What can you do with the water expelled from the clothes dryer?
For many, the clothes dryer is an essential appliance in the home, which allows them to halve their laundry management time. It means not having to wait ages for the various items to finish drying on a line and causing a build-up of humidity in the rooms.. and not to mention all the space that hung washing takes up. It also frees you from the hassle of having to run outside to gather in the washing when it threatens to rain.
A dryer extracts all water from the washing and expels it via an extraction system. In most cases, this water is always thrown away. But why not recycle this water in a useful way?
There are several ways to use expelled clothes dryer water, which can be easily collected by placing a hose with a bucket or basin nearby. And here is a useful precaution, before using the water in the various ways indicated below: make sure there are no fibers, lint or fluff in the water. Use a narrow mesh strainer to filter the water and clean the water as much as possible.
- The iron: you can use the water for the iron, perhaps alternating it with demineralized or distilled water, so as to prevent the formation of limescale, (or at least slow down the build-up).
- Washing floors and various other surfaces: if you have to wash the floor without using hot water, you can easily pour use the dryer's water. And for DIY spray products, it's good to use this reclaimed water. If the water is free of lint and fabric fibers, you could also use it for washing the windows.
- For hand washing: if you have to wash or rinse something by hand, why not use water that you have already reclaimed, instead of consuming extra?
- Pre-treatment of laundry: if you have to leave very dirty clothes to soak, do not use fresh water. Reclaimed dryer water is perfect!
- Windscreen wipers: whenever you run out of soap and water in the wiper reservoir you can consider using this clean water!
- Flushing: every time we press the button or pull the toilet flush, we consume a lot of water. Delaying flushing the toilet, on the other hand, has undesirable hygienic consequences. Why not fill the tank with reclaimed water from time to time?
- Rinsing off objects in general, perhaps brushes, sponges and similar. And also crockery (before putting them in the dish washer)!
There are those who also use this water for watering plants, but considering that it could still have traces of tiny synthetic fibers, it is perhaps not suitable for this purpose.
Have you ever recycled the water from your clothes dryer?
