Good Design Goes Viral, Dyson Disclaimer
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin on 03.30.08
Dyson is currently clarifying that a wind and solar clothing rack concept stems from a Dyson-branded design competition and is not a Dyson product protoype. Darn. But given how quickly the internet community embraced this design, that may just change. Websites and bloggers have been singing the praises of the clever "Air-line", submitted by Mr. Daniel Fitzgerald of Swinburn University. Will Dyson take the bait and take advantage of the creativity it has sponsored?
Mr. Fitzgerald's Air-line design has swept through gizmodo, wired, got2beGreen and more. Fitzgerald submitted the clothes dryer concept for the Australian Design Award - Dyson Student Award, sponsored by the company which made the vacuum cleaner an object of lust.
The Air-line uses solar panels to power fans which push air past the clothing until a sensor detects that the clothing are dry, upon which the solar panels revert to charging batteries so that the rack can be used at night. A wind-up mechanism which is set when the clothes are laid out helps the rack to track the sun, optimizing the solar panel efficiency. And curing the need to fight for your right to dry, the Air-line utilizes venetian slats to bring the sun's rays onto the clothing while preventing unsightly views for the neighbors. The panel easily tucks out of the way when not in use.
Brilliant. Kudos to Daniel Fitzgerald. What ya waitin' for Dyson?
Clever drying rack designs available on the market today can be viewed in the TreeHugger archives: Right to Dry for Apartment Dwellers or Alberto Clothesline.
...and for the cost of all those high-tech materials this is better than a clothesline why? And for one shirt and pair of pants?
If you have ever tried to dry clothes in humid climates or wintery apartments, you would appreciate the value of these materials. Remember, the alternative of comparison is a tumble dryer, not a clothesline:
The Brandmastaren condominiums in Sweden were constructed with something like a louvred bay window attached to the house. It's basically a louvred box on the outside of your home that you can access from your home.
What this does is give you something like a clothes line that is protected from the rain but allows airflow to dry the clothes.
I'd be very reluctant to use solar energy to dry clothes. What I would like to see is drying using natural ventilation systems. A black solar chimney on top of your house heats air which pulls cooler air up. Wouldn't it make sense to have a drying space inside that loop somewhere?
I'm underwhelmed.
We're entering a period where energy is going to become more difficult to get to while demand spirals ever upwards. The math isn't difficult.
Now if it was a case of drying clothes over a rack of pipes taking hot gas from a gasifier, that would be different. In that case you would be utilising a byproduct.
The heat isn't enough to power a steam engine at this point. Neither is it a commercial proposition to use thermoelectric systems to turn the heat into energy (the temperature differential isn't high enough), but for drying clothes in a humid climate it's perfect.
Indeed linked to the condensation vessel of a steam engine (the part where the steam is cooled so that the water can be returned to the boiler) the use of cold wet clothes to draw heat from the vessel would increase the efficiency of the vessel. You wouldn't want the clothes to contact the vessel directly since when the clothes dried they'd insulate it, but having a drying space between the hot gas outlet outlet pipes and the hot condenser vessel would surely be a better way to go.
While it appears ingenious it's really just another smart individual component design that's blinkered by not taking into account how clothes could be dried within a holistic home system.