Clotheslines Hung Out to Dry

The problem here is that most places in the US don't have the weather in order to be able to use a clothesline. In Australia (where I grew up), the weather is dry and warm for most of the year, which gives the perfect climate to be able to hang your clothes out and have them dry within an hour. Try doing that in the long winters of most of northern U.S.A or in the damp climate of southern/western U.S.A. It's just not going to happen.

Not to mention the fact that so many people live in apartment style housing these days.

the one problem is that here on long island our weather is diff. Most places are getting less raind and we seem to be getting all the rain that is disappearing from the rest of the US. So its getting harder and harder to naturally dry your clothing outside.

I don't agree that the weather is really that important. I live in London, and we've just had the rainiest summer ('07) and January ('08) on record. As you might imagine, that's a lot of rain. Despite this, we've managed without a dryer. Granted, we're only two, but it can be done easily.

We dry outside as much as possible for maximum capacity and minimum drying time, but we also have a collapsing drying rack (Ikea Frost, £12) for those rainy days. We can only dry 1-2 loads (European-size washer, somewhat smaller than US-size) at a time on the rack, so we do need to plan ahead and avoid letting too much laundry accumulate. On days when it's too cold to dry outside, we actually enjoy drying inside as it acts as a natural humidifier.

No doubt drying outside on a line is most convenient, but it is by no means the only alternative to a clothes dryer.

I found it quite possible to use a whirligig (English name) when living in Minnesota - all you need is temps above freezing and either sun or wind, and we had that for eight months of the year. In fact the climate there was better than in England, because the rain was less frequent and more predictable.

Now fighting the mosquitos as you were hanging out, that was a different issue...

I live in Canada, where it's very difficult to use an outdoor clothesline half the year. On top of that, I live in a "condo" townhouse complex, which means we all have to follow really strict aesthetic rules regarding the outside look of our units, which includes no clotheslines on our balconies (we don't have backyards). The most I can get away with is my foldable laundry rack, which I use on my balcony as much as I can in the summer, but in the winter my balcony is covered in snow and it takes up too much space to always have it set up in my tiny kitchen. I usually just bring it out for delicates: things that specifically say on the label no to tumble dry.

Once I have a real house, though...!

Neatly fold the clothes as you take them off the clothes line and in most cases you’ll find yourself (and your electricity bill) freed from the dreaded chore of ironing. Dryers on the other hand are notorious for shrinking their contents, twisting them, inducing wrinkles and adding static electricity.

Sheesh. I live in New England, I grew up in New England, I shall probably die in New England (or at least I hope so). It is most definitely possible to use a clothesline here. I don't own a dryer. Heck, my second apartment had holes for a multi line clothesline drilled right into the permanent structure of the balcony, and since my apartment was on the second of four floors, I had a covered balcony and could therefore even hang out laundry if it threatened rain.

I've been hanging out laundry every day it has been above freezing or at least had a decent wind blowing all winter. The clothes dried just fine. By dogface's argument, no one in most of the US had dry clothes up until the electric dryer was invented.

I grew up in the U.S. with a clothes dryer, but have lived in England, dryer-less for the last 4 years. My husband and I live in a very small one-bedroom flat without any outdoor space, so we hang our clothes indoors. Sure, when it's laundry day our clothes line takes up a large part of our living room. And it's often damp, so clothes don't dry as quickly. But it's simple and easy enough, and makes a clothes dryer look like a waste of money and climate. When we move back to the States, we won't be buying a dryer.

It's not that hard to use a clothesline... Just use the drier when the weather forbids it. For example, it rained this weekend, so I used the drier. Normally I use the laundry line. Even if you live in an area with long winters, using a clothesline on the days where it isn't impossible, will save a lot of energy.

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n65/thespyofcharles/n6309920_32595450_6772.jpg
the picture is of an indoor clothesline setup that all (i think) apartments in korea have. When I visited during the winter when it was snowing, drying with a clothesline wasn't a problem.

I don't have a dryer and it's a bit difficult. For one, my (U.S.) apartment complex forbids people to hang clothes/clotheslines outside. And I live in Miami, where the humidity level is extremely high. I usually hang my clothes up on a rack inside, but at certain times of the year, when the humidity is 100 percent, towels will grow mold before they dry.

I live in Canada (Toronto) and I hang my laundry out through the winter ... as low as -10 C !! No big deal. Fingers go a bit numb, but hey, I'm hardcore. I'm a man. I can handle it (get it? 'handle it').

As such low temperatures, there must be either full sun and/or a light breeze. And, the laundry must be out on the line at dawn (on the shortest days) in order to capture the rays of the low angle of the sun.

Sometimes, through the year, a surprise rain shower (or bad planning on my part) may mean a mad dash to bring in damp clothes ... but they finish drying quickly.

I live in Canada (Toronto) and I hang my laundry out through the winter ... as low as -10 C !! No big deal. Fingers go a bit numb, but hey, I'm hardcore. I'm a man. I can handle it (get it? 'handle it').

As such low temperatures, there must be either full sun and/or a light breeze. And, the laundry must be out on the line at dawn (on the shortest days) in order to capture the rays of the low angle of the sun.

Sometimes, through the year, a surprise rain shower (or bad planning on my part) may mean a mad dash to bring in damp clothes ... but they finish drying quickly.

I live in Vancouver WA (USA) and yes in the winter it's hard to dry outdoors. A lot of homes around our area have at least some covered area over the patio or deck on the back side of their house and I find that even on a drizzly day you can dry clothes under these. (unless it's rain sideways as it does here sometimes)

Also I should mention that here in the US there are still MANY people that have washers and dryers that are 15 or more years old. The older washers in particular do a piss poor job of getting any water out of the clothes compared to the newer high efficiency ones. With my old washer I could ring clothes out upon removing them from the washer. Now with my high RPM, efficient washer they just feel damp and dry very quickly inside or out.

My suggestion to my fellow US residents? Take the band-aid economic incentive check we are going to get this summer and go by a new washer and a clothes line!!!

Clothes dry VERY well outside even in the miserable British climate - the only reason people don't want to hang their clothes out in the US is because they think it makes them look as though they are in a ghetto- Frankly it is PATHETIC!!! I have a friend who lives in ARIZONA for chrissake, and he is NOT ALLOWED to hang his clothes outside to dry. That is just plain SICK!!!

I don't dry outside. I live in downtown Denver without a fenced yard. Not only does it tend to be quite dusty, but I fear my clothes would sprout legs and wander away.

Here is what I do:

The dining area in my apartment is about 12.5 feet wide. On either side of the room I have a large framed picture. Behind one picture I have 4 heavy duty drywall anchors with screws in them for hanging and removing two retractable clothes lines. There are also two d-rings with carabiners attached to them.

Behind the other picture are four sash-lifters (the brass kind for double-hung windows) that I have slightly flattened.

When doing laundry I take the pictures down, hang the clotheslines. I attach the loop at the end of each clothesline to the carabiner next to it and pull the line out and loop each one over two of the sash-lifters on the other side of the room. This gives me about 50 feet of drying space. I also have a folding rack that I stow under the couch when not in use.

When the clothes are dry I retract the clotheslines and take them down. Once I put the pictures back up no one has any idea that the clothesline apparatus is there.

I love my little system, and I also love the fact that I can hide my system so that I don't have the lines on display in my apartment at all times. I like the look of clothes hanging on the line outside, but am not really interested in setting it up as a permanent art installation inside the house.
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So now that Australia is in Kyoto, Australians can show their green moral superiority, too. Swell.

I think convincing Americans not to use clothes dryers is like trying to convince them that they don't need freezers. It's unthinkable for some Americans who grew up a certain way and don't know how to do it any other. Convenience has turned into dependence - it's a trap.

Another person chiming in that you can't really use weather as an excuse. We are a family of four and have never owned a dryer, even living in Bellingham, WA for 20 years. We would use an outdoor line when we could, but being the rainy northwest it was usually on one or two indoor folding racks, even on these clothes are dry the day after you hang them up. Now we live in Bend, OR and it is even faster.

Nobody has mentioned the L word, as in Lazy. Not one to point fingers, I will admit that sometimes I am too lazy to use the line I have in the backyard. I think I am not alone in this fault.

My personal compromise, maybe this will help some of the other lazy tree huggers out there, I line dry the big stuff that can be easily draped over the line without clothes pins. These are also the things that take the most dryer time and energy. Pants, towels, sheets. The little things like socks and ladies undergarments go in the dryer.

In Portland, OR and it goes like this: Hang 'em out to dry between april and october, dry 'em in a dryer the rest of the months. It's not a perfect solution, but it's better than nothing.

My yard is very wooded and I am worried about bird poop too much to put them outside, but an indoor folding clothes rack works well.

I'm a student at Pomona College in Claremont, California and recently spent a good amount of time looking into the various clothesline and drying rack options since Pomona is going to purchase some for student use and I wanted to make sure we purchased the best available option.

In my research, I was shocked to find that there is NO good website explaining all the different clotheslines and drying rack options, so I made my own! It's a wiki page on the Tip the Planet sustainable living wiki that ANYONE CAN EDIT. You can check it out here: http://www.tiptheplanet.com/index.php?title=Air_dry_washing

I'm trying to spread the word so that the site becomes a clearing house for drying rack information, and people have to spend less time scouring the web for the best products. Have a look, share it with your friends, and by all means add your wisdom!

Take care,
Chelsea

Drying clothes outside is a nice idea and can save some energy, although newer high efficiency washers reduce that dryer usage substantially.

But, one thing people may not realize is that drying your clothes indoors in the winter doesn't save nearly as much energy because the heat needed to evaporate the water is coming from your heating system. If you have electric resistance heat, the energy savings are only about 40% of the dryer energy save (electric dryers are about 60% efficient). So, the savings in the winter may only be worthwhile for the truly committed or those who actually prefer using a drying rack.

Drying clothes outside is a nice idea and can save some energy, although newer high efficiency washers reduce that dryer usage substantially.

But, one thing people may not realize is that drying your clothes indoors in the winter doesn't save nearly as much energy because the heat needed to evaporate the water is coming from your heating system. If you have electric resistance heat, the energy savings are only about 40% of the dryer energy save (electric dryers are about 60% efficient). So, the savings in the winter may only be worthwhile for the truly committed or those who actually prefer using a drying rack.

I love to hang my clothes outside from my deck. I have several decks actually and I get get three or four loads outside at one time. I am desperate to find a gadget that would secure the laundry to the deck and not allow it to blow away. I don't want to use a clothes line because this would be far more inconvienent. Can anyone tell me if there is any item like this available in the stores?

We have let the repo guys take our winter gas heater. We've made this leap 2 years ago and now the dryer is used to heat the home in the winter, and not used in the summer. That way, we have warmth when we need it, and the clothes are dried well inside since we have such dark and cold outside in winter.

Clothes will dry in cold weather and in windy weather. The amount of time it takes to dry will vary. The key is getting them on and off quickly.
Check out the Canadian Clothesline called Cord-O-Clip or cordoclip. They sell on ebay and other websites like stacksandstacks.com and clotheslineshop.com, cordoclip.com and clotheslinemaster.com and probably much more sites as well.

I have seen clothes hanging out to dry in February in the dead of winter at with the termometer at 05degrees Farenheit. In the rural community of St. Polycarp, Quebec, Canada I am sure we would also like to believe that those clothes were frozen stiff, but the clothes were fluttering in the wind. Ever hear of freeze dried process as in Coffee grains?

Clothes will dry in most conditions, but the time it takes will vary. Worried about a sudden rainstorm? Worry no more cordoclip is here.
Just hang it up any way you can for the planet's sake.

You can almost always dry clothes outside in the continental U.S. and Hawaii--my mother and grandmother dried DIAPERS on the outdoor line during Midwestern winters. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but they jokingly referred to it as "freeze-drying." I think as long as there was a wind and the humidity was low, the clothes would eventually dry.

I currently live in New Orleans, where the air is 90% humidity and 10% mosquito and it rains just about every afternoon in the summer months. Clothes still dry--I hang them on my "balcony" (actually the fire escape) all the time.

You can almost always dry clothes outside in the continental U.S. and Hawaii--my mother and grandmother dried DIAPERS on the outdoor line during Midwestern winters. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but they jokingly referred to it as "freeze-drying." I think as long as there was a wind and the humidity was low, the clothes would eventually dry.

I currently live in New Orleans, where the air is 90% humidity and 10% mosquito and it rains just about every afternoon in the summer months. Clothes still dry--I hang them on my "balcony" (actually the fire escape) all the time.

I live in Scotland which is well known for being wet and still manage to get by without a dryer.

I live in a flat in a WW2 era tenement block, each block of 6 flats has a yard of sorts which is actually called a drying green here, it seems only one other flat in the building actually uses it besides me though so theres always space on the supplied lines.

Theres always a guaranteed breeze however and I rely on this more than the sunshine to get my clothes dry, it barely gets above 25C (77F) in the summer. Smaller items go on a rack inside my flat. I like the freshness of line dried clothes but admit when I lived with my parents I was always less organised and more likely to use the drier - now I live alone and can't justify the cost of running one for the sake of convenience.

You just have to be a bit more organised, save laundry for the weekends when you'll be able to put it out on the line in the morning and check the weather forecast every day! Sometimes rain ruins my plans especially in autumn and winter so I sometimes make use of the local laundrette or draping a few items on my radiators but most of the time I can rely on enough dry hours in the day to get it done outside.

It really and truly amazes me, when I come across a thread like this and the multiple excuses people use not to hang dry their laundry.

I live in WA state near Seattle and have done fine without a dryer for a very long time. I hang clothing outside on days it is not raining through the entire year, and inside on hangers suspended from a rafter in the garage and using a clothes rack to hang smaller items like socks and underwear. I try to hang outdoors as much as possible but in the wet and very rainy humid winters, my clothing is dry within 24 hours in the unheated basement garage.

I am a bit of a science geek and I was surprised to read "heating expert" and the statement this will work your heater harder. I have worked in the science and physics world for many years. I am sorry but I disagree. First of all, you can't change basic physics. There is heat, and then there is humidity. The 2 are totally different things. The added humidity the clothes drying has nothing, and I mean nothing to do with working your furnace harder. If humidity were an issue, in the NW with 90% - 100% humidity, with "heating expert's" opinion, our furnace would be running 24/7. Sure, humidity escaping through vapor can cool things off, but since most homes are extremely efficient with insulation this is a non issue. You would need to fill your home like a swimming pool in order for any extra humidity to have an effect on your heating. Please everyone, do not let that scare you into not drying your clothes without a clothes dryer. The humidity from drying clothing will long absorb into your home (wood, drywall, etc) before it has a chance to cool via vapor escaping. I could go on and on and get all scientific but I don't want to bore everyone.

The fact is, I see all over the web, people using every excuse under the sun NOT to use a line or rack. The truth is, we have been conditioned to be lazy here in the USA. Once you get a routine down, drying clothes is easy without a dryer. As a matter of fact, I find it easier. I can put clothing on a drying rack and forget about them for a few days until I am ready to fold them. They never sit in a dryer getting wrinkled. My clothing lasts longer and I get to save money and the environment at the same time.

I forgot to mention in my previous post...

Using a dryer also sucks the air from your home into the dryer, and heats it further and blows it out of your house. This means using a dryer your furnace actually has to work even harder.

Simply said, living in a cold damp climate I get by very well without a clothes dryer.

If allergies are an issue (yes I have them) I don't hang outdoors during the time in spring when the trees here have a lot of pollen. I just hang indoors like I would in the winter rainy months.

Ok, Everyone you can dry your clothes out on the line, no matter what the weather is. Here is Montana, we put them on the line in sub temperatures and it's a process kind of like freeze drying. But your clothes smell so wonderful, I am never going back to a dryer again. Save's me lots of time, money and it's great on the environment and my clothes last so much longer.

I am looking for a clothesline to put up in my back yard.

I want a permanent one. The T-poles, cement, and all!

My problem, because of the covenants around this city, it is very hard to find clothes line poles locally. I have to order them off Amazon.

Our covenanted area has gone free, so to speak. The big wigs running the covenants could not agree on anything, so they disbanded the entire thing.

We can now have bright purple homes with bright green trim. In addition, we can have clotheslines! Yipee!

In another home, years ago, I washed diapers and regular dried and freeze-dried (weather permitting) them when the children were babies. I washed jeans and line dried them, no need to iron.

A fiend of mine that never owned a dryer pointed out, that most clothes dried on a line come out as wrinkle free as clothes dried in a dryer. She has a point, which I cannot argue.

I have many hand washables and use any thing I can find out doors to dry them. You should see my deck on hand washday. Oh not only is there clothes all over. I am out there washing in a steel drum using cold water. I use vinegar to rinse, and that softens them better than the store bough stuff.

Ironically, I use about ten gallons of water or less, to wash all of them, lights, to darks. I just wash the light colored first. I do add two scoops of oxy clean type detergent to 2 cups (250 - 500 ML) hot water and add that to the cold water along with some Dawn dishwashing liquid)

Then I dump that water, thus watering a lawn, and Add the clear, less than ten gallons of water to rinse them all. Oh the vinegar is anywhere from 1/2 to 1 cup. (125-250 ML)

The lawn gets another watering.

Granted I do not do all of my clothes that way, nor do I want to.

However, with sweaters, shawls, ponchos, afghans, handmade dishcloths and towels, I usually have at least three washer loads of clothes that cannot be safely washed in the washer.

I just plan a laundry day for outdoor laundry. If you say there is no time, then do the outdoor washing while you are running the indoor clothes, you know the ones that take hot water to wash...

The poster that said the weather in the U.S. does not make outdoor drying viable, well just has a lame excuse as any. Might as well say that here in the U.S. we cannot walk anywhere, because the weather does not permit it.

What exactly did Daniel Boone's wife use?

Martha Washington?

Those two women lived in vastly different areas of the country. One lived out west where the air is dry and one lived in the eastern part of the country where the air has more humidity.

I guess they had an electric running dryer, before electricity was harnessed to use as we do today.

I live in Illinois. Southern Suburb of Chicago to be exact. As long as it is not raining or snowing, you can hang your clothes outside all year long. Even if it is below freezing you can and the clothes will dry. Remember, most of our grandmothers here in America didn't have clothes driers. I know mine didn't. My mother didn't have one during her first marriage way back when. Somehow their clothes got dry.

It just takes time to figure out a system. I find it helpful to get as many clothes hung out as early as possible. I let them stay out there until they are dry, but if time does not allow, then each load is brought in one by one to finish drying inside. I find going from cold to warm in winter really helps zap the moisture out of them. Usually once brought in, they are dry in 30 minutes to an hour. No moldy musty smell. Just dry clean clothes.

I live in a small house. My inside line is in our little utility room off the back door. As I could never fit a whole load using pins, I put everything on hangers when I bring it in, so I can fit an entire load in a small space.

When there is a will, there is a way. You just have to think about it and work out a system that suites where you live.

Regina McGahey wrote:
My clothes dryer broke about a month ago. Being a little short on funds to replace it or even try to repair it right now, I've resorted to hanging them up to dry. I use my clothes rack for a much a possible. I hang the shirts on hangers an dry them on the shower curtain rod. Some days it's a little crazy with clothes hanging here and there, maybe everywhere- But I love it. I plan to get a clothes line for outdoors, as soon as I can. I'm excited about seeing my next utility bill. My clothes smell good, and I'm not even having to worry about bounce sheets. I've noticed there's no electric static either. This probably makes them healthier.