It's the first time I own a dryer.
When I poured out the water it has collected (a few liters per run) I quickly tested the EC and pH and found out, that it is almost identical to the one made by my reverse osmosis filter!
No wonder, since the dryer is basically just a big distillation machine.
Thats super neat. It will save me a lot of work filtering tap water.
I will collect it from now on and use it for watering my plants.
Why does it matter?
Plants really don't like tap water. Even in a country like mine, where no chlorine/ fluoride/ whatever is added, the dissolved minerals cause trouble. They will build up over time and make nutrients unavailable, even if you adjust the pH.
The buildup and nutrient lockout will harm the plants a lot in the long term, and you will have way more trouble checking and correcting EC and pH.
I'm in Canada and our dryers are basically ovens that spin the clothes and the moisture is exhausted out of the house. How do your dryers work? I've never had water buildup anywhere with my dryer so I very curious.
Some dryers are basically dehumidifiers+heaters, so they will collect and drain out the water from the clothes. This can be far more efficient than using resistive electric heating alone. And also means you don’t need a vent for your dryer so it can go in a tight space/closet. https://www.energystar.gov/products/clothes_dryers/heat-pump-dryer
I love how in Europe things are more efficient due to needing to figure out how to fit things into smaller spaces. Thanks for the info!
It’s mainly down to our strict energy efficiency regulations, when shopping for a drier (which is already rare in Europe) they stick a big red flag and an “F” on the non efficient ones, and a green flag with “A+++” on the most efficient heat pump versions. There is also lots of data which need to be provided at point of sale and in advertising regarding the cost to run loads on various programs that make choosing an energy efficient model make sense.