No, you’re right: the fibers in line-dried fabrics don’t get knocked around the way they do in the dryer, so they dry in a fixed position and are less soft and flexible immediately after drying. They soften up after a few minutes of wearing, though. If your bath towels got really sopping wet the way a load of laundry does, they would air-dry somewhat “crunchy” too.
Some recommendations from laundry buffs for getting air-dried fabrics to be less stiff:
fluff them in the dryer for just a few minutes
hang them out on a windy day so they get shaken around a bit
shake them out while hanging them up
put some white vinegar in the wash and/or use less detergent (based on the idea that the stiffness comes partly from excess soapy residue)
Laundry buffs also say that air-drying makes fabrics last longer precisely because the fibers aren’t getting beaten up in the heat and agitation of the dryer. I haven’t been able to find any details on the actual chemical/materials science phenomena involved here, though.
My mom still drys clothes outside. In NYC I believe clotheslines are only banned in your front yard. You are allowed to have clotheslines in your backyard.
She can afford a drier, but she claims that drying them outside makes them smell fresher.
I’ve had clothes that were washed with really hard water stiffen up when hung out on a line. I didn’t mind, but I could tell the difference between clothes hung out to dry vs dryer dried. I don’t have that problem now, but I still will use my dryer since it’s Oregon and will be rainy and damp for the next 9 months.
Well it’s not like you would be working instead of hanging clothes out to dry (sorry boss, have to go home 10 minutes early today so I can hang out the clothes.) Most people would otherwise be slothing out watching TV or something. So the economic argument does make a lot of sense when you compare using the time to do something that saves some money to using the time to do something that doesn’t save money. In both cases you’re not earning any extra money.
Well no one would expect you to buy land just to have a clothesline, if you have the land use it, if not air your clothes inside, in the garage, in the laundry, or just use a clothes dryer.
This made me laugh. It highlights the cultural difference nicely. Imagine you read someone say “there was an interesting interview some months back with the owners of an American firm that makes a motorised carriage. Apparently these things are ubiquitous in the US and in many other parts of the world, but they’re having a devil of a time breaking the Australian market.”
In the winter I do socks undies and tshirts on a wooden rack in the living room, helps the dry air rehumidify [along with the pot of water on top of the woodstove]
Larger stuff would be in the way given how much longer they take to dry.
Except for the heated mattress pads, they need to be spread out to dry, but they don’t get washed as often as the rest of the linens.
Washers? Dryers? I just hand my laundry over to a guy in a laundromat, come back the next day, and trade him $20 for my now-cleaned laundry. Does that make me seem lazy?
Weekly pay: $X
Waking, non-working, non-eating, non-sleeping hours per week: 52
Hours to do laundry: 3 minimum
Value of three hours of my leisure time: $X*3/52. It’s a number much larger than 20
I moved from Australia where line drying was the norm to Seattle where line drying is all but impossible 9 months out of the year and I far, far, prefer line dried clothes. With clothes dryers, you’re essentially bashing the clothes around for an hour and I can’t see how that can be any good for them. The worst of the abuse seems to be meted out on the crotch of pants when each leg gets wrapped around a ball of clothing and is pulled apart. I’ve noticed pants wear out noticeably more quickly now in the US than before.
If you have the apparatus in your house, it doesn’t take three active hours of your time. It takes maybe thirty seconds every time you run back there and switch machines.
Same here. I live in the tropics and it astounds me how many upscale apartment complexes don’t have clothes hanging areas. Here at least it does make a huge difference to electricity bills.
As for hanging clothes being unsightly, it is not too hard to find a simple solution. Where I lived in Israel the back balconies in most buildings had a recess between the balcony and the building facade so that clothes could hang without being visible from outside.
On TV, white sheets and baby clothes waving on a clothesline are romantically homey and adorable and probably sorta Martha Stewart-y (does anyone know if she ever rhapsodized on line drying?). IRL, a lot of people see it as low-class. Yes, it is very stupid, but then I have a clothesline.
So many people have said “I wouldn’t want line-dried clothes as they’re all stiff”. Have they ever actually worn line-dried clothes, I wonder? They’re not stiff at all, and they generally feel much fresher than tumble-dried clothes.
I have a tumble dryer but only use it in winter or if it’s chucking it down with rain all day. (I use it quite a lot ). If I possibly can, I will line-dry my clothes, simply because they feel nicer that way. Also, have you seen the amount of lint that comes off clothes each time you use the dryer? That’s wearing the fabric out, fast.
As for “homeless people messing with your clothes” or “the neighbourhood thinks it’s unsightly”? Er, you don’t put a washing line in the front garden - it goes in the back where nobody can reach it and only your next-door neighbours might be able to see it.
Wow! I had kind of forgotten about line-drying! My mother (and I) always hung clothes out in the summer when I was a kid, but we stopped doing it as she started working full time and it seemed like we weren’t home as much when it was light out. Then, living in a city for several years in a small apartment, it wasn’t much of an option. Now I have a house and it never occurred to me to have a clothes line.
I’m definitely putting one in.
Clothes will get dry even if it’s below zero, it just takes longer time. I once lived in a building with a washing machine and a room with clotheslines in the unheated attic. There never were any problems with getting the stuff dry.
I think in dry dusty pollutant laden cities, I would pass on solar drying. But heh instead of stone washed jeans you could have smog washed jeans.
OTOH I do solar dry at my house in the spring summer fall, its a hobby. I love the exercise, fresh air, my view, the statement I am making, my green offering of a sun and air dried load of clothes in exchange for the jet contrail above me. I guess I kind of meditate or pray when I hang out my wash. All that bending over, finding my humble center seeking solidarity with my sisters at the river with the rocks.
She’s hanging the laundry out the front of her house, I agree this is unsightly and is not something you’d often see here in Australia. Do you guys not have enclosed back yards?
I had noticed though that US ones are bigger and faster.
). If I possibly can, I will line-dry my clothes, simply because they feel nicer that way. Also, have you seen the amount of lint that comes off clothes each time you use the dryer? That’s wearing the fabric out, fast.