line-dry or by the dryer

[Cybrvanr]

I'm just wondering here what the opinions on line drying versus drying clothes in a dryer is? Personally, I prefer line drying my clothes, especially cottons, bed linens and stuff like that. Clothes seem to need less ironing when line dried too. Frequently, though, outdoor conditions don't permit line drying. Right now, it's 20 degrees outside, and I'm using my dryer, and also anticipating spring when I can hang my sheets and towles out for that nice fresh feeling!

I know many of the new "planned communities" have these homeowners councils that are above the law and outlaw clothes lines, so outside drying is out the question. One of my friends that lives in one of those neighborhoods though found a neat way to line dry. The installed a clothesline in their walk-up attic! Not only are the clothes hidden from view of the neighborhood nazi's, but the additional heat that builds up in the attic dries the clothes rather quickly and is put to good use.

 

[launderess]

Prefer to line dry when possible, with certian items like terry towels finished off in the dryer to "fluff".

Hanging laundry in a attic or some other room has been around for ages. It is why many homes in England/Great Britian have what is called an "airing cupboard". Which essentially is a room where laundry hung to dry and sometimes stored. Many European homes have the same sort of arrangement or space in the attic where laundry was hung during foul weather or when some other reason prevented outdoor line drying.

Failing all the above, there is the traditional British method of hanging racks, suspended from the ceiling. This works well if one has an Aga range, as the gentle heat dries laundry in no time. Just do not cook fish or anything else with a lingering odor while your laundry is drying. *LOL*

Launderess

 

[rickr]

Line drying

I like to dry bed sheets and blankets outside. They smell so fresh when they are brought back into the house. Bedding is all I dry outside. If I have time,and it is a sunny day I will hang sheets (only) out even when it is below freezing. The sheets "freeze dry". They will be stiff at first,but the sun drys them in a few hours. Then they REALLY smell clean and fresh!
I don't overdry articles in the dryer.If anything I underdry clothes. As long as you take the items out right away,and hang them up they don't wrinkle. I also have an old chrome plated drying rack in the basement that comes in handy for decorated sweatshirts,sportpants and other articles I don't want to risk damaging in a dryer.

thanks,
Rick

 

[maytagbear]

I don't have much choice in the matter-

I live in an apartment in a less than desirable section of town. Even if I had back yard access (don't), it would be a risk to hang out laundry.

For the few things I have that shouldn't be dried in the dryer, I use the shower curtain rod.

My dryer, a gas Maytag, has variable temperatures (a slide control), and I usually have it set on the lowest setting, and use the sensor dry setting, and things come out nicely.

I used to have a back yard, and during the summers would dry sheets and other linens on a clothespole that folded something like an umbrella. It was large enough for two loads.

Maybe someday again.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[DADoES]

I've never had a clothes line. Everything goes in the dryer, or for the rare item that doesn't, on a hanger on a shower rod, or spread flat atop the washer or dryer, etc.

My grandmother quit line-drying some years ago, as did my my mother, except for the occasional item.

 

[kenwashesmonday]

In the winter, clothes dry fast hanging in the basement near the furnace. If I hang jeans or towels, I later fluff them in the dryer to soften them.
I don't put long underwear or wool socks in the dryer because they shrink.

Ken D.

 

[bpetersxx]

Ken hit the nail on the head.

I wash my clothes in the classic laundry room,then hang them in
the drying room where my chotheslines is.

I then finish them in the dryer.

The drying room has 2 oscillating fans since the basement is usually damp especally when it rains buckets outdoors.

The laundry takes no time in drying.

 

[spiralactivator]

I live on a rental property where clotheslines are prohibited, so I use dryers at the coin-op. Items that can't go in the dryer (and I don't have many) get hung on a plastic hanger on my doorknob. I grew up with my mom hanging out clothes on nice, warm days--except for socks, because she didn't have the patience for hanging dozens of socks.

 

[drmitch]

I always use my dryer unless its a really pretty day and my dad isn`t mowing the lawn, which he usually is since I bought him a John Deer lawn tractor this spring. I have a neighbor who uses her cloths line unless its a total dounpour!

 

[david]

I have been looking for a clothesline for awhile. Anything like the old umbrella style would be fine-that's about all I have room for in my small back yard. I would love to use it in warm weather like today. I would dry underwear and t's, things like that outside. Jeans would stay as a dryer item, nothing dries as stiff on a line. Unfortunately, I cannot find anything here, I guess everyone uses dryers now so it seems. My wife doesn't care to use a line, she thinks its too much trouble, but I do. We share in the laundry responsibilities-I let her pick the detergent-Cheer. I like Tide better, but I let her have her way. Only one disadvantage of lines-the birds occasionally doop on the clothes-and we have lots of those around here.

 

[tolivac]

Like Ken-my dads home-my stepmother used a clothseline in the basement-by the furnace-worked really well.Then one time while I was there my grandmother was there as well-then one day she says-"We are going to Sears and I am going to buy you a Dryer!"So we went to Sears and she bought them a dryer!-my dad was flabbergassed!The house didn't have a dryer vent-so we got one of those gizmos you connect to the dryer exhaust hose and fill with water.Worked pretty well-they still use it.I am sort of surprized grammie didn't buy them a washer as well-Dad was still using the Flood damaged Maytag that was rebuilt.The dryer is now about 15Yrs old-works fine.I think dad had to replace the belt in it once.The old clothesline is still there and they still use it on occasion.The dry air around there makes things dry pretty fast.

 

[programcomputer]

Line dry of course...memories

Wow,

I always rack my brain for good washer memories, but most people had humdrum stuff that was MOL that I knew. However hangin wash memories are rampant, read on:

We ALWAYS used to line dry from about March to October depending on weather. My mom was a Cheer/Downey person and I can remember how sweet and clean everything would smell. I can remember how we would LOVE to go to bed on Saturday nights becasue our beds would be fresh and clean.

My mom was a stickler and knew that she could keep that energy bill down by line drying. And EVERYTHING was dried on the line. She would drag out mountains of clean wash and would spend an entire Saturday just doing Laundry for her, my step-father and us four kids. All of us used to run thru the slightly damp sheets on hot days becasue it would cool off our little persons...but my mom would holler at us and we had to move on...

My dad's mom also line dried. Did until my grandfather died a few years ago. My mom's mom tho NEVER dried clothes outside. Then she was the one that was very proper and stuck up in the fact that she always used to say to me: The LOWER class folks hang their goods out to dry. Course she replace about three belts and two ignightors on her maytag dryer of course. My dad's mom's dryer the Westinghouse still worked when she bought her newer set when I was young...and looked brand new also.

Funny story...our elderly next door neighbor Mrs. Wright used to have a Sears Lady Kenmore wringer washer out on her enclosed side porch. She had a built in, double bowl washsink out there with running hot and cold water and sewer to it. Her machine was a Lady Kenmore becasue it had a huge chrome opentop "Visi-Matic?"wringer and the machine was pink with a chrome upper tub ( I think)and it had a round black knob on a large chrome control on the front of it... and a shifter lever of some sort?.

She washed everyhing in that machine in the spring-summer- fall months. I never helped her use it or remember much about it...I mainly ran over when she was using her Kirby Classic Omega ( the all brown cloth bag model), never when she was doing laundry ( I was young still and only loved vacuum cleaners then).

Anyway our driveway ran paralel to her back yard on an incline, and she had just hung out what was about a weeks worth of wash. My little brother and I were playing (Car driver) in my mom's 1967 Camaro that she had just bought about a year before hand. This was my mom's baby mind you and she had no clue that he and I climbed into that car and was playing. Well my feet were JUST long enought to reach the pedals..mind you sitting on the edge of the seat..it was a four speed...and I Popped the clutch in and moved the middle shift wand into neutral and it started rolling ,rolling backwards it wouldnt stop until we knocked down her entire clothesline and damaged the back and side garage wall of the Wrights garage..that the end of the line was attached to.

I digress for a moment.. I still feel the stinging of my mom's thin ass Gitano belt on my backside...

It was so awkward after...Mrs. Wright was NOT pleased, nor was her husband. I got grounded for the rest of the summer plus had to work off the dmage by doing Mrx Wright's vaccuming dusting ( but ironically never her laundry) She had to rewash ALL her stuff becasue Mr. Wright had JUST mowed the lawn and all of it had grass clippings on it. Man I was spanked good for that.

We supposedly have a unwritten rule in our subdivision that people cannot have outside lines anymore. Aparantly our wonderous neighbors forgot to tell us that becasue Marty and I, got a anon. letter from someone in the hood that said that it was against the rules and that we should stop. Nevermind the fact that the old couple that we had bought our house from left a three lined clothesline arrangement in the backyard, and the day that he and I looked at the house...she had wash ahnging out there?.

Anyway We took it down as we diddn't want to start any problems with our new neighbors and I had two dryers to choose from at that point the 1-18's and the Westinghouse Space Mates. And when we built on the back of our house, after the garage fire and added a breezeway to the new garage...we made our laundry big enough so I have three lines hung from wall to wall high up enough where they do not hit your head...but I can get up on the stepstool, and hang stuff up if I want to. NAd now with my new Frigidaire Reverse-O- Tumble system my stuff comes out so good on either low medium or high heat..line drying has simply become a thing of my past.

So few do it anymore.

Chad

 

[kenmore1978]

car story

sounds like one of those stories your Mom laughs at today when it's mentioned.

A smilar thing happend to me, though it didn't involve clotheslines, or me fooling around with the car. My maternal Grandmother was getting ready to leave for the store with me when she realized she'd forgotten something in the house. She got out, leaving me in our 1957 Buick Super and inadvertently left the car in Drive. When I realized that the car was starting to move, I calmly got out, closed the door, and watched as it headed out our dirt driveway, turned left, and headed down the hill. I ran and called Granny, who of course, was in a panic. Fortunately, we lived way out in the country, so the car simply drifted downhill until it got caught in a barbed wire fence at a neighbor's property line. There was no damage except for a few scratches in the paint, but boy, it was the talk of the part for quite a while after that!

 

[Designgeek]

When I was a kid, we had lines in the basement, near the furnace, until we got a gas dryer. After that it was "warm and fluffy" all the way.

When I've used laundromats, I've used the dryers on site. For example in college.

I also recall the first time I used a coin-op washer in college (dorm basement): it was about 2/3 the capacity of the one we had at home, but I didn't realize that at first. In went a usual-sized load, and as soon as the machine got going I realized I had to split that into two loads.

Twenty-some years later:

At home, I have lines in the attic (and I thought I was the only one who did that!), and in the laundry room. Outdoor drying in the city is out of the question due to the soot & dust in the air. I don't use the attic in the winter, but the laundry room stays pretty warm so that works.

Standard practice is to hang the clothes overnight and pop them in the dryer when they're almost dry. The hanging time and dryer time are now quite a bit shorter since I've got a twin-tub with a high-speed spinner. Fifteen minutes in the dryer, for example. I typically take my shirts out of the dryer when they're still very warm and get 'em right onto hangers in the closet, so they come out wrinkle-free and with the collars in good order (few things are as annoying as "flippy" collars, which make me feel like I'm looking ridiculous on client sites). The jeans get folded and stored flat, so they come out neat. The socks, underwear, and T-shirts get spread out on my bed to cool down before getting put away.

If I have too much stuff to go on the indoor line, I'll take the most-nearly-dry items and put 'em in the dryer straightaway, and hang the heavier items, notably blue jeans.

I'm going to expand my indoor drying line capacity shortly. My design specs call for having enough line capacity to put up all of a couple weeks' washing. Then I'll be experimenting with the dryer to determine the most energy-efficient quantities to finish-dry at one time.

In case you're wondering why I wouldn't just hang to fully dry, thereby reducing dryer time to zero: When it's cold & damp, hang-drying takes days; and even when it's hot & dry out, indoor hang-drying leaves everything (particularly jeans) stiff and scratchy.