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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Drying clothes?
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
Let's chat about drying clothes.
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I have stopped using the tumble dryer and saved £16 a month, but this has brought problems of its own.
I rigged up drying racks in our (very narrow) utility room. But this humid weather means they take ages to dry - and, of course the radiators are not on.
I don't peg out unless I'm sure it won't be raining when I get home - and this hasn't happened for months.
What do you do?
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Mrs Shrew
Ship's Mother
# 8635
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Posted
I use the line outside or an airer in the bathroom. I want to get a heated airer as soon as I can afford it-they seem to cost about £50-80 and they have slightly heated rails which make clothes dry better as a cost of about 2p/hour in electricity.
At my parents house, we never had problems as they have a range cooker which is always hot so dries clothes really well. It costs a fortune in gas though.
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"The goal of life is not to make other people in your own image, it is to understand that they, too, are in God's image" (Orfeo)
Was "mummyfrances".
Posts: 703 | From: York, England | Registered: Oct 2004
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
There's no substitute for a line outside. Wash Friday evenings (twice, one light, one dark) hang out if fine Saturday morning.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Balaam:
There's no substitute for a line outside. Wash Friday evenings (twice, one light, one dark) hang out if fine Saturday morning.
But it hasn't been fine for months - that's the problem. If I go out and come back to wet clothes it means re-spinning and still hanging indoors. So not worth it.
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Beethoven
Ship's deaf genius
# 114
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Posted
For some reason, a number of our radiators seem to remain hot regardless of whether the heating is supposed to be on. So although I know I ought to get them checked as there's obviously something wrong somewhere, I actually make the most of it for drying laundry. I have on small radiator airer, as well as a couple of other laundry racks - one in the dining room and one in our bedroom.
Frustratingly, I have a very good sized rotary drier in the garden - but the same problem with the weather. Even on the few days that start off sunny, either I don't manage to get anything hung out before I go to work, or I don't trust that the weather will stay dry, so I've hardly used it this year. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
On occasion, I will resort to the tumble dryer, but try not to unless it's pretty urgent (as in, pouring down outside, Sunday afternoon, and still half the Opuses' school uniform to be washed...).
I'd love to be able to do the week's washing on a Friday evening, but unless I go without sleep for the night, that's not going to happen! ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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Who wants to be a rock anyway?
toujours gai!
Posts: 1309 | From: Here (and occasionally there) | Registered: May 2001
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Ariel
Shipmate
# 58
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Posted
I don't have anywhere to hang things out, and the tumble dryer takes a very long time to actually dry anything - if you only put a few garments in at a time they're usually still damp about half an hour later - so I don't bother using it.
I have a drying rack next to the window. As there's double glazing it means things dry pretty quickly if they've been on spin first, especially if there's sunlight. I do the laundry in the evenings after work and there's usually something dry to wear the next morning; the thicker fabrics just need a bit longer.
If something is urgently needed I resort to the fan heater to finish it off, but mostly I don't need to do that.
Posts: 25445 | Registered: May 2001
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churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
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Posted
I live in an apartment, and split my loads into dryer/non-dryer. I have no qualms about using the dryer, but I never put my dress shirts or printed t-shirts in, and some other clothes, jackets, bags, etc. that seem on the delicate side.
These I hang on hangers from my shower curtain rod. If they're not dry the next day, I temporarily move them to a towel rod until I've showered, and then put them back. I also use towel racks for drying some things (e.g., some wool socks), and have a couple over-the-door hooks for hanging other things to dry. I also have one of those wooden fold-up dryer racks I can use if I need to (e.g., when I've run out of quarters but the load of underwear and socks wasn't completely dry), but I don't have much space for it. I store it folded up behind my computer armoire. I've also gotten pretty creative about hanging things from doors, door knobs, and cabinet door handles. Because I'm in a fairly dry climate (in CA), I can also just hang the dress shirts in my closet, spaced a bit apart until they dry.
I grew up in the country (in MI), but with the allergies in my family, we never hung clothes outside. The clothes that couldn't go in the dryer were hung (on hangers) from the copper pipes (plumbing) running along the basement ceiling near the washer and dryer.
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I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
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Firenze
Ordinary decent pagan
# 619
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Posted
I've never had the option of outside drying in this house, and never owned a tumble drier. So there is a semi-permanent clotheshorse in the scullery with the current wash on it. Everything gets an extra spin before it comes out of the washing machine, spends a day or so hung up and then moves to form a tottering stack on the small radiator behind the door.
It's not ideal, and while others may long for homes with inbuilt jacuzzis or views of the Himalayas, my eyes mist over at the thought of a hotpress.*
*AKA airing cupboard.
Posts: 17302 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Jun 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
Hanging clothes out behind the fridge is usually a good last-minute option.
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Roseofsharon
Shipmate
# 9657
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Posted
I haven't had a tumble dryer for years, and when I did it was a washer/dryer which only held half a wash-load, and meant that I couldn't do another wash until the oh-so-long dry programme finished.
First choice currently is outside on the clothesline. I'm home for most of most days, so can plan the washing to fit in with suitable drying conditions. Mr RoS's working hours mean that he is generally home in the afternoons, so even if I go out he will bring in the washing if necessary. I try to avoid that as the need to iron then increases from nearly zero to most of it.
I have an under-cover work area for garden related tasks, and in long periods of wet weather I'll hang slow-drying items under there for however long it takes.
Unless the weather is really hot for weeks I don't turn the pilot light off on my hot-water/heating boiler, so light stuff will dry on racks either side of it.
Otherwise, as we never throw anything away we don't often run out of things to wear before we have a suitable drying day. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Talk about books -any books- on our rejuvenatedforum http://www.bookgrouponline.com/index.php?
Posts: 3060 | From: Sussex By The Sea | Registered: Jun 2005
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
I believe this is one of those pond differences - Americans tend to be much bigger fans of the dryer. Personally I despise it and use it as little as possible. It consumes a lot of electricity and I think it damages the linen. Also unless you take the stuff out and fold it straight away it ends up irredeemably creased.
Fortunately our living room is big enough to accomodate a fairly large clothes horse. Also my mother the domestic goddess taught me to always, always double spin the laundry, which does indeed make it dry much quicker.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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pjl
Shipmate
# 16929
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Posted
I guess I must be the lucky one. We have a communal laundry in the flats where I reside.
I go to gym 3 times per week and after collecting a few coat hangers from my room, head straight to the laundry where my kit and the odd other items are washed, dried in the drier and hung on my hangers.
I have another wash and dry at weekend for room items.
The cost is included in the rent, but works out at about £2 a week.
Posts: 576 | From: england | Registered: Feb 2012
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Enigma
Enigma
# 16158
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Posted
Pegging things on a clothes line is too awkward for me so I go for the 'drape it everywhere you can' approach when it comes to laundry.
I have a washer/dryer which takes care of my smalls because I have found that they can be embarrassing if someone turns up at the front door when they are proudly displayed on the radiator in the hall.
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Who knows? Only God!
Posts: 856 | From: Wales | Registered: Jan 2011
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Niminypiminy
Shipmate
# 15489
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Posted
I'm another pegger-outer. But then I live in the arid east -- apparently now drier than most of the mediterranean lands. Also Cambridge is a very windy place, so bizarrely even when it is wet the clothes are still quite dry because of the wind. When it does rain clothes go on an airer in my bedroom.
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Lives of the Saints: songs by The Unequal Struggle
http://www.theunequalstruggle.com/
Posts: 776 | From: Edge of the Fens | Registered: Feb 2010
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Beethoven
Ship's deaf genius
# 114
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by LeRoc:
Hanging clothes out behind the fridge is usually a good last-minute option.
Ah. You clearly have higher standards of housework than I do. I could probably hang one or two things there, but they'd need to have a thick layer of dust & fluff cleaned off them before they could be worn... ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
Firenze - just to make you jealous, for a couple of years I had the luxury of a house with TWO airing cupboards! So the downstairs one got table linen and kitchen towels stored in it, and the upstairs one was used for clothes and bathroom towels I'm now back to normal with a single airing cupboard, just wider than a normal door, but it's an essential part of my laundry system. If only I could teach Mr B or an Opus how to take more than one item of clothing out of it at a time... ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
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Who wants to be a rock anyway?
toujours gai!
Posts: 1309 | From: Here (and occasionally there) | Registered: May 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I have A-frame airers in my SE facing spare bedroom, which also houses my large airing cupboard. Being under a flat roof, the room can get warm in summer, though not as warm as it did before I had the solar panels installed on heavy rubber wedges. The airing cupboard sits on top of the warm air heating system, so is warm in winter, and the air dries clothes well. Drying is a bit slower at the moment. I'm thinking of having an awning out at the back where I should be able to dry things on an airer, if I've moved all the pots and the other clutter with no home.
I've seen ads for covers for the rotary lines so that clothes don't get wetter if the weather is not helpful. I suppose a cheap gazebo would do the job.
And I've seen ads for lines that fit in garages. Wouldn't smell as nice, though.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
Line outside. Except that this year so far it usually rains before I get home at night so I end up drying them inside
No drying machine, and no room for one. No airing cupboard either. Its only a little flat and most of its full of stuff. So drying clothes indoors is a tedious and mildly smelly bore
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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daisydaisy
Shipmate
# 12167
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Posted
I no longer have an airing cupboard since having a hot-water-on-demand boiler installed, but don't miss it for drying laundry because I found that resulted in it smelling musty.
So I continue to use a drying frame in a spare bedroom - neighbours with children who a) generate more laundry and b) fill the rooms tend to take their wet laundry to the local launderette and use the huge driers there.
Posts: 3184 | From: southern uk | Registered: Dec 2006
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Qoheleth.
Semi-Sagacious One
# 9265
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Posted
If it's raining, I hang them all down the banisters.
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The Benedictine Community at Alton Abbey offers a friendly, personal service for the exclusive supply of Rosa Mystica incense.
Posts: 2532 | From: the radiator of life | Registered: Apr 2005
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Martha
Shipmate
# 185
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Posted
I love drying clothes in Texas! In summer they can be dry in less than an hour, and in winter rarely more than a day. I can't understand why anyone wastes money on a dryer here. Except that when we were buying a house I mentioned to the realtor that I was looking forward to being able to hang clothes outside. When she had recovered from her laughter she informed me that most homeowners associations prohibit washing lines. We got around that by using the freestanding airers and having a back yard that is not overlooked, so no one can complain they have to look at our underwear.
Soon I will be back in the UK, land of teeny tiny washing machines and damp weather
Posts: 388 | From: in the kitchen | Registered: May 2001
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irish_lord99
Shipmate
# 16250
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Posted
In Turkey it's usually too dirty outside to line dry, so we use a folding drying rack that will hand a full load of wash, and then some.
For bath towels, we do use the tumble dryer. I don't like the steel-wool texture of line-dried towels!
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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." - Mark Twain
Posts: 1169 | From: Maine, US | Registered: Feb 2011
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Graven Image
Shipmate
# 8755
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Posted
I use dryer, clothes rack, and both indoor in garage and outdoor lines.
The rack is good for things that must lay flat to dry such as sweaters, as it can be arranged to have a wide flat row of rods on the top. The dryer for jeans and towels and bedding. Where I live we are not allowed to hang things outside, but I am blessed with a back porch that looks over wood land and the porch has a 1/2 roof over it, so I can hang things outside and they are protected from neighbors view and also stay dry in case of rain. In the winter I hang shirts and such in the garage rather then outside.
Posts: 2641 | From: Third planet from the sun. USA | Registered: Nov 2004
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Boogie
Boogie on down!
# 13538
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Graven Image:
Where I live we are not allowed to hang things outside
What?? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
I have never heard of this - what a rotten rule!
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Garden. Room. Walk
Posts: 13030 | From: Boogie Wonderland | Registered: Mar 2008
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Galilit
Shipmate
# 16470
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by irish_lord99:
In Turkey ... we use a folding drying rack that will hand a full load of wash, and then some.
For bath towels, we do use the tumble dryer. I don't like the steel-wool texture of line-dried towels!
Not far from you I dry everything outside - 2 or 3 hours at 37+ deg C.
In winter we put the standard fan towards the drying frame thingo and between that and the wood-burning stove it's an over-night job (especially if I put on a couple of big olive logs before retiring.
I told the Tiny Little Galilee 'uns that the texture of the sun-dried towels was "vitamins from the sunshine and *awe-fully* good for you". They still believe it (at 25, 23, 20 years old)
I detest driers with a passion ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
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She who does Her Son's will in all things can rely on me to do Hers.
Posts: 624 | From: a Galilee far, far away | Registered: Jun 2011
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RuthW
liberal "peace first" hankie squeezer
# 13
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Martha:
I love drying clothes in Texas! In summer they can be dry in less than an hour, and in winter rarely more than a day. I can't understand why anyone wastes money on a dryer here.
Because cotton things get all crunchy and stiff if hung up to dry. I hang up all my synthetic and wool things, some on the shower rod and some from a high shelf in my living room, and I tumble-dry everything else.
Posts: 24453 | From: La La Land | Registered: Apr 2001
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infinite_monkey
Shipmate
# 11333
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Posted
I live in a non-smoking apartment complex where people smoke marijuana in the front yard, dogs crap all over the place, and there are three, count them, three barbecues, two bicycles, and a play kitchen in the common spaces.
I have in the past hung a limited number of t-shirts out to dry for a limited number of hours.
I have received a cease and desist letter from the management on the grounds that line drying makes things look "trashy".
I am seriously considering a change of address.
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His light was lifted just above the Law,
And now we have to live with what we did with what we saw.
--Dar Williams, And a God Descended
Obligatory Blog Flog: www.otherteacher.wordpress.com
Posts: 1423 | From: left coast united states | Registered: Apr 2006
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snowgoose
Silly goose
# 4394
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Posted
Our homeowners association does not allow clotheslines. I occasionally dry linen tablecloths on the grass (gets them nice and white) or dry a quilt by draping it over the deck rail, but that's it. Everyone I know uses a tumble dryer. Drying things by hanging them in the house would make it more humid, which is a Bad Thing in a Tidewater summer. Once in a while I have to air-dry a sweater or something, but I keep that to a minimum.
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Lord, what can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the Reaper Man? --Terry Pratchett
Save a Siamese!
Posts: 3868 | From: Tidewater Virginia | Registered: Apr 2003
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
I wash everything from sheets to bedspreads, from delicates to winter coats in the washer and dry them in the tumble dryer. If it doesn't survive it wasn't meant to be mine.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Lamb Chopped
Ship's kebab
# 5528
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Posted
![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
I wish we could hang things outside safely--I have a line which gets used for the bathtub washables--but inevitably at least one thing gets crapped on by the local birds. It's a jungle out there. Which is fine when you want to watch the animals, but none so good when you're hanging laundry.
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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
Oh, that you would rend the heavens and come down!
Posts: 20059 | From: off in left field somewhere | Registered: Feb 2004
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Meg the Red
Shipmate
# 11838
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Posted
I tend to compromise - everything (except bedsheets - they're too big) goes into the tumble dryer for a few minures to get rid of wrinkles and cat hair, then onto folding drying racks in the bedroom as we're not allowed laundry on our balcony. This indoor drying is a real boon in the winter when the air is so dry it scrapes your throat.
My Mom hangs everything out on her two lovely long clotheslines if the weather is warm enough. She remembers as a child bringing in freeze-dried clothing from her parents' southern Alberta farmyard during the winter; apparently if it was cold enough there was real danger of the bedsheets and towels breaking unless they were handled carefully.
IMO, there's nothing likas cozy as slipping into a dryer-warmed flannel nightgown on a freezing winter night.
[ 04. July 2012, 00:20: Message edited by: Meg the Red ]
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Chocoholic Canuckistani Cyclopath
Posts: 1126 | From: Rat Creek | Registered: Sep 2006
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Piglet
Islander
# 11803
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Posted
I agree with Twilight - how on earth we survived the first 15 years of our marriage without a tumble-dryer is one of Life's Little Mysteries™. I've never hung anything on a washing-line (my excuse is that I'm a vertically-challenged piglet); I only ever used clothes-horses, radiators and the backs of dining chairs ...
We got one when we moved to Newfoundland because, the climate being what it is, everyone has one. The first time my in-laws (who had never had one before) came to stay, they were so impressed that they went straight to the appliance shop when they got home and bought one.
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I may not be on an island any more, but I'm still an islander.
alto n a soprano who can read music
Posts: 20272 | From: Fredericton, NB, on a rather larger piece of rock | Registered: Sep 2006
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Huia
Shipmate
# 3473
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Meg the Red:
My Mom hangs everything out on her two lovely long clotheslines if the weather is warm enough. She remembers as a child bringing in freeze-dried clothing from her parents' southern Alberta farmyard during the winter; apparently if it was cold enough there was real danger of the bedsheets and towels breaking unless they were handled carefully.
I remenber my mother leaving a baby's all in one zip up suit on the line overnight and bringing it in to stand in the corner.
I line dry when I can, but the hot water cylinder cupboard has shelves to dry small things. Although there ate small birds and seagulls around their target pooping seems to be less accurate than birds mentioned above.
I love making a bed with fresh line dried sheets.
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Charity gives food from the table, Justice gives a place at the table.
Posts: 10382 | From: Te Wai Pounamu | Registered: Oct 2002
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Galloping Granny
Shipmate
# 13814
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Posted
At Matarangi anything hung on the line dries in an hour or so, not because of warmth in the air or sun, but because there is always a faint breeze. And if it's wet – well, houses around us are unoccupied when we're there in non-holiday periods, and the neighbours have a covered area with clotheslines, so we use that. Two of our clotheslines stretch from their shed to ours anyway.
As for the city... If it looks like a fine day in winter 'We'd better do a wash'. If the next day's fine, we hang out another wash. If there are three fine days in a row (yes, it does happen) we feel guilty because there's nothing left to wash. But the hours before the sun ducks down behind the house next door are so few that we have to finish off anything still really damp in the drier, and the rest is draped on a rack inside a window that gets some sun.
The heat pump that we chose is a floor-level one (why not? hot air rises, doesn't it?) and blows towards me where I sit in the evening, and air that leaves the pump really warm is somewhat cooler when it reaches me. But if I hang, say, my thermal singlet from a coffee table in front of me I'm sheltered and the garment is drying.
Irish lord is so right: quote:
For bath towels, we do use the tumble dryer. I don't like the steel-wool texture of line-dried towels!
But I find a quick spin in the tumble-drier when they're almost dry does the job pretty well.
Can't imagine rules against hanging out clothes on the line. I suppose either everybody does it or nobody is allowed to.
GG
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The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
Posts: 2629 | From: Matarangi | Registered: Jun 2008
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Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
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Posted
We live in an upstairs flat, so no garden.
We use a clothes horse (or as Hugal's neck of the woods calls it, a maiden) and a dryer.
In the summer I hang stuff on the horse overnight. Next day most things are still a little damp so will put some of the clothes in tge dryer with those plastic 'drying balls'. Although the drying programme says 3 hours, it actually atops when the clothes are dry - usually about an hour and a half. And since you can pause it and open the door, I tend to put cotton stuff in first, take it out after an hour and switch for other clothes.
It has been so hot in our flat these past few weeks that things tend to dry on their own, though.
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*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
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Roseofsharon
Shipmate
# 9657
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Posted
On a good windy day line-dried washing doesn't get stiff, and if there has been no wind a good sharp shake after unpegging usually loosens up the dry things. That works for indoor-dried things too.
I actually prefer a rough towel, so don't even use a fabric conditioner on a towel wash.
I turn most garments inside-out before hanging out, partly to reduce fading from exposure to sunlight and partly because I can scrape any bird poop off, and it won't notice when it's worn
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Talk about books -any books- on our rejuvenatedforum http://www.bookgrouponline.com/index.php?
Posts: 3060 | From: Sussex By The Sea | Registered: Jun 2005
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The Intrepid Mrs S
Shipmate
# 17002
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Posted
First choice is always outside but these days down in the soft South that wouldn't dry anything. In the winter, on the radiators *sigh* except for towels which as well as going hard, SMELL quite disgusting. But when it's raining, my favourite is to hang shirts on hangers along the curtain pole by an open window in the little back bedroom (not the front, which might be a touch low-rent!)
The resourceful Mrs. S
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Don't get your knickers in a twist over your advancing age. It achieves nothing and makes you walk funny.
Prayer should be our first recourse, not our last resort
'Lord, please give us patience. NOW!'
Posts: 1464 | From: Neither here nor there | Registered: Mar 2012
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Beenster
Shipmate
# 242
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Posted
This sounds really sad but I iron whilst damp straight from the washing machine. Given that I'm in a 1-bed place with the only drying space being my bedroom - or living room - and I loathe living in a chinese laundry, it helps the drying time. I don't think you get the best ironing results and it's harder to iron damp stuff but at least it means the whole laundry scenario is done in one fell swoop.
I could tumble dry but that doesn't sit comfortably with me - energy reasons (I think more from a point of meanness than a care for the environment) although I do think that over time I could evolve.
Posts: 1885 | Registered: May 2001
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ThunderBunk
Stone cold idiot
# 15579
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Posted
Bit of a quandry for me, this one. I'm not theoretically allowed to hang clothes out (though many neighbours do without harassment) but I'm rather lazy and I work, so this could only ever happen at weekends unless I had far greater faith in weather forecasts than I do. Also, we simply haven't had an entirely dry day in a very long time.
Drying indoors makes the atmosphere excessively damp, and simply wouldn't work in weather like it is now, with humidity in the 90+% range. My flat seems rather prone to damp anyway, so I don't want to encourage this. It has no south-facing walls, which may be a significant part of the problem in this respect.
Therefore, my tumble dryer has been my friend since I bought it nearly 3 years ago now. It's A rated on the energy scale, and I keep the filter clean so it doesn't go on drying longer than it actually needs to.
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Currently mostly furious, and occasionally foolish. Normal service may resume eventually. Or it may not. And remember children, "feiern ist wichtig".
Foolish, potentially deranged witterings
Posts: 2208 | From: Norwich | Registered: Apr 2010
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Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
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Posted
When we lived in a smaller, damper flat, I used to do a liad of washing, put it in a black bag in my shopping trolley and take it down to the launderette three doors down. Put it in a dryer, put £3 in, go next door to the cafe for a cuppa, come back 45 min later and voila!
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*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
quote:
Although the drying programme says 3 hours,
We need to talk about those dryers. When we first moved to England, the U. S. Air force provided its troops with a British Washer and Dryer set for the duration. Of course, we had to wait a few months and fill out the kind of paper work you would expect for renting the crown jewels, but the big day would come and there would be excitement in the home.
Had the military been prone to humor, I would have thought it was a joke. My childhood playtime washer and dryer were bigger. No matter! We'll just do more loads! But the hook up routine for the washer and the one and a half hour it took to dry one normal towel wasn't practical so I sent it back to the base. (Even more paperwork.) Thereafter I would ride into the base with my husband one day a week and do all the laundry at the base laundromat. Much less expensive over all.
Back in the U.S. I have the cheapest W&D set the appliance store carries. I'm, at this moment, drying a load that contains two queen size sheets ( Egyptian cotton--fairly heavy,) four pillow cases, two bath towels, several hand towels, a bunch of underwear, three T-shirts and two pair cotton slacks. They will be dry in fifty minutes.
Why is this? Do the small dryers take an hour and a half for one towel because the area inside is too small to evaporate the moisture? I understand that many British homes don't have much space to hook up larger washers and dryers but I think I would have given up the dining room if it came to it.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
Like I said before, cultural thing. I was definitely brought up with the mindset that the tumble dryer was for Emergencies™ and that using it all the time was an appalling wanton waste of electricity. A monstrous great dryer in the house just doesn't occur to many British people as a necessity.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
It may be cultural, but it is also weather. It is fine to hang up clothes outside when there is warmth, sun, only moderate wind, absence of pollen and dust storms, and we do it.
If it is well below freezing it is possible to put laundry outside to freeze and it will dry in 3-4 days, sort of, but it is very hard on the laundry hanger-upper and the bottom of the basket of clothes will freeze and stiffen before getting them out on the line. You can dry them inside hanging up, but this increases the humidity excessively which creates structural problems in houses. Both were the practice before the 1960s.
The dust and pollen issue is quite significant, in that it is not very clean to have bits of cottonwood fluff and frank airborne dirt on your clothes.
We have retrieved laundry from 3-4 houses away at times and rewashed/rinsed. High winds will take entire clotheslines.
So yes outside if good weather and your climate allows. Inside if the dryer is broken.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Because cotton things get all crunchy and stiff if hung up to dry. I hang up all my synthetic and wool things, some on the shower rod and some from a high shelf in my living room, and I tumble-dry everything else.
Genuine confusion here. My cotton things do wonderfully when hung outside to dry. In fact it makes them feel muich nicer and softer than they woudl from a drier. Its the wooly things that get sticky and creased and so on. Do we have different kinds of cotton?
quote:
Originally posted by infinite_monkey:
I live in a non-smoking apartment complex where people smoke marijuana in the front yard, dogs crap all over the place, and there are three, count them, three barbecues, two bicycles, and a play kitchen in the common spaces.
Hey, I live in inner London, right nexxt to a mainline railway. I've got three (really, three) separate railway stations within three hundrede yards of my back garden. As for smoking, dog-crap, barbecues... the place smells like a mixed grill on a hot summer Sunday.
quote:
Originally posted by Twilight:
I understand that many British homes don't have much space to hook up larger washers and dryers but I think I would have given up the dining room if it came to it.
Dining room? You had a dining room? Sounds posh to me. I've never lived in a house with a dining room!
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Banner Lady
Ship's Ensign
# 10505
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Posted
We have only ever had a dryer once, back in the day when cloth nappies/diapers were still more common than disposables. We have never liked tumble drying clothes and got rid of it as soon as we could. Sunshine and wind just make laundry smell so good, but then I live in one of the cleanest cities in the souther hemisphere.
These days, I cannot live without the four lines strung underneath the pergola out the back. I do not know how anyone in a house can live without a covered washing line, because it really does solve all problems. On those days when it is so wet and cold the washing doesn't dry, things get hung on a clothes horse wherever I have the heating on. I've never coveted an airing cupboard, but I do dream about ducted gas heating with one of these hung over a vent!
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Women in the church are not a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be enjoyed.
Posts: 7080 | From: Canberra Australia | Registered: Oct 2005
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Martha
Shipmate
# 185
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Posted
I was under the impression that the stiff towel thing was more about the different kind of weather than the different kind of cotton. Something about it drying so quickly in the very hot dry air instead of drying a bit slower in damper air. It doesn't bother me, they loosen up again after you've dried yourself on them once anyway.
Posts: 388 | From: in the kitchen | Registered: May 2001
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I realise I entirely ignored my outside line, used for most things but not undies or woollens. at my last place, there was a line in the back communal garden, but it was a long way round, and became a little fraught with the neighbours behaving as if they were the only ones entitled to use the area. Here, it's only a few yards from the utility room, and a wash done in the cheap electricity period will be dry by lunchtime on a good day, and smelling lovely.
The last place had a covenant in the lease not to hang washing out, for some reason, but no-one observed it, though at another similar block, one resident had insisted the landlord enforce it. since the leases originated in the early 60s, before driers, I don't know what they had in mind for people to do. It was also before rotary lines, so I supose they didn't want the garden crisscrossed with long lines.
Here there is also a covenant from a similar date, not to hang out at the weekend, and not to have lines over 6 foot high. No-one has high lines, all rotary, but many have washing out at the weekend, because that's when they are home from work. I can't see anyone getting away with insistence on observation.
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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Twilight
Puddleglum's sister
# 2832
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Posted
Ken: quote:
Dining room? You had a dining room? Sounds posh to me. I've never lived in a house with a dining room!
Not exactly a dining room more a table that wouldn't fit in the kitchen so stands at the end of the living room. This is not exactly where we lived but we were two doors to the left and it was almost the same inside. Except the kitchen was only half as big, I can't figure the kitchen out. Maybe they expanded. Now I'm homesick.
Posts: 6817 | Registered: May 2002
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Enigma
Enigma
# 16158
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Posted
Tangent to be avoided in this thread but could be taken up later.....
We all live very different lives just drying clothes.
But what clothes do we wear? Has this been discussed before?
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Who knows? Only God!
Posts: 856 | From: Wales | Registered: Jan 2011
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Ye Olde Motherboarde
Ship's Mother and Singing Quilter
# 54
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Posted
I hang clothes outside. The sheets smell marvelous!. The dryer gets towels only. We get over 350 days of sun and even in the winter I hang. Because our humidity is usually under 20%, clothes dry in the blink of an eye.
I wear a lot of cotton and the sun dries them so fast, I rarely iron, but I will spend a little more money to get those new no-iron fabric shirts for the husband to make my life even easier.
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In Memory of Miss Molly, TimC, Gambit, KenWritez, koheleth, Leetle Masha, JLG, Genevieve, Erin, RuthW2, deuce2, Sidi and TonyCoxon, unbeliever, Morlader, Ken :tear: 20 years but who’s counting?..................
Posts: 4292 | From: Looking for more trouble to get into | Registered: May 2001
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Edgeman
Shipmate
# 12867
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Posted
I usually tie a few of mine to a line, attach the lines to the handles of the car doors, and dry them on the way to work. Speed limits are for suckers anyway.
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http://sacristyxrat.tumblr.com/
Posts: 1420 | From: Philadelphia Penns. | Registered: Jul 2007
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