Clothelines: Recession Proof Your Laundry

The dryer is one of the biggest energy users in the home. During this recession, we should take a long hard look at our dryer usage. A few decades ago, people thought nothing of hanging clothes out to dry. So why not now? Why not have a resurgence of clotheslines populating the neighbor? Hanging clothes to dry has several advantages--in addition to saving money and going green. Learn why it makes sense to bring back the clothesline, clothespins, and sheets flapping in the breeze.

Clotheslines Instead of Dryers

The cost of running a load of clothes through a commercial dryer is about $2 per load--more if you count anti-static dryer sheets. The cost of hanging clothes on the clothesline is zip. If you use a commercial dryer once per week for a year, you've saved over a hundred dollars on just one load per week. Most of us wash several loads of laundry in a week's time. Whether we use our own dryer or we pay at the laundry mat, we spend a bundle for drying clothes in a dryer. Imagine the savings over a year, if we refuse to use the clothes dryer.

Drying Methods Then and Now

Can you remember your grandma hanging her clothes outside to dry? If you are old enough, you can remember hanging your own laundry out to dry. Those were the days when we avoided displaying underwear for all to see. We would tuck those garments in between shirts and sheets--out of sight. Those were the days when most homes had clotheslines, and clotheslines were put to use.

Today, you seldom see a clothesline. That may be due in part to homeowner association covenants. But covenants say nothing about putting up a wooden rack inside the home. Clothesline use may be outdated or even banned in certain places, but air-drying will never go out of style. Hanging clothing in fresh air to dry is the way it's been done worldwide for ages. So why not make it fashionable again where we live?

Clothesline Advantages

The smell of air-dried laundry is clean and fresh. There's no dryer shrinkage, no static electricity or snagging from tumbling against other clothing, no need for dryer sheets, no need to empty the lint trap, and there's no chance of a dryer fire from lint building up. Essentially, the lint in the dryer is nothing more than clothing wearing out faster.

Line-drying clothing in the sunshine offers two additional advantages. Sunshine is a natural sterilizer and a natural whitener.

If you don't like that rough feel of line-dried clothing, you could tumble-dry your fabrics for a few minutes in the dryer to soften them.

We may need our dryers every now and then, but our dryers don't need to do all the work of drying. Air-drying is productive and free. It won't shrink or snag fabrics, won't cause static cling, won't cause a dryer fire, and air-drying saves energy and money. Are you ready to hang your next load of wet laundry?