Hell HAS Frozen Over! (Clothes On The Line)

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You guys ain't seen nothin yet, in Australia it is very rare that anyone will use a clothes dryer. Every backyard has a Hills Hoist. Every monday was the race of the housewives. Who got their wash out on the line first and the whitest? These clotheslines wind up into the air by means of a handcrank, higher than the side fence. You always put the sheets and towels around the perimeter and smalls were on the inner lines. Every neighborhood had a clotheline of dingy clothes, usually the poor family on the block. Take a look....www.Hills.com.au, read the history then go to products and search clotheslines.

Rodney, Palm Springs, formerly from Melb, Oz land
 
What a blessing to live in an area where you can hang your laundry out and not suffer the effects of air pollution.

When I move away from the big city I will re-discover the advantages of a solar-drying system!
 
My lines were full yesterday - sheets and linens mostly, and a few old-sheet dropcloths I use for painting. If the neighbors even noticed, I'm sure they wondered about the big red blotches all over some of the sheets! I did have to dry two loads in the machine yesterday as my clothesline wasn't large enough to hold everything. Towels always go in the dryer.

I hang sheets the way L. said, but folded in half lengthwise first or they won't fit on the width of the line. Most of my back yard is shady with dabbles of sunlight through the day so I don't worry much about fading.
 
The way I see it....

Towels dried on the line is 'free' exfoliation' for your body.

Nothing like the smell of line-dried laundry.

I fold my sheets in half and hang them that way. I have two lines on my deck that retract.
 
Right now I am without clothseline and going mad. My line had been a standard rope and pulley line but at the back corner of the house from one tree there to another at the far back of the yard. This meant that I had to carry the baskets full of wet laundry from the first floor laundry out the back, down the stairs and across the yard. This was getting cumbersome and last October, a large tree branch wiped out the line when it fell during a storm.

Point of the story? The United Illuminating Company has just increased our electric rates by around 50%. So I need my line back for financial reasons (and just because I miss it)- but now I want it at the edge of the deck with a pole.
 
Love the clothesline

Eugene,
What a beauuuuuutifully hung, perfectly white wash! (Martha Voice) lol
I use mine any chance I get....today was a great windy day... I used my Maytag Wringer and hung everything out. The "T-Post" is my favorite, but to save space when I landscaped the backyard, I put in an umbrella type. I painted it copper and then oxidized it just to dress it up...looks better than the standard aluminum I think.

Gary,
I have made the exact same comment about "free exfoliation" when my partner criticized me about line dried towels. :)
 
Line dry all my towels until they are just damp, then finish them off in the dryer. Even the small Whirlpool can finish off a nice load that way in less than 20 minutes.

This not only saves energy, but gives the best of both worlds. Nice out door fresh smelling towels from line drying, but the softness and fluffy feeling from tumble drying.

If you really want sandpaper towels, wash them in a high washing soda content detergent like Arm&Hammer powder, then hang em on the line. Damn things will almost stand up on their own, and are great for removing corns and calluses.

L.
 
Six pins Dolores, be sure to use six pins, not just four. Don't you dare ruin my good sheets!
 
LoL

I hate to say this but i don't find the line dried scent all that great.. It actually kinda gives me a headache.. What i do like is hanging stuff up and making it all nice and neat... Plus i use to love to run through the wet cloths as a kid... Then i'd get in trouble.. LoL

But all are good ideas.. I love those lines like ganskys.. They work very well and seem to hold up... I used it alot for drying bath rugs and such..
 
"Six pins Dolores!"

Ever since I watched that movie I hear that line in my head when hanging out laundry. Like Australia, line drying in the UK was very popular - as a child, every house in the street had washing on the line almost every day. Where I live now, I can see washing lines in almost every garden but there is hardly any washing on them. Seems like even in hot weather, people around here are more inclined to use a dryer. Don't understand it myself. My garden is always breezy and gets lots of sun so on a Saturday, it is not unusual to hang four or five lines of washing. When the weather is really hot and breezy, I have known washing dry in less than 20 mins. I use the dryer in winter, when necessary but in the summer, I would never not line dry. Given our unpredictable summer weather, I have been known to postpone doing washing for a few days just to wait for good line drying weather.
 
Just A Minute!

For shame! Hanging your tidy whites out there for God and the neighbors to see! *LOL*

Danties should be hung inside pillow slips or on the other side of larger objects like sheets or towels.

"Six pins, Dolores, not five! That is how I like them done. Don't you let my good sheets blow down to the end of the yard"!

L.
 
LOL! The most important thing I learned yesterday was to hang towels/sheets/tablecloths on the out lines and my shorts on the inside lines. Now that I've actually taken the plunge and become a line-dryer, I wonder why it took me so long. Funny how it took a financial pinch to spur me on.

I'm also finding it easy to get along without A/C so far. I open all the windows at night, then close the house up tight and pull all shades/blinds in the morning. The house stays cool til about 4:00-5:00 in the afternoon when the sun hits the front (west side) of the house. But by 8:00 or 9:00 I can open the windows again and repeat the cycle. This should get me through at least the first half of June. By July it doesn't cool off much at night and the humidity is way too high to keep windows open most nights. I've usually always turned the central A/C on the first day it went over 75 degrees outside. I've already saved three weeks' worth of A/C costs.
 
Clotheslines are still really common in my part of the UK - everyday you still see things on the line :-). To be honest you can't beat line dried laundry, except for towels - they ALWAYS go in the tumble dryer no matter what :-). Tried all that fluffing for 20 minutes and doesn't seem to work as well as tumble drying fully.

seems like even in hot weather, people around here are more inclined to use a dryer.

Unfortunately, some people (even myself at times) don't have time to hang out washing so a dryer is a must in a summer at times... unfortunately some people are too reliant on their dryer.

Jon
 
Personally, I don't find it takes long to hang out washing so would always prefer to do that. I almost always line dry towels and bung them in the dryer on hot for 20 mins and it has always worked for me although they are not AS soft as fully tumble dried. However, I will not use the amount of energy required just for a fluffier towel. I quite like the slight roughness on the skin but could not use a purely line dried towel, unless I was going for an all over body peel!

Getting into a bed with line dried sheets and duvet covers is bliss and the smell from the pillowcases is one of those fragrances I wish they would bottle and market as an air freshner, instead of some of the stomouch churning fragrances that we are supplied with!
 
I like to tumble dry during the winter months however... In Summer and even spring and autumn(fall) ill hang out if its nt damp...

I really hate to use the tumble dryer when its nice weather, I just think its pointless and very wasteful.

I also have indoor lines which are used fairly heavily too!

Jon - It's very peculiar, when I line dry towels theyre always fairly soft... Maybe theres a difference in our water hardnessess or something?

Pic below shows in order from closest to the camera:
Whites
Darks
Whites & Coloureds
Towels

5-14-2007-14-13-43--washboy2005.jpg
 
hanging clothes...
well its the only way we can get our laundry dry! my parents refuse to get a dryer(then again look were im from LOL) ;P so i just wait for a nice day like this weekend and hang everything up. I hang everything from the bottom never from an elastic as they stretch, certain things on hangers and boxers on a drying rack out in the sun. As for towels well i use downy and dont really have a problem with them being stiff they come out pretty good, next time i'll post a pic. And sheets 8 clothes pins on each and stretched out all over the clothes lines! pillows, comforters, and all LOL.
 
Dan - nice to see your garden again :-). Your mum said to me when I was up last that you've always got a wash on the line, good on ya! Have had to use the dryer constantly for the past week or so though with those horribly miserable weather we've had! Have to say I've also noticed that your towels were quite scratchy compared to what I'm used to, maybe I just like really soft towels lol.

Paul - Glade used to make an air freshener (I'm not sure they still do it) called Clean Linen I think... was about the closest smell to line dried laundry you could get from an artificial air freshener. But yes - nothing beats the smell of a bedroom when you've put line-dried sheets on the bed!

It takes me about 5-10 mins to hang out a load of washing depending on the size of the load... when you're at college 5 days a week and work at the weekends, and wash in the evenings unfortunately the only option is to use the tumble dryer if you want to keep caught up with laundry! I always use low heat anyway, so it doesn't use as much energy, but still not as green as hanging out on the line. Though, I do schedule to wash a couple loads on a Monday night so that I can hang them out on my long college break on Tuesday, and I always manage to get a load or two out on a Saturday before work... so I try to save as much energy as I can, but yes it does annoy me when I'm round somebody's house on a nice summer's day, breeze blowing in the garden and they've got their tumble dryer on non stop!

The most annoying thing is when I'm not in, and it starts raining or something and people won't take the washing in... which means having to wash the load AGAIN. Sometimes it feels as if I'm the only competent person in the house at times :-)

Jon
 
I don't have a clothesline in my garden - not because I don't want to, but because there's nowhere really suitable to string one up - so really ought to get a little bit more inventive and try to find a way of having one. While I do like the finish of tumble dried laundry, even that doesn't justify running a condenser dryer during the summer and having it dump heat into an already stuffy house, not to mention the energy costs. Line drying can indeed be quicker on a good day as Hoovermatic already mentioned, plus it's also a far more suitable way of drying starched laundry.

As a compromise I do use folding drying racks, which I can either set up inside the utility room on wet days, or outside on the patio if the weather is pleasant. Also have a tripod-like device from which clothes can be dried on hangers, which comes in handy when ironing too. Not perfect, but still better than my old habit of putting everything in the dryer all year round. Now try to use the dryer only for bulkier items such as bed linen and towels, until I find a better solution for hanging those up to dry too.

Cheers,

Kirk
 

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