When I was a kid and still living with my parents, they would force me to hang up the washed clothes on a clothesline in the basement where the washer was. Hated it, and thought it was a mega waste of my time, considering how I still had to take the clothes off the hangers one by one after they finished drying, instead of in one giant bundle if I used the dryer instead.
Ever since I graduated high school and moved out, I’ve always used the tumble dryer, except for a few items of clothing too delicate for that.
Couldn’t vote because my answer is “about half and half.” Hawaii is very humid, so I certainly don’t need any extra humidity in the air, and hung clothes do take a long time too dry. But I prefer line-drying from an energy-saving standpoint, and I’m pretty sure my line-dried clothes last longer. (My drying rack is in a utility area, inside - outdoors would not work, it rains too frequently here except when the sun is so bright it bleaches everything.)
I can’t imagine drying towels and sheets without a tumble-dryer, though. The towels would mold before they dried, and hanging up sheets would be a PITA.
I love my dryer. I like my clothes soft and warm and I don’t buy anything that can’t be machine washed and dried. That said, my dryer went on the fritz yesterday and I was bemoaning the fact that I can’t do laundry when I realized that I could technically hang things to dry. However, how do you hang queen-sized sheets? They can’t go outside with my HOA (and it’s going to rain or snow anyway), If I put them on one of those racks they will be dragging and probably dripping on my floors not to mention that the cat will claw them to death, and although I have 3 spare bathrooms, there is not enough room to spread out 2 queen-sized sheets in any of them. If I hang them folded they will never dry. I can see hanging shirts and underwear but how do I do the big items?
I agree with those who don’t like the feel of line-dried clothes. I think my mother adds liquid fabric softener to the wash to compensate but I’d rather use the tumble dryer, where the clothes feel soft (and I don’t use dryer sheets).
Also, I’m in an apartment, and while I have an indoor drying rack, it’s only about three feet wide, so it’s impractical to line dry sheets and towels. And the sheets I wash in the morning are the same ones that are going back on the bed by day end, so I need them to be dry quickly.
On the chance that it was a serious question about drying sheets, I usually hang mine on the door if there is no room on the standing hanger.
I assume American washing machines also spin the clothes so they don’t come out dripping wet? Sheets are thin, so just leave it hanging over the door for a few hours, flip it to make sure the other side dries too, put them back on the bed. Another option that I’ve used for bedding is to clip it to a curtain rod instead of a curtain. I think you could even dry a dripping wet sheet that way as long as you put a tray underneath.
Does anyone have a humidity meter? I think it would be interesting to compare. I usually have 60-70% humidity, not ideal, I try really hard to get it under 60 to avoid mould. We always have laundry hanging in the living room; I do a small load every day and take it down from the hanger before hanging a new load. My parents did the same and their humidity was at 40%, so it seems to depend on local climate more than anything.
I hang or lay out a few delicate items to dry indoors, but I have never used a clothesline and never hung/laid an entire load of laundry. Wherever there has been a washing machine in my life, there has been a dryer right next to it (or on top of it), and I don’t like working harder than I have to on chores.
While I do hang sweaters to air dry inside, I’d rather wear clothes that were still dirty than wear clothes dried outside. Stiff, scratchy, and with a dusting of pollen several months of the year. No thanks.
New England is that humid indoors during the summer (and generally over 80% outside for the whole east coast except MD) but during the winter it’s half that. This room is currently 30% without a humidifier.
I air-dry my bras, but everything else gets machine-dried. The laundry room is across the hall and costs $1.75 per load.
When my brother’s two kids were younger, he proposed line-drying the clothes to save money on energy, and my SIL said, “Great! If you believe in it, you do it” and he did, and still does. The first month he did this, their utility bill went down $100 a month. He does like to tumble them for a few minutes to de-wrinkle them before putting them away.
I’m in the dislike-air-dried-clothes camp. Nice clean smell (sometimes, when actively malevolent plants aren’t shedding pollen all over them) is more than cancelled out by that horrible stiff, crunchy texture. Also more work/bigger PITA. Also not terribly possible where I currently live - it would have to be indoor only in a limited space and my cat would make it a different sort of PITA.
Nah, tumble dry forever. I will also no longer inhabit a living space that doesn’t have an in-unit washer and dryer. I also hate dragging my laundry to and fro from a shared laundry room or worse, laundromat. Yes, I am getting lazier in my old age.
We dry our clothes on a rack (similar to the one linked in the original post) and then put them in the dryer for ~10 minutes to soften them up. I wasn’t sure how to vote; we use our tumble dryer almost every time, but not really for drying purposes.
Never tried a clothesline, probably never will. I don’t like the outdoors, don’t care for the sun, don’t want to make the laundry into a day-long event, and tend to run the laundry at 10pm. So noperonie - I use the machine and it works jut fine.
That’s it right there. We have a clothesline in our yard, and the delicates go there, but we have Queen sheets and they are not going on any doors. Plus, we do laundry less than twice a week. If we did it frequently enough to have room to dry our stuff outside or inside, we’d be wasting more energy - and water - on small loads than we’d save on the dryer.
I wonder where the OP lives. We have near optimal conditions in the Bay Area, but still things don’t dry outside so quickly in the winter.
BTW, in Hong Kong most people don’t have dryers. We could see clothes hung out from the apartments visible from our hotel, and the park with the Temple next to the hotel had a “No Clothes Drying Here” sign - more properly, an icon with a hanger and a red stripe over it. Must be an issue.
There are two shared drying rooms in the basement of our building (8 apartments), with one dehumidifier. We use the drying rooms for our linen sheets, which don’t fit on a typical drying rack. This is according to the manufacturer’s recommendation.
We use the drying rack for bras, sports clothing and sweaters - basically anything which should not go in the dryer.
Jeans, tshirts, underwear, etc. go in the dryer, as do the towels.
Except when the dryer breaks (happened twice this year), and then we use the drying room for everything.
Since we’re both working from home, hanging up laundry is a a break from other work. We do not have a clothesline for outside, but have put the drying rack outside during summer.
Thanks a lot for the numerous and detailed answers! I see I am indeed in a minority position here. And I had never heard of using the dryer after the clothes have dried on the rack / the line for a couple of minutes to soften them! Makes sense, now that I think of it.
Berlin, Germany. But this is irrelevant, as I use the rack indoors.
I chose the middle option, but my answer depends on the season. I prefer to hang my laundry outside on clotheslines.
But not when it’s cold and the days are shorter, because things generally won’t dry fast enough. So these days, most everything goes into the dryer, but come spring, I’ll use the lines again. Except for underwear - not that I’m embarrassed, but it takes so long and so much space to hang it all (including socks) that it’s more annoying than necessary, so that always goes in the dryer.
Sheets, towels, socks and underwear all goes in the dryer on the appropriate settings. My golf shirts, wife’s blouses, blue jeans, legging pants, etc all get hung up while still damp (inside).
As a person who grew up, and currently resides in, humid Florida, this idea of a clothes line sounds so strange to me. Since I prefer that my clothes actually get dry, hanging them outside is never preferable to a dryer.
ETA: clothes that are too delicate to go through the dryer go to the professional cleaners, who also launder and press my dress shirts.
Understood! I’ll share an experience from the other end of the humidity spectrum.
When I was in the Corps and training in the desert, after coming back from the field but not yet back to mainside (so, still in the desert sand) at the end of the day I’d jump into the shower with my camouflage utilities on. Boots are removed. Soaking the utilities would wash off much of the sand and dirt. Then I’d hang them up to dry.
In the morning they’d be bone dry. I wouldn’t even have to wring them, I could hang them up sopping wet.
The first time I tried that I was flabbergasted that they’d dry out. But the desert air is so dry.
