Comments on: The Fine Art of Line Drying Laundry

By: Shelby

Shelby — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 17:24:52 +0000

For towels, try the “air” setting on your dryer for 10-15 minutes. It’ll work out the stiffness without wasting the electricity of heating.

I find it helpful to turn pants (especially jeans) inside-out to speed-up the drying of the pockets.

BTW, if you’re in a yard and misjudged your load and can’t fit it all on the line, why not just “grass dry” a couple of light things. I find that laying a light shirt or a couple pairs of underwear on the grass dries them just fine. Now, do be sure to shake them out when you pick them up, you don’t want any critters in your clothes. (I imagine the success of this varies based on the type of grass you have, here in Florida the St. Augustine variety of grass is so thick my clothes never get anywhere near the dirt of the ground)

By: Mary Tsolak

Mary Tsolak — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:20:04 +0000

Actually my cousin line drys stuff – in Wisconsin in the winter with snow on the ground. It does get dry even when the temp is around freezing.

By: Kathy

Kathy — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:26:34 +0000

Why not do both? It speeds up the laundry if you line dry some items while you’re spinning others. I usually put large items like bed sheets outside, and smaller items like socks and towels in the dryer.

I’ve always had clothesline poles in the yard. I always keep them painted and the lines well maintained, and I’ve never heard anybody say they made my yard look bad. I think they give my yard an old fashioned homey look.

By: Barbara Maloney

Barbara Maloney — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 00:24:02 +0000

My towels are very stiff when I line dry them. I use fabric softerner in the wash. Any suggestions?

By: amyhmt

amyhmt — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:02:41 +0000

i love this article! i’ve been line drying with indoor clothes racks since college. i hate having to wait for the dryer to finish at laundromats. by line drying, i only spend at most an hour doing laundry (1/2 hour for the washer and at most another 1/2 hour to hang them up), and then i am free to play.

By: fathersez

fathersez — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 10:44:28 +0000

We put the clothes on hangers and then hang them to dry.

It’s easier to take out if there is sudden rain as it happens often here.

Cheer

By: Barbara

Barbara — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 16:52:56 +0000

My mother was a MASTER clothesline dryer. We lived in a second floor apartment and she had a relatively short line tied from the old wooden hand rail of a very small porch to a not-so-distant tree. Her line had a pulley setup since she wasn’t standing on the ground. As a child I’d watch her pull her clothes in and out and be TERRIFIED that she’d lean too far over the rail and fall to her death all because of a brown sock that probably had an incipient hole in it.
What fascinated me about your post was that all of your suggestions were practiced by mother. Every one. Here’s another my mother would have loved to pass on to you – when you’re drying a tee-shirt and don’t want the shoulder “nipples” left by a hanger or clothespin marks on the bottom of the shirt, fold the shirt at the underarm over the clothesline and fasten the clothespin to the underarm of the shirt. As the shirt dries, move the pin around a bit so the whole area gets dried.
A warning -if you live in an area that has Japanese beetles and you iron your shirts, always check the pockets for their presence. They make a most unsettling “crunch” when you iron over them.

By: thomas

thomas — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 03:24:16 +0000

Yeah, this doesn’t work in the Pacific Northwest…

By: Grant

Grant — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:28:13 +0000

Another thing to keep in mind is to beware of pollen and allergens. There are some times of year where drying clothing outside may not be the best of ideas.

By: SimplyForties

SimplyForties — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:36:20 +0000

Okay, I’ll be the lone voice of dissent. I hate the look of a clothes line in the backyard and I hate the look of the clothes on the clothes line in the backyard. I love the “idea” of line drying but in reality, the esthetics of it are problematic for me. I guess I’m only a “fair weather” green, frugal person!!

By: Funny about Money

Funny about Money — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:11:11 +0000

Personally, I think hanging your laundry is SO much less work than wrestling with a dryer!

In the first place, you have to hang your shirts anyway. If you dry them on plastic hangers, all you have to do is lift them off the line and hang them in the closet.

In the second place, the dryer likes to wad up and tangle sheets, so that when you go to take them out what you find is a ball of wrinkled cotton that’s still damp on the inside. Now you have to untangle a mountain of cloth, fight with the stuff, and chuff it back into the dryer. Come back another 15 or 20 minutes later, and lo! It’s all wadded up again. THIS is convenience???

And in the third place, I can’t think of anything much nicer than silence the silence of line-drying clothes. NO ANNOYING BUZZERS blatting at you every few minute while you’re trying to get through some other chore. To me, it’s a lot less hassle to leave the clothes on the line until I can take them in at my convenience than to have to drop what I’m doing every 20 minutes to run off and tend to the dratted clothes dryer. Hate that thing. Love the clothesline.

By: Personal Finance Firewall

Personal Finance Firewall — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:49:32 +0000

My family line dried as a kid. We lived in a dusty area so we had to dry then rush to get everything off before they got dirty again when the wind picked up. There are some things my wife just wont give up, and a dryer is one of them. I tried to get her to use homemade laundry detergent too, no way…

By: carla

carla — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:08:02 +0000

We try to do as much line drying of our clothes as possible. During the rainy season, we hang all of our clothes in an empty close (but use the dryer for sheets and towels)

The vinegar in the wash works wonders!

By: Diane

Diane — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:55:36 +0000

I use a drying rack in my garage (laundry room) for heavy items or hang some from hangers.

When they are almost dry I toss them in the dryer with a damp towel & 1/2 dryer sheet for a few minutes. This softens & gets wrinkles out quickly & saves dryer time.

This also saves wear & tear on lighter weight items as they don’t go in the dryer with jeans & heavier things.

By: Betsy Bargain

Betsy Bargain — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:49:15 +0000

I live in dry, sunny Southern California, so I never have any problems with mold when drying my clothes in the house. I use a drying rack, and I hang my tshirts and blouses on plastic hangers. Then I can just hang them right in the closet when dry. Air-drying also keeps my already-snug tshirts from shrinking any more! I do like to put jeans and towels in the dryer for a few minutes before air drying, to prevent that “crunchy” feeling.