Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

This is a pic of my setup from last winter and this year I will be doing a slightly better version but I will insulate the FT and close in around the bottom as well. It is located right next to the output for my dryer. Since it gets used almost everyday I think that the warm , dry air for an hour at night couldn't hurt but wanted to run it by others first. Thanks for any input

I cant think of a downside. Report back on how much it helps.


brian

I'd say it depends on how good the dryer lint trap is. You wouldn't want detergent coated fabric shreds into your water.

It will need to be filtered to keep lint out as Margali stated. Also, that air is not as dry as you think, there is a lot of moisture in it and will cause condensation inside the plastic. I am thinking of doing the same thing. I am going to use one of these to eliminate the lint and some of the moisture problem.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Dundas-Jafin ... /202449697

That's pretty neat I didn't know such device was around. My thought was to put the end blowing up into a 5 gallon bucket not close enough to restrict flow but enough that it would function to redirect flow back down to concrete pad. I will install this week end and I can take temp readings when I get home in am to get a baseline average. If it adds enough extra heat it would justify the 15$ expense. I ran a single bulb over winter but had issues with the bulb getting broke in foul weather. Thank you for ideas.

Do some research, there are better units out there, this was just the first one I found on a quick search to give you an idea of what I was talking about. I see no point in just throwing that heat away myself and my hoophouse will be less than 20 feet from my vent. I plan to have the output of this blowing onto the side of my tank to heat the water some. (I don't expect huge water heating gains but it is already wasted heat so no loss in trying)

Your bucket idea has my gears turning though. If i run a coil of pex tubing from the water pump inside a bucket with a lid,and have a dryer inlet on one side of the bucket and the other outlet, I may see temp gains in the water. I will give that a shot as well and see what happens.

I might worry about violent swings in temp... could be hard on fish and less'n ideal for plants.

Oops

Well according to an instant read thermometer it's blowing out at 90 and the way I built the stand if I could direct the flow upwards toward the beds it should warm them only and not fish tank. Also thinking about the positive pressure aspect I believe I can use a soldering iron and make a plastic wind sock that could vent open when it's on and gravity would pull it down when the dryer is off. The set up is 3 feet from dryer vent.

Well as long as the FT temps don't swing, keep an eye out and you may be on to something!

Sent from my newfangled doodad using TapaTalk.

drier air is really humid...can make a whole rooms walls dripping with water if its not vented.

I'm really looking forward to how this turns out.

I have a similar idea but from my central gas heating outlet.
The air from this isn't air but burnt natural gas - so can't use it but I want to use the ambient heat from the pipe and maybe store it into some water tank or solid mass.

Have you thought about this idea rather than just the air?

I like the concept but any radiator type device I can think of will restrict flow to much. I don't want to kill my dryer. I believe TCL had a quote about stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.

As long as you use something that is designed for it you are fine (like the device I linked for you). The bucket idea that I came up with shouldn't restrict the flow at all if it works as I think it will.

Ok so this am when I got home from work bed temps where 58f , tank 64f. Air 59. I put my plastic over my cold frame an left one side open all day. For tonight's test I just ran the outlet to underneath one growbed and I left the side open. For the 45 min the dryer ran I had no condensation the temp of growbed went up one degree to 59. and temp of air just above growbeds was 73 and just below top it was 78.