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>clothes dryer, the range, and the dishwasher

I've worked and lived under emergency conditions with no power, running off a generator, and the clothes dryer, range and dishwasher were the last things we cared about. Light, telecommunications (we had long-distance antennas) and phone charging were the most critical needs.

I've also spent time in 100%-self-powered villages, and with good solar and wind power you can indeed have your dish-washers etc, just not in an emergency when you need to conserve and share energy (people running around sharing newly-charged battery packs was a common sight).

Generating electricity isn't really an issue if you have a good solar/wind pack: it's battery. I've often found running a converter from a car has been more efficient than relying on someone's home-built battery pack.



Sure. I've gone camping, too.

I'm just saying trying to live normally on a peak power of a couple kW might be optimistic. The dryer alone draws two or three.


I have never owned a dryer. In the UK owning a clothes dryer is quite unusual - clothes drying racks work quite effectively.

I suppose if you decide that you must live a "normal" life, then you can't really change anything about it. If you decide that you want to live a comfortable but low impact life, then there's plenty of things you can do to reduce your peak power.


Same here in Poland, I would have never seen clothes dryer if I weren't in the US few years ago. Doesn't the use of such dryer make ironing harder?


I suppose it might! All the clothing I have that should be ironed is also dry-clean only, so it never sees the dryer.

I do have some clothes that I dry on a rack, and they always come out very stiff compared to the stuff that goes through the dryer. I feel like I should hit those sweaters with a rugbeater or something before I wear them.




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