Ideas for electric clothes dryer that vents into attached garage - eviltoast

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?

  • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    You’re just not giving us enough info to help you out.

    My immediate suggestion as im reading the post would be to extend a vent straight up through the roof of the garage, but then you claim there is no easy way to vent outside.

    Without sketches of the layout of the house and/or photos I’m not sure how we can help. Is there a window in the laundry room? Can you set up a flexible vent that goes out there?

    • KuchiKopi@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I’ve uploaded a rough layout. Straight up is the second floor of the house. No windows in the laundry room.

      • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Now I am even more confused… why can’t you go north from the laundry room? (assuming up is “north” in your picture).

        Looks like that image is the dryer itself, right? It is on an outside wall (even if the wall itself has no window). That wouldn’t just be a solution, it would be the preferred solution because you can keeping the ductwork as short as possible (less condensation as the air cools and dew forms on the inside of the vent.

        The other option would be a “U” shaped vent which went into the garage as shown with the red dot, and then a 180 degree bend to go out the exterior wall of the garage. 180 degrees is not ideal, but looks like it could be done in a short distance.

        Nice hatchwork in the picture, BTW

        • KuchiKopi@lemmy.worldOP
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          1 year ago

          Oh crap, I can see how lousy my drawing is. I tried to keep it simple but it’s so simple that it’s misleading.

          North of this drawing is a whole bunch of additional rooms. It’s not an exterior wall.

          • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Oh! That changes everything. So are there more rooms “north” of the garage? You can’t just add a 90 degree elbow and go through that wall?