Energy saving device utilizing normally wasted heat from clothes dryers

Claim 1

For use with a conventional clothes dryer having a heat source and a high capacity fan for driving heated air through the clothes to be dried, and a vent pipe for venting heated, moist air from said dryer to the atmosphere, the improvement comprising: a hollow fitting comprising three tubular intercommunicating portions, a first tubular portion being adapted for connection to a first vent pipe part leading from the dryer, and a second tubular portion being adapted to be connected to a second vent pipe part leading to the atmosphere, the open end of a third tubular portion being adapted to communicate with space in the building in which said dryer is located, a damper disposed within said fitting and movable from one position to another, in said one position blocking air flow from said first tubular portion through said second tubular portion while permitting such air flow to exhaust through said third tubular portion and to said building space, and in said other damper position blocking air flow from said first tubular portion through said third tubular portion while permitting such air flow to exhaust through said second tubular portion and to the atmosphere, said damper being fixed to a shaft, the opposite ends of the latter being journalled within openings in said fitting and extdnding outwardly of said fitting, one shaft end having a manually manipulatable knob fixed there to and the other shaft end having a disc secured thereto, a face of said disc facing an exterior surface of said fitting and said face and surface having interengagable abutments for holding said damper in any one of a number of adjusted positions, a compression spring surrounding said shaft one end and disposed between said knob and an exterior surface of said fitting, said spring being operable to releasably hold said abutments in engagement, and a bag-like filter having an inlet mouth portion disposed closely over the open end of said third tubular portion and detachably secured thereto, said filter preventing lint and the like from said clothes dryer from entering said building space.