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I've been toying with the idea of installing a laundry chute (really just a hole in the floor of a closet), and just spotted this crazy system called Laundry Jet. The idea is neat, but even if I had the money, I'd never dream of having one of these installed.
The idea is that you install a network of 6" PVC tubes in your house—"up to hundreds of feet"--connected to a vacuum unit. You then place one to eight "ports" throughout your house; open one, the vacuum starts to pull suction, and whatever you place in the port gets sucked down to the laundry room. You can even set it up with a "return unit," which sucks clean laundry back up to your bedroom.
Maybe this would make sense in new construction, but I couldn't tolerate the sheetrock work alone required to retrofit this. Plus, because my wife and I are on a farm, our clothes get actually dirty: Not just sweat-soaked, but occasionally stained with blood, mud and/or animal feces. I don't want that smeared on the inside of pipes I can't access to clean.
All that aside, I do admit it looks like fun to use:
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I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.
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Hilarious Vacuum-Powered Laundry Chute System
6 inch pipes in houses with 3 1/2 inch walls. Conflict of interest.
And not to mention non-load bearing interior walls can and often are made even thinner. There's a reason 2x3's in standard stud length are a thing.
A built-in pneumatic system in the walls - what could possibly go wrong?! What a pain if something clogs (too much/size/length) at once would be a huge problem. Reminds me of that episode of 'Malcom in the Middle' when Hal and the kids through everything in the garage through the wood chipper just to see how it would shred...what wouldn't kids try to put into this?
*threw, that is.
Any house with children AND a cat is in for a nasty experiment.