My outdoor non-electric clothes dryer
We're back to drying the old-fashioned way this week. I have to admit that I like it. I know it's crazy, but I love the motivation to get up and go outside for a few brief minutes of physical activity. I despise exercise, but I'm finding that I enjoy hanging laundry. The chore officially belongs to 10yo Megan but I volunteer to help her nearly every time.
The amount of time it takes to hang a load of laundry is just enough to soak up some warm, delightful sunshine but not long enough to start sweating.
Can anyone name the intended purpose of my improvised drying racks?
The amount of time required to dry a load of laundry outside in late August in south Texas is roughly the time required to wash the next load. I honestly don't think it takes any longer than an electric dryer. If a miracle happens and drops of water fall from the sky, we can bring it in and dry during the night in the middle of the living room.
Wait - what am I saying? The reason we quit using the electric dryer is because it was taking 3-12 hours to dry a single load. We could hang the laundry on the shower curtain rod and it would dry faster!
It also didn't help that the dryer was tearing holes in our clothes. Never mind about mysteriously disappearing socks; our dryer was in outright rebellion, wreaking havoc and grim destruction upon our apparel!
Um...this post is over. PerryBoy just created more dirty laundry. You don't want details.
Related posts:
- The Semi-Annual Seasonal Clothes Swap
- Cloth diapers questions from the mailbag
- Laundry Lessons
- Current chore list
- Works for Me Wednesday: quick pick-ups
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Filed under: Everyday life
I love hanging out laundry, too. It really does work great!
I can’t believe what a royal Dory moment I’m having, ‘cuz I know you told me what you were using. How exasperating! But it kinda looks like wrought iron balcony railing.
It looks vaguely like scaffolding sections.
I like your South Texas heat. Back in Arizona the time it took to dry a load of laundry on the line in summer sunshine was approximately the time it took to hang a loan of laundry on the line. In other words, you could walk back to the other end of the line and start folding it into a basket.
Here in North Florida, however, the time to dry a load on the line is approximately the amount of time it would take to drive along the I-10 to Arizona and hang it on a clothesline there!
I love hanging laundry on the line, especially sheets. They smell so good when I bring them in.
Hmm, it looks like railing of some sort. We are planning on making a clothesline soon. I can’t wait!
Samara,
You’re right – it’s sections of scaffold. For more hanging area, I have an extendable paint pole suspended between the two sections.
Well I’ve always known the drying frames as clothes horses so I would guess that added scaffolding should be known as the lance! I almost always use a clothes horse to dry our clothes even though we don’t have a garden at the mo
and I live in damp, unsunny Britain.
Jane,
Do you have a large family? I wonder if laundry is much harder in Britain, where (I think) homes and yards are typically much smaller and the weather is cooler and damper than most of the US. I can’t imagine drying all of our laundry under those circumstances, but it also sounds like it’s far more common to do w/o an electric dryer over there. Is it?
When we were in England we dried all of our clothes on clothes hangers, spread all over the house–the shower rod, radiators, door knobs, and in the closet, spread out.
Hi Kim,
First off no, I’ve not got a large family it is just my husband and myself at the moment we only got married last year and are still at the trying for stage of having a family.
As for drying washing It is usual to not to have a dryer here and getting clothes dry can be are real trial without one. Most people here hang clothes outside when ever we can either on long washing lines or on rotating washing lines that look a bit like a metal and plastic spider’s web. It doesn’t always rain but it is often windy and the wind along with what sun we get drys the clothes. And it always smells fabulous when you bring it back in afterwards.
As I said we don’t have a garden so what we do is set up the clothes horse in front of the storage heater in the winter, in summer just rely on the warm air around. When I was a child my mum had a pully which was several rails of wood that could have clothes hung on them and then hoisted up out of the way in the boiler room and they clothes dried on that and if necessary radiators all round the house would have clothes draped on them to dry.
However not all houses in the UK yet have central heating I used not to in my old home and during the winter my clothes often would not get dry before they started smelling of damp, I would often have to re-wash them. It can be tough for even a small family of 4 unless you have the space to hang outside or have the space to up clothes horses. Driers are becoming more and more popular but with the cost of electricy shooting up the old fashioned clothes horse may make a come back.
Sorry bit of a rambly reply. Btw my cousin has 8 children but I think they managed fine because they did have the space and the central heating too.
Kim,
I have been on the hanging out clothes side all my life. My mother & both grandmothers did it, even in winter. I have portable racks right now & when it is raining they too sit in the living room. You didn’t mention saving money when talking about your dryer either. Have a beautiful day!
I love drying our clothes outside… just not when it’s cold. Icy fingers is not a good thing.
It’s been raining all week so I’ve had to use the dryer. It takes a lot longer!
I bought Large Capacity Deluxe Parallel Clothes Dryer. I love this dryer which i immediately put outside. It is well made, easy to put up and down and the lines do not get caught while adjusting height.