I use a box fan to help dry the dishes in the dishwasher. Recently I mistakenly pointed the fan away from the dishes instead of toward them. This appears to be faster and more effective than my normal method. Why?

  • JeeBaiChow@lemmy.world
    20·
    7 days ago

    Drying happens when the moisture on your dishes gets evaporated into the air. If the air is already moist. It happens slowly. The air in the just opened dishwasher is hot and very moist. Blowing away removes the vapour/ moist air from the washer compartment, which gets replaced by the drier air in the kitchen. Blowing towards just keeps the moisture circulating inside, and though some of it will no doubt eddy out, it isn’t as efficient, it seems.

  • Ogmios@sh.itjust.works
    51·
    7 days ago

    When you’re sucking the air away it still generates a current over the dishes, but also carries the saturated moist air away so that new drier air replaces it, which becomes saturated and carries more moisture away. When you’re blowing the moving air impacts upon the dishes and breaks the flow so the moisture stays closer to the dishes.

    Just guessing though.

  • Phineaz@feddit.org
    431·
    7 days ago

    Blowing into an enclosed space is chaotic, the fan has to push against air currents being deflected. Blowing into an open space (aka sucking out of you dishwasher) is much more orderly, the fan can simply pull the air out and there are much fewer air currents running orthogonal.

    This is as far as my very basic knowledge goes here. You can try this effect by exhaling and inhaling air through a barely open mouth or a straw.

    EDIT: On a related note, never “blow” during fellatio.

  • Bigfish@lemmynsfw.comEnglish
    15·
    7 days ago

    Isn’t this just a simple case of “get the moisture away”? Blowing into the dishwasher doesn’t move the moist air away, it just moves it around in the box. Blowing out pulls the moist air away from the dishes and out into the room.

    If your box fan was pushing dry hot air (like a hair dryer), hot enough to meaningfully speed up evaporation, then blowing in would probably be better.

    • uhmbah@lemmy.ca
      3·
      6 days ago

      Heathen! LOL

      I kid. Shop vac for the win. There is need to suck water at times. And rugs, curtains, couches like others have pointed out.

    • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
      826·
      7 days ago

      Unpopular opinion: vacuum cleaners are redundant expensive bloatware that can be replaced by a broom in 90% of cases. You only need a vacuum cleaner if you have a carpet, and carpets are filthy relics of a bygone era.

      • gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
        21·
        7 days ago

        can be replaced by a broom in 90% of cases

        only need a vacuum cleaner if you have a carpet

        Or a rug, or cloth furniture like a couch, or drapes/curtains, underneath the fridge and other spots a broom just doesn’t fit, inside cupboards, probably more places that aren’t coming straight to mind

        Oh: keyboards!

        • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
          215·
          7 days ago

          Yet there have never been less “drapes”, curtains and carpets than in a modern home. And oddly humanity got by just fine without vacuum cleaners until - pure coincidence, no doubt - postwar consumer capitalism instructed us that we “needed” these things.

          • facelessbs@lemmy.world
            4·
            7 days ago

            While vacuum cleaners might feel like a modern invention, their roots can actually be traced back to the 1800s. Specifically, in 1860, Daniel Hess of West Union, Iowa, invented a device he called a “carpet sweeper.” The apparatus used a combination of bellows for suction and a rotating brush for gathering dust. And while yes if all you have is a hard wood floors the need for a vacuum is diminished but is still helpful. And what is useless for one person is helpful to another. Now there is interesting stories on how the Dyson came around to sell such an expensive vacuum.

            • JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world
              2·
              6 days ago

              The carpet sweeper is an excellent example. I’ve used them and they’re great. This is exactly my point: my contention is that carpet sweepers basically solved the problem, whereas vacuum cleaners are largely a product of 20th century consumer capitalism in that they respond to a pseudo-need generated by marketing. I know that’s not a popular opinion (indeed I’m being insulted and having my comments removed just for expressing it), but I stand by it.

  • Lvxferre@mander.xyz
    9·
    7 days ago

    So you’re saying that blowing sucks, and sucking blows?

    …okay, serious now. I think that it has to do with air pressure - sucking reduces it while blowing increases it. And water evaporation happens faster on regions with lower pressure.

  • Chozo@fedia.io
    8·
    7 days ago

    Blowing air into a confined space doesn’t really work well. It’s the same reason why pointing a fan into a hot room doesn’t cool it down any; the air needs somewhere to flow to, and it can’t go out the way it came in because there’s a fan pushing it back. So the air in the room might move around a bit, but it isn’t circulating hardly any of the air from the rest of your house, which is why that room stays warm even though you “feel” the wind from the fan. But if you open some windows in the house and do the same thing, you now have place for the air to move to, so it doesn’t just spin around the same container any longer.

  • JackbyDev@programming.devEnglish
    6·
    7 days ago

    How close is the fan to the dishes? Moving it away and pointing it towards them may work better than being close and blowing.

  • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.world
    2·
    7 days ago

    I would guess that it’s moving moisture away from the vicinity. Blowing it far away instead of inwards to the kitchen. Then normal evaporation can happen better.

    But I think you really don’t need to bother, why not just let them dry?

  • 0x4E4F@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    64·
    7 days ago

    Why is sucking better than blowing?

    Ummm… not a girl, but I suspect it’s easier to suck things out of it than blow into it…

  • Delta_V@lemmy.world
    1·
    7 days ago

    While blowing, some of the fan’s energy is spent on increasing the pressure inside your dishwasher, which increases the density of the air the fan blades move through, increasing drag on the fan blades causing them to move slower and create less airflow.

    While blowing, you’re also pushing moist air to the back of the dishwasher, and after that air reaches 100% relative humidity, it can’t hold any more water and will not help dry your plates. Some of it will eventually escape around the sides, but some of the airflow your fan creates just circulates humid air around the inside of the dishwasher.

    Turning your fan around solved both problems. It increased the volume of air flow, and decreased the relative humidity of the air flow.