I assume this is a problem anyone with a clothes dryer has experienced. You wash your sheets, put them in the dryer and, when the cycle is done, you take the sheets out only to find they have all managed to wrap themselves (and anything else in there) into a tight wad akin to a bowling ball and nothing is dry.
Is there any way to stop this from happening? I’ve Googled this and found many answers and some gizmos for sale but I figured it was best to ask here to see what worked.
I only need to wash a single set of sheets and pillow cases at a time and they never bell up. I suspect they need lots of room to tumble.
The only sure answer I’ve found is to wash them alone. They’re just big (queen size bed at home) and for the fitted sheet, designed to contract a bit.
So when I wash them, it’s just the two sheets, no pillowcases or anything else.
ETA - Simulpost w/@running_coach, his post popped just as hit enter!
We have a set of balls slightly smaller than a tennis ball with 1/2 inch nubbins projecting from the surface. They toss around in the dryer, keeping clothes from bunching up. They work (I think).
I have the same problem, but I didn’t used to!
We moved into an apartment, which came with a set of smallish capacity apartment sized clothes washer & dryer. Before that, we had lived in a condo with our own purchased large capacity washer & dryer. So, I observe that this is a problem with small capacity dryer drums, and is less likely to occur with large capacity dryer drums.
Seems to me we discussed this in another thread fairly recently. Yes, it does happen in those big commercial dryers too, like you see in laundromats.
The commercial front-loading washers in laundromats prevent the problem by reversing direction every few minutes. Why can’t they build the dryers to do that too?
The solution the I and several others suggested was simply to open the dryer every few minutes and rearrange the stuff inside. That, of course, requires that you be in attendance the whole time. It’s a PITA.
When I got my first frontloader washer, I read every speck of information I could find. Sheets have a great misfortune of wadding and twisting in a FL washer. Experst suggest you take each sheet separately, and roughly scrunch in accordian-style like a snake. Then loosely shape the snake into a big “N” (or “Z”, if you are backwards) before placing the sheet in the washer.
Do that with each sheet.
It does help. Stuff will get pretty twisted anyway, but at least everything is clean!
Because of time constraints, most of us tug the clean laundry out of the washer and shove it into the dryer. If you are laundering clothes, that’s okay.
Sheets from a frontloader? Definitely NOT okay. Because they are from a frontloader, they are kinked and almost knotted. And the pillowcases plus any extras like washcloths or undies are wadded up and packed deeply into the pocket of a contour sheet. Then the sheet is twisted and knotted.
It’s a genuine pain in the ass, and I know you already have so many things to take care of, but you really really REALLY need to untwist, unknot, and untangle the sheets and approximate the big “N” (or “Z”) you did before washing.
It’s still better than pounding clothes on the rocks of a creek…
~VOW
My sheets have instructions to ONLY use a frontloaded washer. I have no idea why and it seems a weird restriction. I happen to have a frontloaded washer but I can say with certainty I would ignore that instruction if I had a top-loader and would wash my sheets in there anyway (there really would be no other choice).
Scofflaw.
I use three tennis balls. It helps some. Lots of times I still have to unroll the fitted sheet from around other things. The flat sheet doesn’t get caught up for some reason.
Tennis balls work well for fluffing up a comforter, too.
Toss in 3 or 4 tennis balls .
Works for me.
That is a weird restriction. I’m curious; what brand are the sheets? I want to see if the website explains any further.
I found that small items like underwear or socks get trapped in the fitted sheet pockets, so if possible, I put only bath towels in with the sheets and pillow cases.
I cannot find where I read that for my sheets (I tossed that stuff long ago) but here is one example of such an instruction (NOTE: I do not own this product, just an example):
- Use front-load commercial grade washer and dryer. Machine sash cold separately with similar colors. Delicate cycle. Use only non-chlorine bleach if needed. Tumble dry low. Use garment steamers if needed. SOURCE
Thinking more about it I cannot fathom a reason to demand a front loader washer. I am willing to bet someone just wrote it that way with no particular reason for it.
Just guessing, here, but …
Here’s a Consumer Reports ‘con’ about top loaders (old school, with an agitator):
So maybe your sheets’ manufacturer has either seen premature wear issues with top-loaders or is concerned that they could.
How about not using a dryer at all? Sheets dry really quickly when hung outdoors, even under cover. They also last longer, and feel nicer if you make the bed with them immediately after!
I live in a hi-rise so I cannot do that.
Around here, older unit blocks have a yard with a rotary clothes line, and newer ones at least a balcony per unit where you can hang out washing. Nothing like that there?
Aside from it being pollen season where I live (so doesn’t seem wise for someone with allergies to hang bedding outside), some apartment complex leases (such as mine) prohibit hanging laundry.
I’d heard about such things (this is in the US I guess?) but wasn’t sure how widespread they are. Is the rationale really just appearance, as I’ve heard? Not that I see what’s wrong with the look of hanging sheets …
For me that would be a deal-breaker, for a start I don’t even own a dryer and hope to never have one ever again!