I am the doer of laundry in this house. The main reason being that several of my clothes do not go in the dryer because the garment either specifically says so or I don’t want it to shrink because the size I bought fits perfectly. So instead of explaining this all to Sustainable PF and giving him new instructions with every new garment purchase, it just made more sense for me to do laundry! And so I use a drying rack, the shower rod, the back of a chair, whatever is necessary to dry all the garments for that particular load. Although this may seem like more work for nothing drying my clothes this way is actually elongating the life of my clothes not to mention lessening the amount of time I need to dryer to run.
Check out our 365 Green Tips Series!
Yeah, I can’t wait for it to stop snowing here so I can finally put out my umbrella-style clothes dryer for the season. It’s true that clothes last a lot longer when they’re not put in a dryer — I never owned a dryer until a couple of years ago, and I still have some clothes I bought in the 1980s that are in great shape and show almost no signs of wear despite the fact that I wear them regularly.
A good way to get an appreciation for how much energy a dryer uses is (if you have an electric one) to go outside and compare how fast your electricity meter spins before you turn on the dryer versus once the dryer is turned on. The contrast is sobering.
The only drawback I’ve found to line-drying is that clothes are more likely to require ironing, especially to remove the fold line where you draped it over the line and attached it with clothespins.
I love hanging my clothes. It’s such a great way to dry clothes and its saves electricity. I’ve had to dry them inside this week because it was so windy over the weekend it tore my clothesline! (It was a piece of rope tied to the fence)
The earth provides us with the sun and the wind, so we should use it to our advantage.
I used to be a religious clothes dryer… my clothes never saw the dryer, until we bought a house and DH discovered he could launder my clothes in the lowest possible setting… and he even brainwashed me into trying that. 2 loads of my nice stuff later,I learnt what a bad mistake that was. My jewel colored blouse isn’t jewel colored anymore. it’s a sad jewel colored blouse. so is my levi’s olive green blouse. Though I didn’t pay much much and came brand new from thrift store, I regret to see them like this. Now we are back to hanging them dry.