I have a laundry chute original to the house. There were two doors to the chute when we bought the house, one upstairs in the hall bath & one on the main level next to the kitchen. I added an angled chute from the master bath that ties into the one in the hall bath. (There was dead space behind the shower in the master.) Used a section of HVAC metal ducting. Sometimes, the dirty laundry from the master bath needs a little extra push to get it down the angled chute. I 'feed' bulky items like sheets into it until gravity kicks in. Smaller items get 'tossed' with a bit of force. The angled section is fairly short--around 3' in length before it ties into the vertical drop from the hall bath.

When we bought the house, the chute openings were just that--holes in the wall. I built some small doors for all of them.

Chutes are great; save a lot of steps and get the stinky laundry out of the room. Great low tech/ no tech intercom system, too. I can be in the master bedroom & easily converse with anyone in the basement.

We had one in my parents house. It was built with the house in the early 70's. It is simply a cabinet door stuck in the wall of the hallway just outside one of the upstairs bedrooms. It is all paint grade plywood that I can see. It has a very slight angle, so it behaves as though its a straight shot. The laundry lands in one of the upper cabinets in the laundry room down on the 1st floor. You open the cabinet door and experience an avalanche. Its fun for visitors looking for cleaning supplies. Anytime its mentioned, someone pipes up with " these things aren't legal now" but of course no one is sealing it up. I assumed it was a fire code issue. But really, none of us were experts, so it could be fine.

Anytime its mentioned, someone pipes up with " these things aren't legal now" but of course no one is sealing it up. I assumed it was a fire code issue.

For the most part, laundry chutes are legal. Only some municipalities have codes per laundry chutes. In reality, they are no more of a fire danger than a staircase is and, really, less of an issue if the chute has doors on the openings.

Our laundry chute abutted the chimney with waist high access doors in the kitchen and from a second floor bedroom. The chute itself is just standard ducting. We removed the chimney and really miss the chute; we're trying to reconfigure one, at least from the kitchen.

The kids got banned from using the laundry chute and got a promotion to do all of their own laundry after putting clean and neatly folded stacks of laundry down the chute repeatedly. They were too lazy to put them away.