Venting for doors to laundry room.

I would like to replace louvered doors to the laundry room for solid wood doors, but am concerned about proper ventilation. Room measures approximately 3'x 8' and the dryer is vented to the crawl space. Need I stay with louvered doors or can I install vents on solid doors? Much appreciate your response.

 

I installed a bathroom type exhaust fan in our laundry room with solid doors. It removes the bleach & soap odors and the heat & humidity created by the washer & dryer.

 

quote:<HR>Originally posted by Jerry Hingle:
I would like to replace louvered doors to the laundry room for solid wood doors, but am concerned about proper ventilation. Room measures approximately 3'x 8' and the dryer is vented to the crawl space. Need I stay with louvered doors or can I install vents on solid doors? Much appreciate your response.<HR>

If you have not already solved your problem I would suggest that when intalling a new solid door that you leave a 1 or 2 inch gap at the bottom of the door to provide ventilation. Even in the door is installed, you can remove it from the hinges and trim it down.

Also, if your dryer is vented to the crawl space, you are creating future moisture problems. The ducting should run all the way to an outside vent.

boregard

 

Hi:Jerry Hingle

First off...DO NOT INSTALL an exhaust fan behind solid doors! Your NOT trying to only remove heat, odors and moisture.

The louvers are there to provide ventilation <air> for the combustion of gas <combustion air> and to provide intake air for the dryer.

Dryers do not recirculate air. They draw in room air, heat it and exhaust it throught the exhaust vent. Therefore, they need a constant and huge volumn of air during operation.

Therefore, using solid doors, they will need to remain OPENED during dryer useage. Closing them during useage will consume the closet air rapidly and smother the burner flames. That could cause a serious and possibly hazardous condition.

Adding an exhaust fan will only compound the problem with the doors closed, the fan on and the dryer on. In this case, once again, the doors need to remain open during dryer operation.

Just for the proper volumn of air for the combustion of the gas used by the burner, you would need at least ONE square inch of vent in the door for every ONE thousand BTU'S.

Dryers have burners between 18 to 24 thousand BTU'S. Therefore, just for burner combustion air, the door vents need to be 18 to 24 inches of total open space.

Add in the dryers intake air and you can easily see that a dryer consumes a huge volumn of air.

Good Luck,
TomBartco
Natural Gas Energy Technician and Consultant.

 

I am in the same boat of needing to vent my utility room. when you say a dryer needs 18-24 inches of open space, are you talking about square inches? I was told to put vents in the top and bottom of the door. I was thinking about something like 5"x10" at the top and bottom. I have a gas dryer, water heater and furnace.

Maybe I should just take the door off but I would like to keep the kids from wandering in. A closed door goes a long way for that.

 

pjaffe

Add up the total BTU'S for the three gas appliances in your utility room. Then figure you need one SQUARE INCH of ventilation for each 1,000 BTU'S.

Then put HALF the amount of ventilation up top and the other half down low.

EXAMPLE:
3 appliances equals 100,000 BTU'S.
1 square inch for each 1,000 BTU'S = 100 square inches.
4 vents, each 25 square inches = 100.
2 vents at the top and 2 vents down low.