If you’re going to go big, go big. Trebuchet or nothing.
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Actually if we swapped the laundry room & the powder room it would probably be possible to rig a chute from the closet in the master bedroom through the attic into the laundry room. Less convenient than one in the hallway though, and I don’t seriously want to swap the powder room & laundry room.
I wonder if a diagonal chute would work? It’d waste a ton of space in the attic, but who cares? That part doesn’t have a floor anyway. A diagonal chute would mean we wouldn’t have to swap the rooms.
What’s the max angle from vertical required for the laundry to make its way to the end of the chute?
It might go through load-bearing rafters though… I’d have to really study the geometry involved.
I used Pythagoras yesterday to make sure we’d be able to stand up a bookcase.
My brother who works construction uses it on occasion. My civil engineer brother probably uses it more, but I’ve never gone to his work to help out when I’m bored (or need to get some of the older kids out doing something useful - and he’ll pay them too) like I do with construction brother.
This. This is the house I want. I mean, I’ve got a very nice abode, but you can’t beat 100 year old trim and flooring.
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Need coefficient of friction.
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Yes, I was thinking about that too. I’d need to make the laundry chute very slick. I think my grandparents’ laundry chute was just sanded, unfinished wood. But of course it was vertical.
I might need to go with something smoother. What do y’all recommend? Plastic? Metal (seems like a bad idea as it would expand & contract a lot, possibly making a racket).
OMG, this. I need this in my closet to carry the clothes to the laundry room. Then when the clothes are washed & folded it could carry them back up too. This is brilliant!!!
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For homes with central vac, I bet you could just hook it up to the central vac system and use the same pump.
BTW, I have this pipe dream of custom building a home. There’s like a 0.01% chance it’s going to happen as I’m 99.99% certain I don’t want to deal with the hassle. But if I did… who has central vac and do you like it?
TWSS
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Well consider HVAC ducts made from sheet metal. Do they make noise when they heat up and cool down? Not in my experience, but IANAHVACE. They might make noise when you move large loads of clothes through them, but otherwise I’d expect not. I think as long as you have a decent slope of 45 degrees or more you should be fine. If clothes tend to get stuck in chute, get a push rod, store it in the chute.
I also figure cutting through one rafter would be fine if you make a decent size header. Even load bearing walls have doors through them. Your rafters might be 24" apart, so a 22.5 wide chute would fit without cutting any rafters (if you were OK with placement).
Hmmm, good point. Not sure their coefficient of friction but you’re right that they’re not noisy.
Alright. I gotta check out the rafters and see if this is possible. I might have to relocate the door on the laundry room to get a steeper angle and not have the clothes fall right into the entryway, but that’s a lot easier than relocating the whole laundry room.
We solved that problem. The washer/dryer are upstairs so no need to take clothes down to the laundry room.
I have a central vacuum system. I do not like it and do not use it at all.
I’m much happier with my cordless dyson. I can easily carry it from room to room and don’t have to deal with unhooking, dragging around and rehooking the vacuum head. The cordless one is easier to empty. It’s not down in the basement, away from trash bags and the outside trash. It does have a smaller capacity and run time is limited by battery life, but I’m fine with those constraints.
I do not recommend a central vacuum system.
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I had a friend who built a custom house in the late 1990’s, and he went through the expense of pre wiring every room in the house for cable and internet. Now, everything is wireless.
I see central vac as being in a similar vein. It was once a luxury not to have to carry a vacuum from room to room. But now, a cordless dyson is pretty damn easy to move around with and easier than having to “hose-up” to the port in each room.
One generation’s luxury might be the next generation’s baggage.
Thanks, this was my fear.
I like the idea of the dustpan, but you can buy those as standalone units. My hairdresser has one. I think I might just buy that and call it a day.
We had something similar. House built in the 70s. Under the sink in the bathroom was a “cupboard” that pulled open to a hole that dropped to where the laundry room was expected to be. Except my dad ended up putting the laundry room in another part of the basement.
So it was nothing more than an escape hatch for hide and seek. 
Later they just made it an actual storage space.
Ours was definitely an afterthought because you had to navigate around a pipe to get through. Probably why it wasn’t as useful as a laundry delivery device.