Hello,
I have two washer/dryer questions. My house is a two story house with an unfinished attic that has a pull down trapdoor/ladder. The laundry "room" is a closet on the 2nd floor. The washer sits in a plastic pan which I guess at one point may have served to prevent lots of water damage if the washer sprung a leak. The pan has a drain on it but the pan is also cracked severely so it couldn't do much. I am about to replace this 20 year old top loader with a fancy maytag 5400 series front loader that sits on a pedestal including a drawer. Even if the pan weren't broken, the drawer won't be able to open if I put this in a new pan.
So the exact washer questions are:
1) for a 2nd floor install, are these pans really desirable?
2) if a pan is really desirable, are there metal ones which may be more durable?
3) if a pan is really desirable, how should I elevate the washer slightly to make it so I can still open the drawer?
This sucker is *heavy* and so I want the closet fully prepared for when some guys with stronger and younger backs than mine carry it up.
The next question is about the dryer vent. Currently it comes out of the back wall of the closet several inches up from the floor. It then travels inside the wall up into the unfinished attic. From there it turns more or less 45 degrees and continues up to the roof but at a slope. It finally vents out of the roof with an approximate length of maybe 8-10 feet in the attic and 7 in the wall. This vent is a pain to clean because it is so long (15 or 17 feet) and because access is impossible at the output side (sorry, I don't climb on to a roof this high) and difficult on the input side (have to completely move the dryer out of the closet and climb over it to get behind due to small closet and small hallway. The other problem is the new dryer I want to put in is deeper and there won't be sufficient clearance behind the dryer to actually connect to the vent.
So my exact dryer questions are:
a) the dryer can convert to a side vent so I'm thinking move the existing vent up on the wall to about 5 or 6 feet from the floor instead of 1 foot from the floor. Then I can use some flexible dryer duct to come out of the side of the dryer and up to the vent which is now higher up on the wall. Is this a reasonable approach?
b) Is there a reasonable way to make it easy to open up the duct in the attic for periodic cleaning?
c) any special considerations given how long this run is? Everywhere else I have lived, the dryer to outside world length was more like 6 feet or less.
d) how much mechanical support should the dryer vent in the attic have? One answer seems to be "more than I already have" since there essentially isn't any and it is coming apart.
I can't just move the whole in-wall duct over to the closet side wall because the attic furnace unit is directly on top of that wall.
Many thanks
-Dan
I have two washer/dryer questions. My house is a two story house with an unfinished attic that has a pull down trapdoor/ladder. The laundry "room" is a closet on the 2nd floor. The washer sits in a plastic pan which I guess at one point may have served to prevent lots of water damage if the washer sprung a leak. The pan has a drain on it but the pan is also cracked severely so it couldn't do much. I am about to replace this 20 year old top loader with a fancy maytag 5400 series front loader that sits on a pedestal including a drawer. Even if the pan weren't broken, the drawer won't be able to open if I put this in a new pan.
So the exact washer questions are:
1) for a 2nd floor install, are these pans really desirable?
2) if a pan is really desirable, are there metal ones which may be more durable?
3) if a pan is really desirable, how should I elevate the washer slightly to make it so I can still open the drawer?
This sucker is *heavy* and so I want the closet fully prepared for when some guys with stronger and younger backs than mine carry it up.
The next question is about the dryer vent. Currently it comes out of the back wall of the closet several inches up from the floor. It then travels inside the wall up into the unfinished attic. From there it turns more or less 45 degrees and continues up to the roof but at a slope. It finally vents out of the roof with an approximate length of maybe 8-10 feet in the attic and 7 in the wall. This vent is a pain to clean because it is so long (15 or 17 feet) and because access is impossible at the output side (sorry, I don't climb on to a roof this high) and difficult on the input side (have to completely move the dryer out of the closet and climb over it to get behind due to small closet and small hallway. The other problem is the new dryer I want to put in is deeper and there won't be sufficient clearance behind the dryer to actually connect to the vent.
So my exact dryer questions are:
a) the dryer can convert to a side vent so I'm thinking move the existing vent up on the wall to about 5 or 6 feet from the floor instead of 1 foot from the floor. Then I can use some flexible dryer duct to come out of the side of the dryer and up to the vent which is now higher up on the wall. Is this a reasonable approach?
b) Is there a reasonable way to make it easy to open up the duct in the attic for periodic cleaning?
c) any special considerations given how long this run is? Everywhere else I have lived, the dryer to outside world length was more like 6 feet or less.
d) how much mechanical support should the dryer vent in the attic have? One answer seems to be "more than I already have" since there essentially isn't any and it is coming apart.
I can't just move the whole in-wall duct over to the closet side wall because the attic furnace unit is directly on top of that wall.
Many thanks
-Dan