I do – mostly because I’m both an old hippie and a cheapskate. I hate paying money to run the drier when I can dry them for free – and end up with yummy smelling sheets in the bargain. Even in the winter, I’ll hang stuff up on racks inside – easy way to humidify the air a little bit.
Does anyone else line dry their laundry?
I do it, weather permitting and in Denver the weather generally permits, although the last few weeks have been a trial. I did have nice enough weather here to stomp out through the piles of snow and hang out my sheets. I always like to hang out sheets and towels because Mmmm, they smell so good!
On the other hand, on certain cold mornings I put the already dry clothes that I’m going to wear into the dryer for a few minutes, then stand there in the kitchen and put them on all warm.
Yeap. As often as possible. Sometimes I’ll throw grundies and towels in the dryer just to speed it up.
I love the smell of sundried sheets and clothes.
Yes I put my washing on the line. It’s free, good for the environment and better for the clothes. I have a dryer, but I rarely use it. Just occasionally in winter and during wet spells - not that we’ve had any of them for a long time.
I agree.
I line dry everything except towels. When my fiance and I moved from the suburbs to the inner city I was resigned to giving up the Hills hoist, but it turned out the apartment we ended up buying had its own private washing line above the balcony. Score!
I do it for the same reasons mentioned here; cheaper, less resource consumption, smells nice, and less wear and tear on clothes/sheets. It’s faster too - on a warm or windy day everything is dry in less than half an hour. And sometimes if I’ve been inside doing housework or writing all day it’s nice to get some fresh air, even if it’s just on the balcony.
A bird crapped on my sheets once though. That was kind of annoying.
I do it when the weather permits, which means during the summer, but only when I’m home so that I can run out quickly and grab the stuff if we get some rain that the weatherman failed to predict.
I love how the sheets smell when they dried on the line, that’s the best!
There are some things I will put on racks inside during the winter, but I limit it to things that can’t go in the dryer at all. I hate tripping over racks set up all over the house, and we don’t have space large enough to rack-dry sheets or large towels.
Yep, all the time. Despite the endless obsession with newer and neater gadgets in this country, clothes dryers are next to non-existent. Our new washing machine has a drying feature, but we rarely use it.
(posted too soon)
To give a better picture of how common hanging laundry is here, the condo we live in was just finished two years ago and every unit has adjustable drying racks built into the balconies.
I used to, until I noticed that we had huge palmetto bugs in the back yard, which loved to get in our laundry and be carried into our house. Palmetto bugs are supersized roaches, about three or four inches long.
Spraying the yard isn’t really an option. Those bugs are EVERYWHERE in this area.
I remember this coming up before on the SDMB. I was surprised at the cultural divide. I remember at least one American saying he/she used the dryer because the clothes came out smelling fresher. That’s the opposite of my experience.
I will only use a dryer if I really, really, really have to. I think this goes for most Australians, and the only ones who will use a dryer because they want to are probably lazy teenaged boys forced to do their own laundry.
I currently don’t even own one, but when I did I’d probably use it three or four times a year, maximum. I might use it towards the end of that fortnight’s heavy rain, or if I’m going out for dinner, it’s 3pm, and my shirt is wet. Generally, I’ll always hang the clothes outside, and if it’s raining for a long period, I’ll just do smaller loads and hang them inside.
I love the fresh smell of line-dried clothes and bed linen.
In Spain absolutely. Dryer? Whazzat? The only people I know who actually own a dryer are Middlebro and SiL… the guy who installed it for them moved into a new house at the same time as they did and doesn’t have one! Except for the northern coast, with a climate more similar to England’s than to “sunny Spain”, in the rest they’re seen as a useless, expensive machine that eats electricity when we have a sun that drops molten lead at noon during 8 months out of 12.
Here I don’t, so far. The humidity is very high (I live, uhm… about 700m from the Rhein) and I don’t have a clothesline. If I’m still here in the summer (my employers are playing coy about that), I’ll get one of those folding indoors clotheslines and use that for the small stuff. Hanging the bedsheets would take up half the apartment, so no can do.
Yeah, same in Spain. Old ones aren’t adjustable but the new ones have these “accordion” supports so they can be folded when not in use. Many houses have one (short and wide) in the balcony itself, to use when it’s raining, and another (long but with less strings) on the balcony’s rail.
Yes. Well, not me personally, the housekeeper does it. Pretty common in much of Asia. We have a dryer too, but fresh sun dried clothes and sheets are really nice
Okay, so I’m not going insane, as I thought I was when I saw this:
…which seemed like such a strange question to ask. Doesn’t everyone? Apparently not.
I do use a dryer sometimes, but usually for things like drying underwear if I’m behind on laundry and suddenly find myself out of clean ones. But the place I’m living in at the moment doesn’t have one, and I don’t really miss it.
Monkey Chews, them Americans have residential areas where it is forbidden to line-dry your clothes - in your own backyard and out of sight of the street!
They think it looks like you don’t have money.
I’ve done it, but I’ve always hated it. I don’t like the crunchy feeling, the ironing, or tree fallout. Plus, it’s time consuming to actually get it all up there. I’ll take a fluffy towel every time.
I hang my washing but not out. I live alone but have a townhouse with two upstairs bathrooms. The one with a bath is hardly ever used. Because it faces west and gets the afternoon sun it is like an oven. I never close the window so there is always a breeze blowing through. I just hang my clothes on hangers on the shower rail and they dry overnight even in Winter.
I hang the washing up outside if the weather is going to be dry; otherwise it gets hung on a rack inside and dries quite quickly. I have lived in this house with a broken dryer since May (through an Australian winter) and haven’t needed one yet. I like it for both the lovely smell, the fact that there is very little ironing to do, and for the environmental impact.
My dad sometimes hung his laundry; a chore that often fell to me. Nothing like the Mojave Desert to dry clothes!
But in Washington…?
It’s like Kingdom Of The Spiders. Anything that doesn’t walk around is likely to wind up with a web on it in short order. I use the dryer.
Despite all the affirmative answers from Americans here, Americans generally don’t hang their clothes out to dry especially outside. It has a stereotype of being something that only trashy people do and it is considered an eyesore and a pain. Even poor people in warm climates use dryers. I can’t remember the last time I encountered someone that hung up all of their clothes to dry. The only thing I have encountered a lot is separating out dedicates and drying them on a drying rack inside to keep them nice.