Thread Number: 53980
How Would You Design A Modern FS Combo Unit |
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Post# 763108   6/11/2014 at 19:43 (3,604 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage)   |   | |
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Post# 763109 , Reply# 1   6/11/2014 at 19:51 (3,604 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage)   |   | |
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Friends will be arriving in NYC soon to look at apartments in the Woolworth building which got me thinking. More and more at least in NYC's red hot real estate market former office/commercial building in whole or part are being converted into residential. In fact the Sony Building on Madison Avenue near 57th Street is next on that list.
Being as all this may floor plans for such buildings were not designed for residential much less the mod cons of today and that often means laundry. Dryers in particular must be of the condenser type because there simply isn't access to an outside wall for venting. However many are shall we say not "thrilled" with condenser dryers and want good old electric or gas vented. Am thinking a combo unit that could deliver the drying performance many Americans come to expect along with capacity would be a game changer. Especially again as demographics year after year point to the rise of cities/urban areas as persons flock back in reversing decades of "white flight" population losses. |
Post# 763135 , Reply# 2   6/11/2014 at 22:52 (3,604 days old) by whirlcool (Just North Of Houston, Texas)   |   | |
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I saw a television show about those condos in the Woolworth building, from $10 million and up! You'd think for that price you'd be able to find a way to vent a dryer outdoors. |
Post# 763383 , Reply# 4   6/13/2014 at 03:45 (3,603 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage)   |   | |
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Well yes, and no.
Just as with Paris and many other world class cities New York has a strong "historic/landmark" lobby and preservation movement. Born out of the demolition of the old Penn Station these persons make preserving historic buildings their life's work. Just as you cannot drill holes into the walls of those grand Haussmann buildings in Paris for say an AC or dryer vent, often the same is not allowed in many of these historic (formerly commercial) buildings that are being converted in whole or part into residential (luxury) housing. Often it is also the floor plans of the buildings that make the thing not work. Again the Woolworth building was laid out as office space, not housing. All those offices and suites must be cobbled together somehow into apartments. Since there only four walls that face outwards... you get the point. It is somewhat easier when doing a loft conversion as the open floor plans mean you can place a kitchen and or utility room at nor near a outside facing wall, But when you are carving up floors with mainly inner offices (where the drones worked) and the outer (where executives and high ranking persons had their suites), things are different. I've worked in offices that had kitchens which included dishwashers, that is another matter. |
Post# 763509 , Reply# 5   6/13/2014 at 21:57 (3,602 days old) by sudslock1 (St Louis)   |   | |
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I just saw LG redid their large combo. It so now a square door unit and has something like 4.3 cu ft. It also offers steam I believe. Will be interesting to see what else they changed. |
Post# 763672 , Reply# 6   6/14/2014 at 19:07 (3,601 days old) by combo52 (50 Year Repair Tech Beltsville,Md)   |   | |
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When large buildings are built out they must put in exhaust vents in kitchens, bathrooms and it is not all that difficult to install central dryer vent systems.
We have lots of buildings old and new in the DC area where they have these ventilation systems. In large buildings they do not punch a hole through the exterior wall for every dryer, bathroom vent fan or kitchen range hood, all these buildings use common ventilation systems where there is a fan on the roof or other location that provides a constant negative air pressure. In the DC area you can not sell or even rent a home or apartment unless it has a washer and dryer, the housing market just won't allow it. |
Post# 763676 , Reply# 7   6/14/2014 at 19:38 (3,601 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage)   |   | |
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Highest recorded price for a condo in lower Manhattan, $110 million.
CLICK HERE TO GO TO Launderess's LINK |
Post# 763678 , Reply# 8   6/14/2014 at 19:49 (3,601 days old) by Launderess (Quiet Please, There´s a Lady on Stage)   |   | |
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Many if not most of the formerly commercial large properties in NYC that are being converted into residential space never had kitchens, certainly not large ones. These were office buildings like the Woolworth and while individual tenants *might* have had some sort of kitchen it would have been geared toward more heating up worker's meals, coffee, and so forth. Not preparing food for hundreds of workers per day.
Speaking of fuel for dryers and commercial buildings in Manhattan one of the horrors of 9/11/01 was that due to the insistence of then mayor Rudy Giuliani the City moved it's emergency command center into the WTC. To provide fuel for the back up generators large tanks of diesel were stored on the floors near the command center. When the planes hit and fire started those tanks did what petrol will do, burn and or explode. New York City via it's elected representatives both in Washington D.C., Albany and locally fought hard to have the City be held blameless/not liable for many things related to the Twin Towers attack, one of those things was the question of the wisdom of storing so much fuel in a skyscraper building and did it contribute to loos of life and so forth. Those questions among others were never answered much less addressed because the one sure path for doing so; litigation against the City and Port Authority was blocked. |