,839
Speaker 1: going to see if you ever do a search for

105
00:05:24,880 --> 00:05:26,760
Speaker 1: the history of dryers, this is going to pop up

106
00:05:26,760 --> 00:05:29,960
Speaker 1: all the time. Usually the year is specifically seventeen, but

107
00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:31,719
Speaker 1: the best I'm going to say is around the year

108
00:05:31,760 --> 00:05:36,440
Speaker 1: eighteen hundred. A French inventor known only as Poshan p

109
00:05:36,720 --> 00:05:39,680
Speaker 1: O c h O N sometimes listen as M. Posh On,

110
00:05:39,760 --> 00:05:43,920
Speaker 1: but I believe the M is for Monsieur Poshan, not

111
00:05:43,960 --> 00:05:48,120
Speaker 1: necessarily a name that begins within, created what he called

112
00:05:48,240 --> 00:05:51,240
Speaker 1: a ventilator, which to me sounds like a weapon you

113
00:05:51,240 --> 00:05:54,000
Speaker 1: would pick up in Duke Newcombe. But in this case,

114
00:05:54,040 --> 00:05:56,680
Speaker 1: a ventilator was a metal drum that had some small

115
00:05:56,720 --> 00:05:58,760
Speaker 1: holes in it. So that might start to sound familiar

116
00:05:58,800 --> 00:06:01,880
Speaker 1: already to anyone who's used a dryer. And you put

117
00:06:01,960 --> 00:06:04,599
Speaker 1: your wet clothing into the drum and turn it using

118
00:06:04,600 --> 00:06:07,800
Speaker 1: a hand crank, right, and you think, well, okay, so

119
00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:10,600
Speaker 1: now you're just turning a drum full of wet clothes

120
00:06:10,680 --> 00:06:12,640
Speaker 1: with holes in it. What else you have to put

121
00:06:12,680 --> 00:06:15,240
Speaker 1: it near a fire, yeah, as your source of heat.

122
00:06:15,040 --> 00:06:19,200
Speaker 1: And now here's the thing. Um. Sometimes this meant that

123
00:06:19,240 --> 00:06:23,400
Speaker 1: clothes would get a little uh you know, burnt, Yeah,

124
00:06:23,440 --> 00:06:25,919
Speaker 1: a little little extra crispy um or or full of

125
00:06:25,960 --> 00:06:28,000
Speaker 1: smoke in any case, Yeah, so you would end up

126
00:06:28,040 --> 00:06:31,320
Speaker 1: damaging clothes this way, And according to most reports this

127
00:06:31,440 --> 00:06:35,320
Speaker 1: is the first tumble dryer, but didn't catch on, mostly

128
00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:38,440
Speaker 1: because of the downsides, Right, the idea that you would

129
00:06:38,520 --> 00:06:40,839
Speaker 1: end up damaging clothes, Well, if you're gonna damage them,

130
00:06:40,839 --> 00:06:44,480
Speaker 1: then that's not helpful at all. So the interesting thing

131
00:06:44,480 --> 00:06:47,239
Speaker 1: to me is that this basic approach that he took

132
00:06:47,720 --> 00:06:50,920
Speaker 1: ends up being the the kind of the central design

133
00:06:51,560 --> 00:06:53,960
Speaker 1: of dryers in the future. It would just take a

134
00:06:54,040 --> 00:06:58,200
Speaker 1: long time to perfect the heating elements, like a couple years. Yeah,

135
00:06:58,440 --> 00:07:05,120
Speaker 1: so sorry, but yeah, but it's interesting that again, we

136
00:07:05,120 --> 00:07:07,640
Speaker 1: couldn't really find any primary sources on this, so this

137
00:07:07,720 --> 00:07:10,680
Speaker 1: story could be apocryphal. However, I'm going to go ahead

138
00:07:10,720 --> 00:07:15,800
Speaker 1: and say that it sounds like it's possible, so we'll

139
00:07:15,800 --> 00:07:19,760
Speaker 1: give it a pass. Sure. Then in this is the

140
00:07:19,800 --> 00:07:23,600
Speaker 1: next really official dryer technology that we have to report on,

141
00:07:23,760 --> 00:07:25,640
Speaker 1: and it's one that we actually mentioned in our episode

142
00:07:25,640 --> 00:07:28,800
Speaker 1: about washing machines. That's when um Ellen Edgley invented a

143
00:07:28,880 --> 00:07:31,640
Speaker 1: ringer to sit on top of washing machines and help

144
00:07:31,760 --> 00:07:34,280
Speaker 1: dry out the laundry before you hang it on a line.

145
00:07:34,440 --> 00:07:37,840
Speaker 1: So so that's that's squeezing mechanism to the two rollers

146
00:07:38,240 --> 00:07:40,960
Speaker 1: and it rolls the clothing between and squeezes them with

147
00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:43,240
Speaker 1: incredible pressure that could crush your fingers if you get

148
00:07:43,280 --> 00:07:46,200
Speaker 1: them too close. Don't do it right right. The design

149
00:07:46,320 --> 00:07:50,840
Speaker 1: would later be integrated into washing machine models until these

150
00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:55,680
Speaker 1: tumble dryers later caught on. Yeah, so two, we have

151
00:07:55,800 --> 00:07:59,240
Speaker 1: another African American inventor, this one by the name George T.

152
00:07:59,560 --> 00:08:03,239
Speaker 1: Samps And, who filed a patent for a clothes dryer.

153
00:08:03,400 --> 00:08:05,920
Speaker 1: In this case, he spelled dryer d R I E R,

154
00:08:06,080 --> 00:08:08,560
Speaker 1: which some of the patents are in that spelling. Some

155
00:08:08,640 --> 00:08:10,440
Speaker 1: of them are d R y E R I. Can

156
00:08:10,480 --> 00:08:13,840
Speaker 1: do what they want. His invention wasn't a tumble dryer, however,

157
00:08:13,880 --> 00:08:16,680
Speaker 1: although I saw a lot of notes that said it

158
00:08:16,720 --> 00:08:19,840
Speaker 1: was an improvement or, in the case of some of them,

159
00:08:19,920 --> 00:08:27,120
Speaker 1: a betterment of Poshan's approach. Uh, it wasn't wasn't like, No,

160
00:08:27,240 --> 00:08:29,520
Speaker 1: it wasn't a tumble dryer. The I think the betterment

161
00:08:29,960 --> 00:08:34,240
Speaker 1: or improvement would be that he used a stove as

162
00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:36,320
Speaker 1: the heat source as opposed to an open flame, so

163
00:08:36,360 --> 00:08:39,520
Speaker 1: it reduced the kind of damage that could happen. But yes, he,

164
00:08:39,760 --> 00:08:41,840
Speaker 1: as he pointed out, it was not a tumble dryer.

165
00:08:41,880 --> 00:08:43,960
Speaker 1: It was not like a drum that you put clothes in.

166
00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:46,920
Speaker 1: It was more of a frame, and you would put

167
00:08:46,960 --> 00:08:50,080
Speaker 1: the clothes within the frame, secure it in the frame,

168
00:08:50,280 --> 00:08:52,720
Speaker 1: and then put the suspend the frame near the stove

169
00:08:52,840 --> 00:08:55,880
Speaker 1: and the heat would would end up evaporating the water

170
00:08:55,920 --> 00:08:59,240
Speaker 1: out of the clothing. So, uh, it's in that pattern,

171
00:08:59,440 --> 00:09:02,360
Speaker 1: is in the records, so you can actually go and

172
00:09:02,360 --> 00:09:03,680
Speaker 1: look at it. And if you look at it, you'll

173
00:09:03,679 --> 00:09:06,000
Speaker 1: see it is not a tumble dryer. It's not the

174
00:09:06,040 --> 00:09:09,440
Speaker 1: same style as posh on. So that tells me something else.

175
00:09:09,480 --> 00:09:11,600
Speaker 1: It tells me that some of the websites that I

176
00:09:11,679 --> 00:09:14,360
Speaker 1: pulled up while I was doing this just didn't go

177
00:09:14,559 --> 00:09:17,160
Speaker 1: and look at the patents. They just reported it as

178
00:09:17,200 --> 00:09:20,160
Speaker 1: being like this was an improvement on that tumble dryer,

179
00:09:20,200 --> 00:09:26,080
Speaker 1: And uh, always go that extra step. I'm saying that

180
00:09:26,120 --> 00:09:27,840
Speaker 1: to all of our listeners because I expect that they

181
00:09:28,160 --> 00:09:30,800
Speaker 1: will occasionally have to write things like if you're a student,

182
00:09:30,840 --> 00:09:32,600
Speaker 1: you may have to write a paper. This is why

183
00:09:32,920 --> 00:09:34,760
Speaker 1: taking that extra step, Like if you just find a

184
00:09:34,760 --> 00:09:36,640
Speaker 1: web page that says it's about that stuff, see if

185
00:09:36,640 --> 00:09:39,480
Speaker 1: you can find a primary source, because it's always going

186
00:09:39,520 --> 00:09:42,200
Speaker 1: to give you a better idea of what the real

187
00:09:42,280 --> 00:09:47,720
Speaker 1: story n Then we have a patent by Seward H.

188
00:09:47,920 --> 00:09:52,200
Speaker 1: Davis for his clothes drying machine. And it's interesting. So

189
00:09:52,280 --> 00:09:56,240
Speaker 1: now he's decided to incorporate an oven directly into the

190
00:09:56,320 --> 00:09:59,800
Speaker 1: device to generate heat. So we're still creating an oven.

191
00:10:00,040 --> 00:10:03,560
Speaker 1: It's pre heating air because obviously an oven's not going

192
00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:05,560
Speaker 1: to generate heat at the speed where you could just

193
00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:08,160
Speaker 1: blow air across it and it's going to be hot, right,

194
00:10:08,760 --> 00:10:11,000
Speaker 1: so you would. But he also incorporate a motor in

195
00:10:11,080 --> 00:10:13,080
Speaker 1: his It was a motor that was connected by pulleys

196
00:10:13,080 --> 00:10:15,160
Speaker 1: to a rotating drum, so going back to that post

197
00:10:15,280 --> 00:10:17,640
Speaker 1: on approach, right, and it would rotate in one direction

198
00:10:17,679 --> 00:10:20,280
Speaker 1: for a few turns and then go back the other way. Yeah,

199
00:10:20,360 --> 00:10:23,840
Speaker 1: because according to Davis, you didn't want to continuously rotated

200
00:10:23,840 --> 00:10:26,040
Speaker 1: in one direction or else the clothes would become hopelessly

201
00:10:26,160 --> 00:10:28,920
Speaker 1: entangled with one another, and uh, it would just end

202
00:10:29,000 --> 00:10:31,160
Speaker 1: up being a big mess. So his design had it

203
00:10:31,200 --> 00:10:32,920
Speaker 1: where it would rotate one way then the other, and

204
00:10:32,920 --> 00:10:36,360
Speaker 1: that would prevent the clothes from getting, yeah, from clumping

205
00:10:36,360 --> 00:10:40,400
Speaker 1: and getting all like super friendly inside the dryer. You

206
00:10:40,480 --> 00:10:42,760
Speaker 1: want your clothes to be a little bit antagonistic, Yeah,

207
00:10:42,800 --> 00:10:46,000
Speaker 1: you don't. You don't want any fraternization inside the tumblers.

208
00:10:46,040 --> 00:10:49,319
Speaker 1: What I'm saying, um, so yeah, pretty interesting. And then

209
00:10:49,360 --> 00:10:51,679
Speaker 1: he also he also specifically pointed out in the pattern

210
00:10:51,840 --> 00:10:54,480
Speaker 1: that the whole idea was to allow the clothes to fall,

211
00:10:54,600 --> 00:10:57,400
Speaker 1: to tumble, like you didn't want to just spin and

212
00:10:57,440 --> 00:11:00,319
Speaker 1: try and force the water out, but to tumble, because

213
00:11:00,320 --> 00:11:02,840
Speaker 1: that tumbling motion would have it go through that hot

214
00:11:02,880 --> 00:11:05,839
Speaker 1: air and thus evaporate the water much more quickly, pushing

215
00:11:05,840 --> 00:11:07,960
Speaker 1: the air through it. And therefore sure, yeah, yeah, kind

216
00:11:07,960 --> 00:11:12,520
Speaker 1: of cool. Nine Henry Sieben he attempts a different approach.

217
00:11:12,600 --> 00:11:14,760
Speaker 1: His patent has a closed dryer that is more like

218
00:11:14,800 --> 00:11:19,000
Speaker 1: a heated cabinet with wire shelving inside it. So imagine

219
00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:21,480
Speaker 1: that you have like a little like cabinet or closet

220
00:11:21,840 --> 00:11:24,360
Speaker 1: and it's got wire shelves, and you put the clothes

221
00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:27,400
Speaker 1: on the shelves, and then you have an electric fan

222
00:11:27,480 --> 00:11:31,160
Speaker 1: that draws air through the machine, which allowed for faster drying. Now,

223
00:11:31,160 --> 00:11:34,440
Speaker 1: he didn't specifically include an element that with heat air,

224
00:11:34,840 --> 00:11:37,520
Speaker 1: but you would presumably have this near some sort of

225
00:11:37,559 --> 00:11:39,920
Speaker 1: other device that would heat the air, like a stove.

226
00:11:40,640 --> 00:11:42,640
Speaker 1: So this cabinet would just pull the air through, which

227
00:11:42,640 --> 00:11:44,880
Speaker 1: would circulate through the clothes, so kind of similar to

228
00:11:45,160 --> 00:11:49,040
Speaker 1: Seward H. Davis's approach of tumbling, but they're stationary, so

229
00:11:49,040 --> 00:11:53,160
Speaker 1: it's just pulling the air. So again this another idea

230
00:11:53,200 --> 00:11:57,240
Speaker 1: that becomes important in uh in modern day dryers. So

231
00:11:57,720 --> 00:11:59,800
Speaker 1: the important thing to remember here is the fan that

232
00:12:00,040 --> 00:12:03,240
Speaker 1: holes the air through. These are all various elements, the

233
00:12:03,280 --> 00:12:06,120
Speaker 1: tumbler pulling the air through. These are all things that

234
00:12:06,160 --> 00:12:08,480
Speaker 1: are going to come into play with the modern day dryers.

235
00:12:09,120 --> 00:12:11,280
Speaker 1: Now you still had to preheat the air though with

236
00:12:11,360 --> 00:12:14,520
Speaker 1: something like a stove. Then we get to nineteen thirty seven.

237
00:12:14,520 --> 00:12:18,000
Speaker 1: Now here's the guy that most people credit as Yeah,

238
00:12:18,480 --> 00:12:21,880
Speaker 1: although again the citations different from what I was able

239
00:12:21,920 --> 00:12:25,240
Speaker 1: to find. Okay, see, because he filed for a patent

240
00:12:25,320 --> 00:12:28,800
Speaker 1: in ninety seven, this is James are more James right?

241
00:12:28,960 --> 00:12:34,120
Speaker 1: Thank you? Um, it wasn't granted until, which we suspect

242
00:12:34,200 --> 00:12:36,679
Speaker 1: World War two probably had something to do, had other

243
00:12:36,679 --> 00:12:39,440
Speaker 1: stuff on their minds, right, the patent office was probably drafted.

244
00:12:39,960 --> 00:12:43,840
Speaker 1: Uh So yeah, seven is the filing and is the

245
00:12:43,840 --> 00:12:46,640
Speaker 1: awarding makes perfect sense. But it was for a closed

246
00:12:46,679 --> 00:12:49,440
Speaker 1: drying machine. And this is the basis for closed dryers

247
00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:52,280
Speaker 1: as we now know them. And so he what he

248
00:12:52,320 --> 00:12:55,200
Speaker 1: did was he added applying heated air that didn't need

249
00:12:55,240 --> 00:12:57,880
Speaker 1: to be preheated in an oven. He wanted to have

250
00:12:57,960 --> 00:13:01,000
Speaker 1: a heating element either a gas hour or electric and

251
00:13:01,120 --> 00:13:04,440
Speaker 1: in fact would eventually create both types. Right. He He

252
00:13:04,480 --> 00:13:07,439
Speaker 1: also created a ventilation system so that air can can

253
00:13:07,520 --> 00:13:09,800
Speaker 1: move through the dryer and then exhaust out of it,

254
00:13:09,960 --> 00:13:12,000
Speaker 1: carrying that water vapor out. So you see, this is

255
00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:15,600
Speaker 1: the combination of that rotating drum and that idea of

256
00:13:15,640 --> 00:13:20,440
Speaker 1: the cabin exactly. So by combining the two, he has

257
00:13:20,520 --> 00:13:22,320
Speaker 1: the best approach. And in fact, you could tell us

258
00:13:22,360 --> 00:13:24,440
Speaker 1: the best approach because it's the one that lasted the

259
00:13:24,440 --> 00:13:29,199
Speaker 1: test of time. So yeah, he uh as often cited

260
00:13:29,280 --> 00:13:32,080
Speaker 1: in a lot of the websites we saw as having

261
00:13:32,160 --> 00:13:35,840
Speaker 1: patented this this approach as early as nineteen thirty. But

262
00:13:35,960 --> 00:13:39,120
Speaker 1: I went to the patent office, I mean online to

263
00:13:39,160 --> 00:13:42,880
Speaker 1: the patent office. He didn't like, you didn't go there.

264
00:13:43,120 --> 00:13:45,160
Speaker 1: I didn't actually take a trip to the patent office.

265
00:13:45,280 --> 00:13:48,520
Speaker 1: I think they probably would have thrown the out of

266
00:13:48,520 --> 00:13:50,080
Speaker 1: the patent off. They were like, how did you find

267
00:13:50,080 --> 00:13:52,000
Speaker 1: your way in here? And I was like, I'd like

268
00:13:52,080 --> 00:13:55,600
Speaker 1: to see your archives from nineteen thirty. Yeah, that probably

269
00:13:55,640 --> 00:13:57,600
Speaker 1: would not have gone over. Well, they said, you've heard

270
00:13:57,720 --> 00:14:00,920
Speaker 1: of the internet, right, Well, you can actually do searches

271
00:14:01,040 --> 00:14:03,600
Speaker 1: online on the patent office. Google has a great patent

272
00:14:03,800 --> 00:14:06,160
Speaker 1: search function, but you can also go to the U

273
00:14:06,280 --> 00:14:08,320
Speaker 1: S Patent Office and use their search function. I use

274
00:14:08,400 --> 00:14:10,680
Speaker 1: both because I could not find it in one, so

275
00:14:10,720 --> 00:14:14,160
Speaker 1: I wanted to try both versions. You need to find

276
00:14:14,200 --> 00:14:17,880
Speaker 1: a keywords pretty pretty acutely. Yeah, but it but it's

277
00:14:18,240 --> 00:14:21,120
Speaker 1: it's a little more forgiving. But with the US one

278
00:14:21,360 --> 00:14:24,800
Speaker 1: you can find everything listed in chronological order, whereas with

279
00:14:24,840 --> 00:14:28,280
Speaker 1: Google you get it by order of relevance to your query.

280
00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:30,520
Speaker 1: So in other words, you might see the first one

281
00:14:30,560 --> 00:14:32,400
Speaker 1: pop up and say nineteen forty five, and the next

282
00:14:32,400 --> 00:14:34,160
Speaker 1: one says nineteen twenty seven, and the next one says

283
00:14:34,240 --> 00:14:36,040
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, and you're like, oh man, it's gonna

284
00:14:36,040 --> 00:14:38,400
Speaker 1: take forever to find the oldest one. U S Patent

285
00:14:38,440 --> 00:14:41,240
Speaker 1: does it chronologically, with the oldest being the last on

286
00:14:41,280 --> 00:14:44,120
Speaker 1: the list. I went through both. The earliest I can

287
00:14:44,160 --> 00:14:46,960
Speaker 1: find was nineteen thirty seven as a filing date, let

288
00:14:46,960 --> 00:14:49,200
Speaker 1: alone a patent granted date, So I have no idea

289
00:14:49,280 --> 00:14:52,320
Speaker 1: where they pulled this date of nineteen thirty They also

290
00:14:52,360 --> 00:14:54,600
Speaker 1: said that he sold the patent in nineteen thirty six,

291
00:14:54,600 --> 00:14:56,600
Speaker 1: but he didn't even file for a pat until nineteen

292
00:14:56,640 --> 00:14:59,920
Speaker 1: thirty seven. I don't know where you get your informa

293
00:15:00,000 --> 00:15:02,720
Speaker 1: Asian Internet, so you should check it more carefully. Yeah,

294
00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:06,000
Speaker 1: So anyway, he did file in nineteen thirty seven, and

295
00:15:06,040 --> 00:15:08,600
Speaker 1: he did end up working with another company in nineteen

296
00:15:08,680 --> 00:15:12,560
Speaker 1: thirty eight. That company would be the Hamilton's Manufacturing Company

297
00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:17,320
Speaker 1: located in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, Pride and Joy of Wisconsin

298
00:15:17,520 --> 00:15:20,240
Speaker 1: of Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Anyway, they actually have a museum

299
00:15:20,320 --> 00:15:26,200
Speaker 1: dedicated to this former manufacturing company, and they used James R.

300
00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:29,560
Speaker 1: Moore's design. They actually paid him for this, and they

301
00:15:29,760 --> 00:15:33,520
Speaker 1: released in ninety eight the June Day Clothes Dryer based

302
00:15:33,520 --> 00:15:36,880
Speaker 1: off this design. The early models used gas for heat

303
00:15:36,960 --> 00:15:38,960
Speaker 1: to heat the heating element, so you'd have to like

304
00:15:39,040 --> 00:15:40,960
Speaker 1: light the pilot light every time you wanted to dry

305
00:15:41,000 --> 00:15:43,280
Speaker 1: a load of laundry, and then once you were done

306
00:15:43,360 --> 00:15:45,440
Speaker 1: drying that load of laundry, should probably remember to blow

307
00:15:45,480 --> 00:15:47,320
Speaker 1: it out. Yeah, you had to extinguish it or else

308
00:15:47,600 --> 00:15:51,240
Speaker 1: you would just be wasting lots of gas or possibly

309
00:15:51,280 --> 00:15:54,240
Speaker 1: creating a fire hazard, which, by the way, dryers big

310
00:15:54,280 --> 00:15:57,160
Speaker 1: fire hazards. In general, do not run your dryer and

311
00:15:57,200 --> 00:16:00,440
Speaker 1: then leave the house just in case. I mean, I

312
00:16:00,440 --> 00:16:03,040
Speaker 1: don't want to scare anybody, but it is, but lint

313
00:16:03,080 --> 00:16:06,240
Speaker 1: fires can happen. Yeah, so just a little word of

314
00:16:06,240 --> 00:16:08,400
Speaker 1: caution in the middle of the episode. But yeah, later

315
00:16:08,480 --> 00:16:12,320
Speaker 1: models were electric and they still created the gas ones too,

316
00:16:12,880 --> 00:16:17,440
Speaker 1: but manufacturing was interrupted shortly after they started. They produced

317
00:16:17,440 --> 00:16:19,920
Speaker 1: about six thousand of them and then stopped suddenly, all

318
00:16:19,920 --> 00:16:23,680
Speaker 1: because of the event we have already referenced in this podcast,

319
00:16:23,680 --> 00:16:26,480
Speaker 1: afore mentioned World War too. Yep, so World War two

320
00:16:26,600 --> 00:16:30,400
Speaker 1: causes a manufacturer to stop. This was the case across

321
00:16:30,560 --> 00:16:33,800
Speaker 1: multiple industries because yeah, the war effort needed all that

322
00:16:33,880 --> 00:16:37,280
Speaker 1: material and and labor and a lot of the factory space. Yes,

323
00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:40,560
Speaker 1: so all of that meant that dryers were not seen

324
00:16:40,640 --> 00:16:42,680
Speaker 1: as being important to the war effort. It was put

325
00:16:42,680 --> 00:16:47,080
Speaker 1: on hold. World War two was was over and the

326
00:16:47,120 --> 00:16:50,360
Speaker 1: Hamilton's Manufacturing Company got back into this, but they were

327
00:16:50,400 --> 00:16:53,480
Speaker 1: no longer the only game in town. By this time.

328
00:16:53,520 --> 00:16:57,920
Speaker 1: Another big company, much bigger than Hamilton's Manufacturing actually got

329
00:16:57,960 --> 00:17:00,760
Speaker 1: into the closed dryer game, and that would be General Electric.

330
00:17:01,520 --> 00:17:04,520
Speaker 1: And so then it was off to the races, but

331
00:17:04,520 --> 00:17:07,960
Speaker 1: but not not fast races and not not cheap races, no,

332
00:17:08,600 --> 00:17:13,840
Speaker 1: incredibly expensive races, very very slow, expensive races. Around the

333
00:17:13,840 --> 00:17:17,320
Speaker 1: same time, the first electric dryer to include a glass

334
00:17:17,359 --> 00:17:19,480
Speaker 1: window in the front was introduced. And this is a

335
00:17:19,560 --> 00:17:22,000
Speaker 1: design element, you know, it's it's it's just kind of

336
00:17:22,119 --> 00:17:23,919
Speaker 1: nice to look at. But I wanted to mention it

337
00:17:23,960 --> 00:17:28,040
Speaker 1: because it was designed by Brooks Stevens, who's another wisconsinite.

338
00:17:28,040 --> 00:17:32,480
Speaker 1: He was a Wisconsin designer who also worked in in architecture, furniture,

339
00:17:32,480 --> 00:17:35,960
Speaker 1: and auto design, including that greatest car of all, the

340
00:17:36,040 --> 00:17:41,119
Speaker 1: Oscar Meyer Weenomobile. Man truly a visionary. We could do

341
00:17:41,160 --> 00:17:44,560
Speaker 1: a full episode just on that. Actually I should mention

342
00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:47,080
Speaker 1: all the inventors we've talked about have done some pretty

343
00:17:47,080 --> 00:17:52,200
Speaker 1: phenomenal things besides inventing dryers. So but this, I mean,

344
00:17:52,560 --> 00:17:56,080
Speaker 1: no one approached creating the Auscar Meer Wiener mobile aso.

345
00:17:56,880 --> 00:17:59,520
Speaker 1: You know, we won't go back and fill those out

346
00:17:59,600 --> 00:18:02,639
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty s. Well, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics,

347
00:18:02,840 --> 00:18:05,800
Speaker 1: a dryer in the mid nineteen fifties cost about two

348
00:18:06,280 --> 00:18:09,480
Speaker 1: thirty dollars, which if you adjust for inflation, would be

349
00:18:09,520 --> 00:18:12,879
Speaker 1: closer to two thousand dollars for a dryer. Yes, so

350
00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:16,160
Speaker 1: not a whole lot of people could afford it. On um.

351
00:18:16,359 --> 00:18:19,360
Speaker 1: I shall also point out that this same paper cited

352
00:18:19,400 --> 00:18:23,000
Speaker 1: some of the erroneous sources that I mentioned earlier. Um,

353
00:18:23,280 --> 00:18:25,119
Speaker 1: the ones that could not be supported by, say, the

354
00:18:25,119 --> 00:18:27,520
Speaker 1: Patent Office. I guess the Bureau of Labor Statistics in

355
00:18:27,520 --> 00:18:33,560
Speaker 1: the patent offices don't don't talk to each other frequently. Yeah,

356
00:18:33,720 --> 00:18:39,120
Speaker 1: this inner departmental stress type thing. This was I had

357
00:18:39,160 --> 00:18:41,320
Speaker 1: to include it. I mean, there are some crazy patents

358
00:18:41,320 --> 00:18:43,639
Speaker 1: out there, y'all. If you if you ever have a

359
00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:46,320
Speaker 1: really slow day and you just want to amuse yourself,

360
00:18:46,600 --> 00:18:50,000
Speaker 1: just start typing random words into a Google patent search

361
00:18:50,480 --> 00:18:54,199
Speaker 1: and then enjoy. But one of the crazy ones I

362
00:18:54,240 --> 00:18:58,480
Speaker 1: found was filed by William C. Sholin and the title

363
00:18:58,480 --> 00:19:02,320
Speaker 1: of the patent is hair drying attachment for clothes dryer.

364
00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:05,480
Speaker 1: This this cannot be what I think it is. I mean, well,

365
00:19:06,119 --> 00:19:08,200
Speaker 1: if you think it's you're putting your hair in a

366
00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:10,359
Speaker 1: clothes dryer, it's not. But if you think it's a

367
00:19:10,480 --> 00:19:12,960
Speaker 1: tube connected to your clothes dryer that's used as a

368
00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:16,679
Speaker 1: hair dryer, it totally is. It's a tube using the

369
00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:20,520
Speaker 1: heat from the the dryer. I guess, I guess. You know,

370
00:19:20,600 --> 00:19:23,600
Speaker 1: it's good to conserve energy, and so if you're already

371
00:19:23,640 --> 00:19:27,760
Speaker 1: creating that heat, you might as well, yeah, dryer your hair,

372
00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:31,120
Speaker 1: even though even though you're mostly using steam at that point. Yeah,

373
00:19:31,280 --> 00:19:34,520
Speaker 1: so the hair dryer. It's one of those where it's

374
00:19:34,560 --> 00:19:36,960
Speaker 1: got like the whole thing that comes of the fad,

375
00:19:37,080 --> 00:19:40,320
Speaker 1: the helmet. Yeah, I have no idea what those are called.

376
00:19:40,520 --> 00:19:43,800
Speaker 1: My hair days are long over, but anyway, it would

377
00:19:43,800 --> 00:19:47,280
Speaker 1: fit over the person's head and uh, and presumably dry

378
00:19:47,280 --> 00:19:50,520
Speaker 1: it using the heat from the hair dryer. Um. I

379
00:19:50,560 --> 00:19:53,720
Speaker 1: don't know how popular this invention was if it were

380
00:19:53,760 --> 00:19:57,080
Speaker 1: ever actually uh, you know, built because just because something's

381
00:19:57,080 --> 00:19:59,680
Speaker 1: patented doesn't mean that you're going to have real examples

382
00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:01,560
Speaker 1: of it. But if you want to look this up,

383
00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:04,600
Speaker 1: I got a treat for you. Here's the patent number.

384
00:20:04,760 --> 00:20:08,360
Speaker 1: You can put into a search, three million, sixty four thousand,

385
00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:11,480
Speaker 1: three hundred sixty and you can look at the illustrations.

386
00:20:11,960 --> 00:20:14,000
Speaker 1: Depending upon the patent search you put in, you may

387
00:20:14,119 --> 00:20:16,520
Speaker 1: or may not need to use the commas in that number.

388
00:20:16,560 --> 00:20:18,920
Speaker 1: You just could put in the digits three zero six

389
00:20:18,920 --> 00:20:23,280
Speaker 1: four zero. It's entertaining, but obviously I can't really show

390
00:20:23,320 --> 00:20:27,120
Speaker 1: it on an audio podcast at any rate. In Um,

391
00:20:27,600 --> 00:20:31,960
Speaker 1: a vacuum chamber related dryer was proposed. Yeah, William Lambert

392
00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:35,720
Speaker 1: Chanley filed a patent for a drayer that would use

393
00:20:35,760 --> 00:20:38,800
Speaker 1: a vacuum chamber. And this makes sense when you think

394
00:20:38,800 --> 00:20:41,679
Speaker 1: about it, in the sense that in a vacuum, it

395
00:20:41,720 --> 00:20:45,880
Speaker 1: takes less heat to evaporate water. Yeah, so if you're

396
00:20:45,920 --> 00:20:49,359
Speaker 1: able to create a partial vacuum. We're not talking like

397
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:51,920
Speaker 1: a complete vacuum, but if you were able to create

398
00:20:51,960 --> 00:20:56,320
Speaker 1: a partial vacuum within a dryer, then you could pressure

399
00:20:56,440 --> 00:20:58,600
Speaker 1: and yeah, you don't have to heat up the air

400
00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:00,480
Speaker 1: as much, so you don't have to pourse my energy

401
00:21:00,480 --> 00:21:02,560
Speaker 1: in it. As we'll talk about a little bit later,

402
00:21:03,000 --> 00:21:05,280
Speaker 1: it takes a lot of energy to power a dryer.

403
00:21:05,320 --> 00:21:08,199
Speaker 1: In fact, it's one of the most energy hungry appliances

404
00:21:08,280 --> 00:21:12,120
Speaker 1: that typical house has, so this will be a way

405
00:21:12,160 --> 00:21:15,320
Speaker 1: of reducing that. Also, Channeling maintained that the high quote

406
00:21:15,359 --> 00:21:19,280
Speaker 1: unquote roasting temperatures of clothes dryers and the fast rotation

407
00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:21,919
Speaker 1: of the drum meant that clothing was being damaged and

408
00:21:21,960 --> 00:21:24,760
Speaker 1: turned into lent, and that his invention would appeal to

409
00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:27,119
Speaker 1: people who wanted to get a more gentle drying of

410
00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:30,800
Speaker 1: their clothing. It wouldn't require as much rigor. Now this

411
00:21:30,840 --> 00:21:34,679
Speaker 1: particular approach has been experimented with a few times, but

412
00:21:35,119 --> 00:21:38,480
Speaker 1: it's tough to make a chamber that is a partial vacuum,

413
00:21:38,520 --> 00:21:40,919
Speaker 1: particularly if you need to have an exhaust to the

414
00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:43,879
Speaker 1: outside to get rid of steam. Then you can't really

415
00:21:43,920 --> 00:21:47,639
Speaker 1: make a vacuum without crazy valves and then having a

416
00:21:47,760 --> 00:21:51,800
Speaker 1: venting time as well as a vacuum time, and and

417
00:21:51,800 --> 00:21:53,800
Speaker 1: and and more energy being put in even than a

418
00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:56,959
Speaker 1: regular dryer. Yeah, you can't. You obviously can't keep introducing

419
00:21:57,040 --> 00:21:59,399
Speaker 1: hot air into such a thing because then you wouldn't

420
00:21:59,440 --> 00:22:01,240
Speaker 1: have a vacuum. So it's it's one of those that

421
00:22:01,280 --> 00:22:03,320
Speaker 1: was an interesting idea, but no one i think, has

422
00:22:03,440 --> 00:22:05,480
Speaker 1: really found a way of implementing it where it really

423
00:22:05,520 --> 00:22:07,520
Speaker 1: made sense. Plus it it makes it you know, it's

424
00:22:07,560 --> 00:22:09,640
Speaker 1: hard to make a partial vacuum. It means they would

425
00:22:09,640 --> 00:22:13,359
Speaker 1: make it more expensive. Yeah, they are working. NASA is

426
00:22:13,400 --> 00:22:15,760
Speaker 1: funding someone to work on something related to that. But

427
00:22:15,800 --> 00:22:18,119
Speaker 1: I'll talk about that way at the end of the podcast. Excellent,

428
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:21,000
Speaker 1: there's a little teaser for you. So in the nineteen seventies,

429
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:22,600
Speaker 1: again going back to our friends at the Bureau of

430
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:25,200
Speaker 1: Labor Statistics while they're not talking to the patent office.

431
00:22:25,440 --> 00:22:27,680
Speaker 1: The price of a dryer was closer to a hundred

432
00:22:27,880 --> 00:22:30,480
Speaker 1: ninety dollars, which in today's money is closer to a

433
00:22:30,560 --> 00:22:32,840
Speaker 1: grand so half the expense of what it was in

434
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:37,560
Speaker 1: the nineteen yeah and about forty of all households had one.

435
00:22:38,280 --> 00:22:40,880
Speaker 1: So when we get up to nineteen seven, the unit

436
00:22:40,880 --> 00:22:43,720
Speaker 1: price is about three hundred forty dollars. So remember it

437
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:46,760
Speaker 1: was a hundred ninety dollars in nineteen seventies, three forty

438
00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:49,199
Speaker 1: ninety seven, and you think, oh, what the heck the

439
00:22:49,280 --> 00:22:51,960
Speaker 1: price went up. It didn't go down well, except that

440
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:55,240
Speaker 1: when you adjust for inflation from nine seven, it's still

441
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:58,400
Speaker 1: pretty close to three and forty dollars. So the value

442
00:22:58,880 --> 00:23:01,679
Speaker 1: has of that money has increased, the buying power has

443
00:23:01,760 --> 00:23:05,879
Speaker 1: increased um for that amount for three dollars, so you

444
00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:08,680
Speaker 1: don't so it's actually cheaper in the long run. Um

445
00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:12,240
Speaker 1: and of households owned a dryer by this time. That

446
00:23:12,400 --> 00:23:15,440
Speaker 1: same year, over in Europe, a manufacturer called Electrolux would

447
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:19,240
Speaker 1: develop an energy efficient type of machine, the heat pump

448
00:23:19,320 --> 00:23:22,239
Speaker 1: or hydraulic dryer. Over the next couple of years, UM

449
00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:24,480
Speaker 1: that they had gained market share kind of slowly but

450
00:23:24,600 --> 00:23:27,479
Speaker 1: surely over in Europe and also in Australia, although they

451
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:30,560
Speaker 1: have not caught on yet in the United States. UM.

452
00:23:30,560 --> 00:23:33,000
Speaker 1: More on how those work later on. But but they're

453
00:23:33,000 --> 00:23:35,720
Speaker 1: pretty cool. They use some like forty ft of the

454
00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:38,680
Speaker 1: amount of energy the traditional dryers do, so that's that's

455
00:23:38,680 --> 00:23:42,520
Speaker 1: pretty awesome. Yeah, and now we're getting up to just

456
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:47,160
Speaker 1: about today, right yeah. Okay, So so every year Energy Star,

457
00:23:47,240 --> 00:23:49,400
Speaker 1: which is a program within the e p A, the

458
00:23:49,400 --> 00:23:53,040
Speaker 1: the US Environmental Protection Agency, UM, they announced an area

459
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:56,360
Speaker 1: of technology that's deserving of what they call an Emerging

460
00:23:56,400 --> 00:24:01,480
Speaker 1: Technology Award, and in it was advance clothes dryers UM,

461
00:24:01,680 --> 00:24:05,320
Speaker 1: which makes sense. According to Consumer Reports, dryer's account for

462
00:24:05,359 --> 00:24:08,919
Speaker 1: some six percent of US home energy use, which accounts

463
00:24:08,960 --> 00:24:12,160
Speaker 1: for for three or more per year, which is think

464
00:24:12,200 --> 00:24:16,160
Speaker 1: about this. You aren't running your dryer constantly. Your run

465
00:24:16,160 --> 00:24:18,320
Speaker 1: your dryer occasionally when you have to do laundry, and

466
00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:21,439
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily have to do laundry every single day.

467
00:24:21,480 --> 00:24:24,080
Speaker 1: So if you're talking about an appliance that you only

468
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:27,919
Speaker 1: use occasionally and it makes up six percent of your energy,

469
00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 1: that's that's incredible. Yeah. Yeah, it means that you know,

470
00:24:31,400 --> 00:24:34,399
Speaker 1: really small innovations could make for pretty huge savings and

471
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 1: in terms of both money and you know, overall carbon footprints. Um. So.

472
00:24:39,040 --> 00:24:41,560
Speaker 1: So the e P A specifically or energy star I

473
00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:44,119
Speaker 1: guess I should say specifically called out a Samsung model

474
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:50,840
Speaker 1: uh named Cleverly DV for rolls off the tongue does

475
00:24:51,200 --> 00:24:54,520
Speaker 1: um uh that it estimates could save enough energy to

476
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:58,440
Speaker 1: run an efficient clothing washer for eleven months um and

477
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:01,639
Speaker 1: also has an integrated smart system for monitoring your clothes

478
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:08,000
Speaker 1: remotely via app Yo dog, your shirt is dry? Uh, well,

479
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:09,720
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean you're you're you're joking, But there

480
00:25:09,760 --> 00:25:12,360
Speaker 1: are sensors in these new kinds of dryers that will

481
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 1: test moisture in your clothing. They can shut off automatically

482
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:17,960
Speaker 1: when your clothes are dry. That that was one of

483
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:21,600
Speaker 1: the one of the specific considerations for this award. It

484
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:24,119
Speaker 1: had to the dryers they were looking at had to

485
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:26,760
Speaker 1: contain at least two types of sensors for determining when

486
00:25:26,760 --> 00:25:29,760
Speaker 1: your clothes are dry. And just that way, you cut

487
00:25:29,840 --> 00:25:31,919
Speaker 1: off the cycle. Yeah, you don't have it continuing for

488
00:25:32,000 --> 00:25:35,160
Speaker 1: some predetermined amount of time when the clothes are already dry.

489
00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:37,720
Speaker 1: There's no need to keep it going. I mean, you're

490
00:25:37,720 --> 00:25:41,040
Speaker 1: just wasting energy and shrinking clothes unless you're strapped for entertainment,

491
00:25:41,080 --> 00:25:43,040
Speaker 1: and that's just you know, you're just sitting there watching

492
00:25:43,040 --> 00:25:47,120
Speaker 1: the clothes tumble, in which case, Hi, dr horrible. Uh.

493
00:25:47,160 --> 00:25:48,960
Speaker 1: You know, we got a lot more to say. Specifically,

494
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:51,320
Speaker 1: we're going to cover how these things are actually working.

495
00:25:51,359 --> 00:25:53,560
Speaker 1: But before we get into that, let's take a quick

496
00:25:53,560 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 1: break to thank our sponsor. Okay, So now we're back

497
00:25:57,640 --> 00:26:02,000
Speaker 1: with ratists specifically dig into how Ryer's work, and we've

498
00:26:02,040 --> 00:26:04,160
Speaker 1: kind of mentioned a lot of the elements already. You've

499
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:06,879
Speaker 1: got a typical clothes dryer, so we're talking about just

500
00:26:06,920 --> 00:26:10,040
Speaker 1: your basic model that, yeah, most of mostly in the

501
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:12,000
Speaker 1: United States, is the type you're going to run into.

502
00:26:12,600 --> 00:26:16,480
Speaker 1: UM has a rotating tumbler. So that's your drum that

503
00:26:16,600 --> 00:26:19,439
Speaker 1: rotates around and around and the clothes tumble within it.

504
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:22,240
Speaker 1: You've got some kind of heating element to heat air,

505
00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:26,159
Speaker 1: which is then somehow drawn through that tumbler, right, So

506
00:26:26,280 --> 00:26:29,280
Speaker 1: you probably have holes in the tumbler to allow air

507
00:26:29,320 --> 00:26:32,200
Speaker 1: to pass through, and then you've got an exhaust pipe

508
00:26:32,200 --> 00:26:34,840
Speaker 1: of some sort so you can vent out that the

509
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:37,439
Speaker 1: warm humid air. Yeah, because no, you don't want to

510
00:26:37,520 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: keep the steam in there. It's just gonna make the

511
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: clothes take even longer to dry. So by venting it

512
00:26:42,600 --> 00:26:45,640
Speaker 1: out and constantly replacing it with dry, warm air, you're

513
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:48,240
Speaker 1: gonna end up, you know, drying a much faster. You

514
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:51,520
Speaker 1: just vent out all the steam. So let's start talking

515
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:55,080
Speaker 1: about all these various elements and how they work together.

516
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:58,400
Speaker 1: Let's start with the fans. Yeah, yeah, let's start. Let's

517
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:00,960
Speaker 1: start at the end. Yeah, the because the end is

518
00:27:01,000 --> 00:27:02,840
Speaker 1: the beginning. The beginning is the end. It is the

519
00:27:02,880 --> 00:27:06,920
Speaker 1: alpha and the omega of d it's a flat circle. Yeah, yeah,

520
00:27:06,960 --> 00:27:09,280
Speaker 1: it is. We didn't mean to get all philosophical, but

521
00:27:09,320 --> 00:27:12,520
Speaker 1: it is pretty late on a Thursday afternoon, guys, and

522
00:27:12,560 --> 00:27:14,919
Speaker 1: things get weird. So the fan is located at the

523
00:27:14,960 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 1: exhaust end of the dryer. It's not at the very

524
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 1: front of the dryer's at the very end of it.

525
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 1: But it ends up when it turns pulling air in

526
00:27:23,440 --> 00:27:26,480
Speaker 1: from the dryer and exhausting it out the exhaust vent.

527
00:27:26,880 --> 00:27:30,280
Speaker 1: That's the direction of air flow, so it's not blowing

528
00:27:30,320 --> 00:27:33,199
Speaker 1: air in, it's essentially pulling air out of it. So

529
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:35,080
Speaker 1: that means you kind of have some place for air

530
00:27:35,160 --> 00:27:37,400
Speaker 1: to come into the dryer or else it is trying

531
00:27:37,400 --> 00:27:40,080
Speaker 1: to create a vacuum, right, which is less effective. That's

532
00:27:40,119 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 1: less effective. Yeah, if you just have a heating element

533
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 1: and you create a vacuum, then you've got a hot

534
00:27:44,320 --> 00:27:47,560
Speaker 1: spot in your in your dryer and no air inside

535
00:27:47,560 --> 00:27:50,680
Speaker 1: the tumbler, and that's not going to help. So these

536
00:27:50,760 --> 00:27:54,200
Speaker 1: dryers have vents or holes that are in them that

537
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 1: allow air to pass into the actual dryer and and

538
00:27:58,040 --> 00:28:00,880
Speaker 1: be pulled in. Yeah, pulled in and then passed over

539
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,760
Speaker 1: a heating element, which, as we mentioned before, is either

540
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:07,960
Speaker 1: powered by gas or electric power. So this heating element, um,

541
00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:09,920
Speaker 1: we'll talk about that in just a second, but that's

542
00:28:09,920 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 1: what's creating the increase in temperature in the air, which

543
00:28:14,359 --> 00:28:17,120
Speaker 1: will then, once it is warm, continue into the tumbler

544
00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:20,560
Speaker 1: where the clothes are. Yeah, I mean, if you've loaded

545
00:28:20,600 --> 00:28:23,880
Speaker 1: your dryer correctly where the clothes should be exactly. If

546
00:28:23,880 --> 00:28:27,080
Speaker 1: the clothes are not in there, you've done something very wrong,

547
00:28:27,119 --> 00:28:29,480
Speaker 1: you know, and we've made some assumptions and we apologize,

548
00:28:29,480 --> 00:28:31,320
Speaker 1: but no, you put the clothes in the tumbler, that's

549
00:28:31,320 --> 00:28:34,200
Speaker 1: where the warm air goes into. Next, it passes into

550
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:37,440
Speaker 1: the door area. That's where the lent screen. The air,

551
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: not the clothes. Yes, the air. Yes, if you close

552
00:28:39,800 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 1: are passing through the door area, you have not replaced

553
00:28:41,840 --> 00:28:44,200
Speaker 1: the lent screen, and you should do that. So the

554
00:28:44,520 --> 00:28:47,240
Speaker 1: LN screen is there obviously to capture lent from clothing

555
00:28:47,480 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: so it doesn't end up clogging up the rest of

556
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:52,800
Speaker 1: the system. But that's where the airflow goes to next.

557
00:28:52,840 --> 00:28:55,440
Speaker 1: So it's coming in through these venting areas into the

558
00:28:55,480 --> 00:29:00,200
Speaker 1: tumbler out through the door venting area. Pulled passes through

559
00:29:00,240 --> 00:29:02,200
Speaker 1: the fan because that the next stop is where the

560
00:29:02,200 --> 00:29:04,080
Speaker 1: fan is, and then the fan blows it out the

561
00:29:04,120 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: exhaust area, which usually you have some sort of weird

562
00:29:07,520 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 1: that that tubing stuff, you know, the tubing stuff that

563
00:29:10,120 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 1: you can cut in half and then you can have

564
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: robot arms. My cosplay is different from your cosplay. That

565
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:19,880
Speaker 1: is accurate. I have a video that proves that. So

566
00:29:19,920 --> 00:29:22,640
Speaker 1: that's your basic airflow, and that is the secret to

567
00:29:22,720 --> 00:29:26,680
Speaker 1: drying the clothes is that introducing this dry warm air,

568
00:29:27,040 --> 00:29:29,680
Speaker 1: possibly dry hot air. It all depends upon the mode

569
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:31,040
Speaker 1: you've set it on. We'll talk about that in the

570
00:29:31,080 --> 00:29:33,560
Speaker 1: second certainly. Okay, so let's talk about how it gets

571
00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,360
Speaker 1: warm or hot. What is this heating element? Like, Okay,

572
00:29:36,680 --> 00:29:40,800
Speaker 1: have you ever seen a toaster and you know when

573
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:43,800
Speaker 1: you when you we're not talking about cylons, right, No, No,

574
00:29:44,280 --> 00:29:47,360
Speaker 1: I mean no, because I've seen those two. We don't

575
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:49,520
Speaker 1: want to talk about the cylons because they might show up. No,

576
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: we're talking about toaster toaster, So we're talking about you know,

577
00:29:52,560 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: you put a put a piece of bread in a

578
00:29:54,200 --> 00:29:56,240
Speaker 1: toaster and you set it down. Then you see those

579
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: little wires turn red hot. That's essentially what we're talking about.

580
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:02,360
Speaker 1: SAME's of a a heating element, it's without of nichrome wire.

581
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:05,400
Speaker 1: So what you're doing is you're passing a current through

582
00:30:05,400 --> 00:30:09,160
Speaker 1: this wire. The wire has a resistance to current. Resistance

583
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:11,720
Speaker 1: means that quite a lot of resistance. Actually yeah. Um,

584
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:13,760
Speaker 1: it's sort of the opposite of what you want to

585
00:30:13,800 --> 00:30:16,760
Speaker 1: do in any kind of electronic wire technology, where you're

586
00:30:16,800 --> 00:30:19,080
Speaker 1: trying to insulate it so much that that it has

587
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:21,960
Speaker 1: as low of a resistance as possible. Right. Yeah, when

588
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:24,440
Speaker 1: with low resistance you make it really really efficient, right,

589
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:26,760
Speaker 1: you're not losing energy to heat. But in this case,

590
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:28,960
Speaker 1: what you want to do is generate heat, is lose

591
00:30:29,040 --> 00:30:31,080
Speaker 1: as much energy to heat as possible because that's the

592
00:30:31,120 --> 00:30:33,239
Speaker 1: kind of energy. One is the heat energy. You're not

593
00:30:33,320 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 1: interested in passing electricity on to some other points. So

594
00:30:36,640 --> 00:30:40,000
Speaker 1: in this case, this electricity gets converted into heat due

595
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 1: to that electrical resistance. And this is the element of

596
00:30:43,480 --> 00:30:45,800
Speaker 1: the dryer that consumes the most power that the rotating

597
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:49,480
Speaker 1: drum not even close, the fan not even close. It's

598
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:52,560
Speaker 1: this heating element. So a typical dryer is pulling in

599
00:30:52,600 --> 00:30:56,040
Speaker 1: like four thousand to six thousand watts. That's a lot. Yeah. Yeah,

600
00:30:56,240 --> 00:30:58,320
Speaker 1: Now we've got the tumbler. Uh, it's it's a really

601
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:01,120
Speaker 1: simple pulley system. Actually, you know, you got a motor,

602
00:31:01,560 --> 00:31:05,040
Speaker 1: the motor, electric motor or gas powered motor. A belt

603
00:31:05,040 --> 00:31:10,440
Speaker 1: attaches from the motor to the tumbler, and the motor turns.

604
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:12,520
Speaker 1: That ends up turning the belt, which ends up turning

605
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 1: the tumbler. It's pretty it's one of the simplest machines ever. Actually.

606
00:31:16,040 --> 00:31:18,719
Speaker 1: The policy system, so yeah, usually you have to have

607
00:31:18,800 --> 00:31:21,320
Speaker 1: maybe you know, two pulleys that are involved. One is

608
00:31:21,560 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: creating tension on the other so that it stays in place,

609
00:31:24,000 --> 00:31:26,479
Speaker 1: because obviously, like if it slips a belt, that's when

610
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:28,800
Speaker 1: you're starting to get this weird noise. And your dryer

611
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:30,480
Speaker 1: is not gonna be turning properly, and then you need

612
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,320
Speaker 1: to shut things down before your motor burns out. But

613
00:31:33,400 --> 00:31:37,520
Speaker 1: assuming everything's working fine, it's just gonna turn the tumbler. Next.

614
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 1: We have the controls. So we have two different types

615
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:43,640
Speaker 1: of controls. Right. The modern dryers you would buy in

616
00:31:43,720 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 1: an appliance store today, most of them have digital controls,

617
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:50,440
Speaker 1: which involves having a micro controller. But if you're going

618
00:31:50,480 --> 00:31:52,480
Speaker 1: with an old dryer, let's say like the kind of

619
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:54,600
Speaker 1: dryer I grew up with where it had like a

620
00:31:54,640 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 1: dial and buttons. Yeah, you punch the button saying okay,

621
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:00,240
Speaker 1: I'm going to do permanent press, and you push the

622
00:32:00,280 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 1: permanent press button and it and it clicks in and

623
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 1: then you would turn the dial to the right setting

624
00:32:05,120 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 1: and then uh, it would be possessed and start rumbling.

625
00:32:09,640 --> 00:32:12,000
Speaker 1: And that's because there would be a series of of

626
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:16,479
Speaker 1: gears and cams. So and it worked a little bit

627
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 1: like a like an egg timer. Yeah, yeah, kind of. Yeah,

628
00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 1: you have like a you have you can you have

629
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:23,680
Speaker 1: a physical capacity that that when it ran out, it

630
00:32:23,720 --> 00:32:26,920
Speaker 1: would it would cause a shot off valve, a shot

631
00:32:26,920 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 1: off circuit disconnect. Yeah, because with the cam you can

632
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:31,080
Speaker 1: think of it as like, think of it like a

633
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:34,520
Speaker 1: metal key, and when the metal key makes contact with

634
00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:37,880
Speaker 1: a contact point, it completes a circuit. Right, So when

635
00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 1: the circuits complete, electricity can flow. And then as long

636
00:32:41,120 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 1: as that that key is making contact with the contact point,

637
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: it'll stay in place. The electricity will continue to flow.

638
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:49,480
Speaker 1: But at the time or when the timer comes out,

639
00:32:49,640 --> 00:32:52,840
Speaker 1: a mechanical piece will push the key out of the way,

640
00:32:53,040 --> 00:32:57,040
Speaker 1: breaking the circuit and thus the dryer. Yeah, so we're

641
00:32:57,040 --> 00:33:02,040
Speaker 1: talking about programming something through actual phizz iCal moving pieces,

642
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:05,240
Speaker 1: mechanical pieces, but it's it's doing the same source of

643
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 1: stuff that digital controller is doing digitally, it's just doing

644
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:13,200
Speaker 1: it all mechanically and with electronic pieces. So yeah, it's

645
00:33:13,240 --> 00:33:15,040
Speaker 1: kind of exciting stuff. Like if you ever were to

646
00:33:15,080 --> 00:33:17,480
Speaker 1: take one of these apart, first of all, I hope

647
00:33:17,480 --> 00:33:20,360
Speaker 1: you don't need it afterward, because if you do anything,

648
00:33:20,600 --> 00:33:22,560
Speaker 1: you know, if you're anything like us, you're not going

649
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:26,200
Speaker 1: to get that back together. No. No, we might be

650
00:33:26,240 --> 00:33:28,600
Speaker 1: able to put something back together, but it ain't gonna work.

651
00:33:29,280 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 1: Let's just put it that way. It'll look really interesting though. Yeah,

652
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 1: so you could actually see that there are all these

653
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:36,720
Speaker 1: little moving parts that need to come into play so

654
00:33:36,760 --> 00:33:39,480
Speaker 1: that they touch these contact points and create these circuits.

655
00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 1: They also usually have In fact, as far as I know,

656
00:33:43,080 --> 00:33:45,880
Speaker 1: dryers are required to have temperature shut off switches. And

657
00:33:45,920 --> 00:33:48,479
Speaker 1: these aren't to measure the temperature of your clothing, but

658
00:33:48,560 --> 00:33:50,719
Speaker 1: the the temperature of the overall unit, so that if

659
00:33:50,760 --> 00:33:53,960
Speaker 1: it gets too warm, um, and is in danger of

660
00:33:54,200 --> 00:33:56,360
Speaker 1: melting down the motor or any of the other operative

661
00:33:56,400 --> 00:33:58,640
Speaker 1: parts or causing a fire. Causing a fire, it can

662
00:33:58,640 --> 00:34:02,200
Speaker 1: shut down. Yeah, It'll just break that contact and you

663
00:34:02,240 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 1: will lose the circuit, and thus the dryer will shut down. UM.

664
00:34:06,440 --> 00:34:08,399
Speaker 1: So you know, it's kind of a fail safe there.

665
00:34:08,920 --> 00:34:11,200
Speaker 1: And uh, some of them, like we said, have the

666
00:34:11,280 --> 00:34:14,520
Speaker 1: humidity sensors, so they can actually measure how much humidity

667
00:34:14,600 --> 00:34:17,400
Speaker 1: is within the dryer and if it reaches below a

668
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:20,440
Speaker 1: certain threshold, then the dryer will shut off because your

669
00:34:20,440 --> 00:34:22,880
Speaker 1: clothes are dry, so that doesn't have to continue to

670
00:34:23,280 --> 00:34:26,919
Speaker 1: operate and thus consume more energy. Now, there are other

671
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:29,560
Speaker 1: types of clothes dryers out there. That's the basic type,

672
00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:32,120
Speaker 1: that's the one that's the most common United States. But

673
00:34:32,200 --> 00:34:34,560
Speaker 1: like you were saying, Lauren, it's not the only kind

674
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:38,280
Speaker 1: out there. One of them is called a condensing clothes dryer.

675
00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:41,879
Speaker 1: So these don't have a vent to exhaust steam. They

676
00:34:41,920 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 1: don't have that fan pulling the air through inventing it out. Instead,

677
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:49,640
Speaker 1: these dryers allow water to condense and then collect, either

678
00:34:49,719 --> 00:34:53,560
Speaker 1: draining into a collection pan or tank, or more likely

679
00:34:53,640 --> 00:34:57,279
Speaker 1: draining into the house water waste system. So if you

680
00:34:57,320 --> 00:34:59,719
Speaker 1: have a washer dryer combo, something that can act is

681
00:34:59,760 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 1: both washer and a dryer, it's usually this type of dryer.

682
00:35:02,960 --> 00:35:05,560
Speaker 1: It's a condenser dryer more often than not. Uh, And

683
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:08,680
Speaker 1: so putting an exhaust on a washer that would be

684
00:35:08,800 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 1: really not good. Yeah, I mean you've got like the

685
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:13,880
Speaker 1: wastewater exhaust. But if you had just a pipe that

686
00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,080
Speaker 1: was supposed to allow air to go through, water would

687
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:19,000
Speaker 1: go through that too. Yeah yeah so yeah, which would

688
00:35:19,040 --> 00:35:22,719
Speaker 1: make it an inefficient washer. So yeah, then you have

689
00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:25,040
Speaker 1: the heat pump dryers, like you were saying, yeah, yeah,

690
00:35:25,080 --> 00:35:27,640
Speaker 1: these these have a these have just just a normal

691
00:35:27,640 --> 00:35:29,400
Speaker 1: old heat pump. I mean, I mean the kind of

692
00:35:29,400 --> 00:35:31,359
Speaker 1: thing that we were talking about in in in our

693
00:35:31,360 --> 00:35:34,440
Speaker 1: refrigerator episode. Yeah yeah, yeah, it's a heat exchanger. You've

694
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:36,520
Speaker 1: got a hot side and a cold side, so the

695
00:35:36,520 --> 00:35:38,600
Speaker 1: cold side is really important because you've got that hot,

696
00:35:38,640 --> 00:35:41,120
Speaker 1: steamy air and when you have hot steamy air meat

697
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:43,840
Speaker 1: a cold service, that's when you have water condensing, and

698
00:35:43,880 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 1: then that condensed water can then flow into a pan

699
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:49,560
Speaker 1: or a drain, just like in the condenser style. The

700
00:35:49,560 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 1: warm side of the heat pomp can reheat the air

701
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:55,000
Speaker 1: inside the dryer. So as the dryer air is losing

702
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 1: energy because it's encountering that wet water and causing it

703
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 1: to evaporate, that means that the air temperatures to go down.

704
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:03,720
Speaker 1: But this heat pomp continues that cycle, so the cold

705
00:36:03,719 --> 00:36:06,320
Speaker 1: side is removing the water, the hot side is increasing

706
00:36:06,320 --> 00:36:09,440
Speaker 1: the temperature, so you can have a more efficient means

707
00:36:09,640 --> 00:36:13,000
Speaker 1: of drying out the clothes inside. So again, no need

708
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:16,279
Speaker 1: to exhaust unless which is great because if you don't

709
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:19,080
Speaker 1: have to exhaust this thing, like by exhaust, I mean

710
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:21,120
Speaker 1: you don't have to have a pipe where the exhaust

711
00:36:21,120 --> 00:36:24,480
Speaker 1: air flows through. There's no need for that in this model,

712
00:36:24,520 --> 00:36:27,480
Speaker 1: and that's great because when you have an exhaust pipe

713
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:30,440
Speaker 1: that's open to the environment, that means that you're losing

714
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:32,800
Speaker 1: some of the heat that you want to put inside

715
00:36:32,840 --> 00:36:35,439
Speaker 1: the clothes just going out the exhaust pipe. Oh sure, sure,

716
00:36:35,480 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 1: and you're you're losing through that exhaust pipe that heat

717
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:41,359
Speaker 1: out into your house, which, for example, during the summer months,

718
00:36:41,520 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 1: can make you run your acemore more intensely. Yeah. So, uh,

719
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:47,840
Speaker 1: it's kind of a domino effect, right, So then we

720
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:50,160
Speaker 1: can talk a little bit about these future dryers. One

721
00:36:50,160 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 1: of the which one of the ones that you mentioned.

722
00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 1: So first of all, there was an idea back in

723
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:57,560
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties to try and use microwaves as a

724
00:36:57,560 --> 00:36:59,600
Speaker 1: as a means of drying clothes, So you would make

725
00:36:59,600 --> 00:37:02,279
Speaker 1: a special old dryer would be a microwave dryer. Supposedly

726
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 1: there are some of these in Japan, but I've never

727
00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:08,680
Speaker 1: seen like an actual source source about it. But the

728
00:37:08,719 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 1: real problem with this is arcing. So arcing is when

729
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:15,640
Speaker 1: you get these little plasma forms. If you've ever accidentally

730
00:37:15,680 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 1: put something metal in a microwave, and here's where I

731
00:37:17,719 --> 00:37:21,480
Speaker 1: tell you do not put metal in a mica that's

732
00:37:21,560 --> 00:37:24,200
Speaker 1: very bad. But if you've ever accidentally done it, then

733
00:37:24,239 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 1: you might have seen arking where you see these little

734
00:37:26,080 --> 00:37:30,200
Speaker 1: plasmas lightning bolts. Yeah, or if you've ever had one

735
00:37:30,239 --> 00:37:32,600
Speaker 1: of those plasma balls where you put your fingers on it.

736
00:37:32,600 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 1: It's kind of like that too. In fact, it is like,

737
00:37:34,600 --> 00:37:39,200
Speaker 1: that's what's happening. Um, it's not good for your microwave

738
00:37:39,239 --> 00:37:42,879
Speaker 1: in general. I used to have a microwave that had

739
00:37:42,960 --> 00:37:47,200
Speaker 1: a special stand that came with the microwave. Okay, that

740
00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:49,200
Speaker 1: was meant for popcorn, Like you put a bag of

741
00:37:49,280 --> 00:37:51,960
Speaker 1: microwave popcorn on it, and it would elevate the popcorn

742
00:37:52,000 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 1: so that it would have more uniform heating. Despite the

743
00:37:55,640 --> 00:37:58,879
Speaker 1: fact that this came with the microwave, which I would

744
00:37:58,920 --> 00:38:02,160
Speaker 1: assume means it's say, to put in the microwave, it

745
00:38:02,160 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 1: would occasionally mark. Not all the time, but sometimes you

746
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:06,839
Speaker 1: would get a mark, and I would think, I do

747
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:10,359
Speaker 1: not want microup microwave popcorn that badly. Yeah, that's vaguely terrifying. Yeah.

748
00:38:10,400 --> 00:38:13,440
Speaker 1: So anyway, if you were to put stuff that's like

749
00:38:13,480 --> 00:38:15,640
Speaker 1: if you had metal stuff in your clothes, either like

750
00:38:15,880 --> 00:38:19,920
Speaker 1: change or zippers or yeah, or buttons or other clasps

751
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:22,600
Speaker 1: things that are metal, then that could possibly cause this

752
00:38:22,800 --> 00:38:25,680
Speaker 1: arcing problem which could damage clothing. And in fact, that's

753
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:28,839
Speaker 1: the main reason we haven't really seen it implemented. There

754
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:30,600
Speaker 1: have been other people who have tested it, and there's

755
00:38:30,640 --> 00:38:32,279
Speaker 1: still people who are thinking that there might be a

756
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:34,840
Speaker 1: way of doing this in a in a in a

757
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:37,399
Speaker 1: manner that's not going to make your clothes burn up

758
00:38:37,840 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: or right right, which is really the purpose of me

759
00:38:40,160 --> 00:38:42,319
Speaker 1: drying my clothes. I don't know about everybody else. Well,

760
00:38:42,800 --> 00:38:45,680
Speaker 1: there are occasionally shirts where I'm like, no, never mind,

761
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 1: we'll see step one for me, as I want to

762
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 1: get my clothes dry, but step two is I do

763
00:38:49,600 --> 00:38:52,160
Speaker 1: not want to burn holes in them. Yes, but okay,

764
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:54,880
Speaker 1: So as unlikely as it sounds that this could be

765
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:57,960
Speaker 1: a really viable plan. This, this is the kind of

766
00:38:58,160 --> 00:39:01,200
Speaker 1: system that that NASA has granted some some money too.

767
00:39:01,400 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: They granted one company specifically called Umqua all in capital

768
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:08,000
Speaker 1: letters because why not, ye it's spelled exactly the way

769
00:39:08,040 --> 00:39:14,560
Speaker 1: it sounds. They granted them some funding through their Small

770
00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 1: Business Innovative Research Program back in Tleven and um that

771
00:39:18,840 --> 00:39:21,040
Speaker 1: the system that UMA is working on the last time

772
00:39:21,080 --> 00:39:24,319
Speaker 1: I checked, involves ceiling clothes in in a vacuum bag

773
00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:27,839
Speaker 1: and um cleaning them by jetting water and soap through

774
00:39:27,880 --> 00:39:31,520
Speaker 1: the bag and then drying them via microwave radiation and

775
00:39:31,520 --> 00:39:33,919
Speaker 1: then furthermore making them all soft and cuddly with jets

776
00:39:33,960 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 1: of air. Interesting, so You've got a whole bunch of

777
00:39:37,440 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: things in there that are are similar to approaches that

778
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:44,120
Speaker 1: were considered failures. Yeah, so maybe this could be a

779
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:50,319
Speaker 1: terrific failure in space. Space. In space, nobody can clean

780
00:39:50,360 --> 00:39:54,520
Speaker 1: your underwear. It's a problem. I mean yeah, I mean,

781
00:39:54,560 --> 00:39:58,520
Speaker 1: I mean you either you either have to bring infinite

782
00:39:58,600 --> 00:40:02,319
Speaker 1: changes of underpants with you, right, which, try and get

783
00:40:02,360 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 1: that through customs, right right, I mean, and it's really

784
00:40:05,080 --> 00:40:07,319
Speaker 1: expensive to bring stuff into space. You don't want to

785
00:40:07,320 --> 00:40:08,680
Speaker 1: do that, I mean you you want to be able

786
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:11,840
Speaker 1: to wash him. Everyone wants to clean underwear. Yeah, no,

787
00:40:12,000 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 1: that is very and if you don't, you should. Okay,

788
00:40:15,440 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 1: we're not judging. We're just I'm judging. Okay, we're judging

789
00:40:18,160 --> 00:40:20,200
Speaker 1: a little all right. So anyway, that wraps up this

790
00:40:20,200 --> 00:40:25,080
Speaker 1: discussion about clothes dryers. I hope that Thomas enjoyed this episode. Uh,

791
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:28,960
Speaker 1: we've already received a request for what will eventually become

792
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: the third part of our series of cleaning clothing. Who knew?

793
00:40:33,920 --> 00:40:36,480
Speaker 1: H Yeah, dry cleaning. Yeah, dry cleaning will be the

794
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:38,239
Speaker 1: next one we tackle. Obviously, it will not be the

795
00:40:38,280 --> 00:40:40,600
Speaker 1: next episode. Now we'll figure out. Gonna give it a

796
00:40:40,640 --> 00:40:42,680
Speaker 1: break for a little minute. You know, we gave it

797
00:40:42,719 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 1: a couple of months for for washing clothes and dryers,

798
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:47,280
Speaker 1: so the same sort of thing is going to apply

799
00:40:47,320 --> 00:40:49,239
Speaker 1: at least so but we will get around to it.

800
00:40:49,560 --> 00:40:53,319
Speaker 1: If you have a request, whether it's clothing related or

801
00:40:53,400 --> 00:40:56,880
Speaker 1: something completely unrelated the clothing but still related to technology

802
00:40:56,880 --> 00:40:59,480
Speaker 1: and you want to learn more about it, let us know.

803
00:41:00,040 --> 00:41:03,120
Speaker 1: Will take that burden of responsibility off your shoulders and

804
00:41:03,160 --> 00:41:06,279
Speaker 1: we'll carry it proudly into the future. Just send us

805
00:41:06,320 --> 00:41:08,000
Speaker 1: an email or at least into a microphone or at

806
00:41:08,040 --> 00:41:10,360
Speaker 1: least into a microphone. Yeah, send us an email the

807
00:41:10,360 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: addresses tech stuff at Discovery dot com, or drop us

808
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:16,759
Speaker 1: a line on Facebook, Tumbler, or Twitter or handle at

809
00:41:16,760 --> 00:41:19,400
Speaker 1: all three is tech stuff h s W and we

810
00:41:19,440 --> 00:41:26,279
Speaker 1: will talk to you again. Releasing for more on this

811
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:28,919
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it has stuff works

812
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:39,160
Speaker 1: dot com