Comments on: Line Drying Trouble-shooting

By: Brandy

Brandy — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:07:49 +0000

HOT water is a HOT commadity. We can either use it ALL to wash one load of clothes OR bathe two people…uh there are 4 bodies in my house so the clothes almost always get washed in cold water, dishes too…sigh

GOD BLESS AMERICA, as a soldier (Airman actually) I am not only fighting for your freedon and rights, I am fighting for your right and freedom and LUXERY of HOT WATER…wahhhhhhhh I’m just so missing a real hotwater heater right now….

good tips all !ciao!

By: Brandy

Brandy — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 20:03:00 +0000

I live in Italy and can’t dry clothes outside in the winter, takes too long. BUT it is just as cold IN my house. LONG story short we have no heat, therefore it is cold inside. The REAL reason folks in Italy line dry is because we don’t have enough electricity to run more than two large appliances at once with the fridge being one of them. I have to ration power or risk tripping the breaker. (And then you have to start the washer over from the tart of the cycle because it is a front loading piece of s*&@) So I can wash clothes but while the clothes are washing I can’t use anyother appliance, and havew to keep some lights and tv off too. The washers in this country only hold 1/3 the typical “American” load so it is VERY FRUSTRATING. I am an American (military) stationed here and honestly it is a nice place to visit but I hate living here. I habe two kids and laundry is a huge sore spot for me.

By: Penny

Penny — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 02:20:24 +0000

I use my hot water cupboard to finish off my laundry that hasn’t quite dried properly – particularly in winter, or if I’ve forgotten to take it off the line outside before the “chill” night air gets to it.

I actually prefer crispier towels to dry myself with None of this wussy soft towel business for me! LOL!

By: rebecca

rebecca — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 05:57:29 +0000

Joy, I do have two drying racks, as well as some lines outside for things like sheets. I need two racks, a line, and some chairs to hang a full load. When we lived in our very small house, we got kind of crowded with the racks sitting there drying a partial load of laundry for over a week. I think that turned me off of line-drying for a while . . . but now I am BACK!

Clare, if you have a garage for clothes-hanging, I think that would work perfectly. Another bonus is that if it happens to rain or something, you wouldn’t have to rush out to gather the laundry.

Eileen, I admire you for draping the laundry everywhere in order to reduce those carbon emissions! Let us know if you come up with a winter line-drying scheme that works–that’s what I had trouble with in a small space.

Blythe, thanks for the optical brighteners information. Let us know if you see a difference in laundry-crunchiness after switching. I use a laundry detergent without optical brighteners (Biokleen–I wrote a whole post on it a while back), but my laundry is still a bit stiff. Not extremely so, though.

By: Blythe

Blythe — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:28:31 +0000

Rebecca,
I did find some info about optical brighteners and why they make line-dried clothes feel stifff:http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/259584/optical_brighteners_are_your_clothes.html?cat=46

There’s a list of detergents that don’t have them here (the article doesn’t care that they make clothes stiff, as you will see): http://www.vandenberg.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123065881

Hope that helps someone- I hate crunchy laundry! I’m off to act on a tip that my local Big Lots has 7th generation laundry detergent for $7!

By: Eileen

Eileen — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 04:30:09 +0000

You guys inspired me! I had 2 sickies the past 2 days which meant LOADS of extra laundry. We are still working on the idea of a bucket. lol. So I decided to line dry lots of things. I am one of those people who isn’t allowed to hang clothes outside, and it’s an apartment so the landlord makes the rules. But I have a shower curtain rod over the washer and dryer. I hung stuff on hangers there and in the shower. Large blankets I hung over the railing of our stairs. There are some things that line dry super fast and I found that if I ran out of space, I could throw things like towels in the dryer but not start it until the next load. Does that make sense? Like one dryer run for every 2 or three loads of wash and then only hang the stuff that will dry fast.

This works for me because I am one of those once a week laundry people so that when I’m doing laundry, I usually have 2 or 3 loads in a row at least. I can’t do it more than that because I have serious issues with mixing colors and doing small loads. I get a lot of joy from sorting. =)

By: Clare

Clare — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 00:34:49 +0000

I grew up in a missionary family in South America, where we hung dry all our clothes and hand washed them too. I still remember stomping on our clothes in a big sink to agitate them. When our electric bill hit $275 (1400 sq ft hm in Florida) hubby and I decided to try hang drying clothes. Since it’s soooo rainy this summer we’re doing like some others and hanging a couple lines in the garage. Honestly, it’s so hot in there, the clothes might dry faster than in our old dryer. As long as I don’t have start hand washing clothes, I’ll be ok.

By: joy

joy — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 19:04:02 +0000

A brilliant idea (but totally obvious) idea just occurred to me. People can use two (or more) drying racks! You’d be able to take more space to drape wet clothes and wouldn’t need to fiddle with clothespins as much. Plus, there would be plenty of room for sun bleaching cloth diapers.