Survey: Do You Let It All Hang Out?

We use a dryer only for our unmentionables. The clothes line is outside under a porch-like contraption, but there just isn't enough room for yards upon yards of socks, jocks, boxers, bras and g-strings. Everything else, all year round, goes on the line.

Perhaps we are weird down-under, but in Australia (well the parts I've been to anyway) drying is almost exclusively on a line. Even now on my trip to the UK I've had no trouble getting enough sun and wind to dry my clothes. I can't even see why someone would use a washer except for needing a whole lot of clothes dry in a hurry, and you can usually avoid that with a minimum of planning. I also think clothes feel much better if you dry them on the line, you don't have to be even more wasteful using "fabric conditioners" or what not.

While living in Wisconsin, I always line-dried. Unfortunately, here in a suburb of Chicago, clotheslines are not allowed. It's one of those town ordinances designed to keep the area looking nice, but at what cost?

I would use a clothes line if we were permitted in our township in PA. We are not permitted to use a clothesline by our condo association.

My compromise is the big and heavy stuff, pants, towels, sheets, get line dried, and my smaller stuff gets the dryer. That way, I'm saving some energy but also not fussing with clothes pins for 30 minutes.

This image is THE most convincing evidence of Global Warming I have ever seen... I forecast a worldwide acceptance of nudist beaches in the near future...

"I would use a clothes line if we were permitted in our township in PA. We are not permitted to use a clothesline by our condo association."

Ditto sadly.

Yes, this is iniquitous! There should be state laws FORBIDDING local associations to ban clotheslines. How stupid that a local association worries that clothes lines will make their neighbourhood look like the barrio. I would encourage ALL of you who are restricted in your use of clothes lines to go ahead and use them and fight (in court if necessary,) for your right to do so. Clothes dryers are nothing but a waste of energy, to be used only in the middle of a frozen winter! (and even then it is easy and fast to dry your clothes inside on or near your radiators!)

I live in downtown Atlanta in a loft. My laundry is drying as we speak inside my loft on a clothesline. It's cheaper, better for the environment and the neighbors don't have any say in it. No excuses.

I was so adamant that we not use a dryer for our clothes that we took a long wall in our apartment and attached special hooks called 'cleats' that they use for tying ropes to boats (see example here: http://www.jamestowndistributors.com/userportal/show_product.do?pid=267&familyName=Line+Cleats). The cleats are clean looking and go unnoticed. When we do our laundry, we tie our rope around it like one would tie a boat to a dock and this creates two parallel clotheslines which we hang our laundry from for about 24 hours until it dries and we take the rope down so the space can be used again. It's really a wonderful minimalist solution to those who live in tight spaces, have no outdoor space and hate to waste energy and money on something that can be done for free. It is so easy and I found everything I needed to do it at my local hardware store for under 10 dollars! Be sure to mount the cleats high enough that your sheets won't drag since the weight does stretch the line a little. If you don't have a long wall, you could place three cleats or more and do a zig-zag.

I use a clothesline because I'm lazy. I can save up all of my laundry for one big Sunday afternoon, and I don't have to wait for the dryer to finish before starting the next load of wash. My clothes won't wrinkle if I don't remove them the instant they dry. Also, if I get distracted or need to run an errand, I don't have to hang around and monitor my 'dryer'.

Luckily, my neighborhood was built in the late 40's, so clotheslines AND PET CHICKENS are perfectly legal. But I am the only one that line dries, which is puzzling for such an impoverished area

Not so much lazy, but I line dry b/c I'm stretched thin for time. Work + school + 2 kids + Husband + me = there's no way for me to hear the dryer "ding" and get the clothes out on time. They'd look better coming out of the hamper than by the time I'd remember them. Even better, we use the racks to "air" the clothes every day (except socks/undies). Shirts, jeans, pants, sweaters, etc. get a little spot clean under the tap if needed and then we just hang them over the rack to air out. There's no smell and we've cut laundry from approx. 10 loads a week to approx. 4-6. Which has finally given me a break! We have 3 racks and two shower rods for laundry days (two days). We have just the one small rack and the shower rods during the week.

It's illegal in my neighborhood to have a clothesline. BUT, my husband lovingly drapes all the wet clothes all over the deck in seasonable weather. I am sure this would also be against the law, but my neighbor does not care.

It's illegal in my neighborhood to have a clothesline. BUT, my husband lovingly drapes all the wet clothes all over the deck in seasonable weather. I am sure this would also be against the law, but my neighbor does not care.

We use a solar/wind dryer...clothesline...for everything, except towels. I love nice soft towels. However, I only wash them every two weeks so I do not feel that I am causing a huge problem by doing so. Greenwashing...just a bit...:)