How Long Should a Clothes Line Be?

You've decided to put up a clothes line. But how long should a clothes line be? You can use these handy tips to figure it out easily and have your clothes line up by the end of the day.

Overall Length

How long should a clothes line be depends on how often you do laundry. I use a 35 foot line because this holds up to 21 shirts and three pair of jeans with spare room, which is close to one month of laundry for a single person. I also use this length because it is long enough to hold five blankets or sheets lengthwise and four pillow cases when I wash bedding.

Positioning

Where you are placing the clothesline will also determine the length of the sections of line should you not have enough room for one long line. I have two sections, one is about 25 feet long which runs from the corner of the house to a nearby tree, while the other ten feet run from the same corner of the house to an opposite corner of the patio forming an "L". I used this layout because 25 feet was too short for me and there are no other trees near the house in my backyard. Positioning is an essential consideration. You want the line to be in an area where it will get good sunlight most of the day. You also want your line to be away from other obstructions such as bushes, seating areas, play areas, or burn barrels. Your clothesline should be allowed to hang loose enough where it will have the ability to give when the weight of wet clothing is hung over it. Tight clotheslines will eventually pull free of what is holding them, or break. I had this happen when the hook at one end came loose from the house and I found clothes on the ground still attached to the line.

Tying Off

Tying off your clothes line can be done in two ways. If you have a pulley system set up, you would run the line through each pulley and tie it together. Then you would hang the pulleys from hooks at each end. For this to work you need double the length when considering how long should your clothes line be because you actually have two lines. The second way of tying off your line is when you simply tie each end to a stable object. I have one end tied around a tree, then ran the line to a screw hook where I tied a knot, then ran the remaining line to another screw hook and tied it off in another knot. I did this so that there is enough relief from the middle knot so that that hook won't come loose.

Distance

Another consideration when thinking of how long should your clothes line be, is the distance from your house to the farthest end of the line. Carrying wet clothes, or racing to get clothes inside before a rainstorm makes you appreciate having the line as close to the house as possible. If you have a covered patio without walls, you can avoid both the distance problem and the positioning. Tie off one end of the line to a house corner, and then run the line to the beam support for the far corner of the roof, then back to the opposite corner of your house.

One last consideration you must remember is that clothes are wet when you hang them. Wet clothes are heavy and can pull down a clothes line which is too long, thereby hanging all the way to the ground. It is better to have two shorter sections. If you can find an old clothes pole, the old "T" style, you can eliminate this problem by installing the clothes pole about twenty feet from the house and having two lines.