I think that’s true of newer closed systems, but ours has a header tank which keeps the heating system filled up from the mains. It’s about 25 or 26 years old and due for replacement though.
Ironing sheets? They come out of the dryer ready to fold and they’re dry. And clotheslines are nice if it’s sunny and you don’t have a backyard full of trees but few people in America want to deal with weather, and birds. Winter would be out of the question in the northern states. And it seems incredibly wasteful to heat a closet all the time. Especially with the air conditioner running.
Until today I’ve never heard of a drying closet.
um why?
I realize clothes will just turn around and pick up moisture from the air but I dont see why it matters if they get a bit to dry. and besides I would think extra dry would just go that much further in cooking any bacteria that survived the washer.
Uh, dirty? We don’t have a lot of diesel cars right now because of stringent EPA laws.
What on Earth do you need cold water tanks for? I’m very familiar with cisterns, but only in places where water service tends to be interrupted frequently. Is that a general problem in the UK, though?
Static cling. Premature wearing out. Wastes gas/electricity. Makes the texture kind of yucky.
Here’s a reasonable explanation, not everyone has them.
Also, overdrying can aid fire conditions if you already have, say, a faulty dryer or lint buildup or whatever.
FYI I grew up in Illinois and we did in fact put clothes on the clothesline to dry all year round. In winter sometimes they froze (as did the hanger-upper), but they did get dry. My dad’s overalls were a bit hard to fold when frozen tho. But in the absence of dryers how would you suggest people got their clothes dry?
ETA: I also never heard of an airing cupboard/hot press until now.
Back when I was in exile in Bulgaria, I would hang my wet clothes in my bedroom, which was heated by wood burning stove, which made them all smell like fire, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get them dry.
This was after I’d washed my clothes by hand. In water I had carried home from the town fountain, as my pipes had frozen, and then heated up with my electric tea kettle, or on the stove if the power was out.
In short, America is awesome.
Cold water tanks? Separate boiler tanks? Airing cupboards?
[ol]
[li]Why would you ever have a hot water tank separate from the hot water heater?[/li][li]How would that even work? Is there a recirculation pump that is operated by a thermostat?[/li][li]Does water get shut off frequently enough to justify having a cold water tank?[/li][li]Why are your linens damp?[/li][li]Isn’t having linens next to an oil or gas water heater a fire hazard?[/li][/ol]
The linen is not next to the water heater, it’s next to the hot-water holding tank which is located in its own cupboard. The heater (or boiler as we call it) is usually located in the kitchen.
In Russia the laundry does you.
I have a house in Illinois which has hot water heat and a separate hot water heater. The house was built in 1938 or 1940 (depending on which document you believe) and both the heater for the house heat and the heater for the hot water are in the laundy room. We do not have an airing cupboard, but I think we will add that to the list of home projects. That rooms did get very warm in winter, but we insulated many of the pipes and that helped bring the temperature to just slightly above the adjacent rooms. There is a space right next to the house heater that I have been thinking of building a table for so we could use it to fold clothing on. I think now I will build it with slatted shelves below. I have been wanting to screen off the unsightly furnace. Maybe I can combine the two projects. I need to check zoning and safety regs to find guidelines for enclosing the unit first.
FWIW In my 26 years I’ve never once seen birdshit on clothes dried outside and my back garden is full of trees. I asked my mother about it, she says it does happen but not that often.
I was puzzled by the word “press” in the OP. All I could think would be a device for applying pressure. So I looked it up and discovered a meaning I hadn’t imagined–
Never heard of that before. It’s puzzling since it’s the only one of many definitions of the word “press” in which no pressure of any sort is involved.
Press on it’s own is synonymous with cupboard here. “Where did you leave it?”, “In the press”.
It’s a slightly old fashioned word for a cupboard* in Scotland (and presumable Ireland too).
- cupboard isn’t the right word but I can’t think of a better one - a small room with a regular sized door, anyway, rather than a wall cupboard.
That probably would have been more fun.
Depends a lot on the tree. If it has something birds like to eat then the chirpy little food processors will fling poo with great abandon. My mother’s clothesline was always away from trees as were most of my neighbors.
Semi-related story: I use to park my car on the street and walk under a tree in my side yard. One day I looked up to see the back side of a bird pointing at me. I stopped walked around to the other side of the branch. The bird did a 180. I repeated the process. The bird did a 180. I repeated the process again and again the bird turned around. This time he hiked one toward me but I was able to step out of the way. The little shit was TRYING to hit me.
Like all civilized people, you are confused by the hideous complexity of a crappy central heating/hot water system that originally served well in the era of low to non-existent water pressure, but which has been essentially pointless for the last half-century or so.
Eyeball the top diagram on this page and hopefully you’ll get an idea how these things worked.
We would dry stuff outside in winter in norway - takes a while but works fine. Also putting wet wollen clothes outside in the frost is excellent for de-felting, and if you put bedding outside the dust mites freeze and die.