Clothes Drying

[pennimania]

Drying rack thingies - I have 3- like the ones previously shown


hangers for school shirts - 10 of those a week

I dry stuff outside a lot too, must be a Scottish thing. Up here you often drive past a house with the same set of sodden washing hanging out for literally days and days

 

[whoha]

I used to hate that our clothes were drapped about the house when we were kids and everything stank of fags and cooking smells. I also leave washing hanging up outside for days on end and am nowhere near Scotland.I do use the tumble drier very occasionaly but only if im desperate .I tend to hang things in the airing cupboard and because the water comes on twice daily things dry quiet quickly.

 

[Shirl]

We have drying rack thingies but when my youngest son is home from uni he dries his washing hanging from our lovely oak beams, pisses me off no end

 

[Orang Utan]

We have drying rack thingies but when my youngest son is home from uni he dries his washing hanging from our lovely oak beams, pisses me off no end

Why?

 

[spanglechick]

hmm - so we don't have an airing cupboard or space for more than one clothes horse/airer thing. we have one and a half radiators with wire racks on them and radiator racks over the living rm door. sigh. we need a bigger place, apparently.

 

[Melinda]

Spangles, those airers have 20 metres+ hanging space. You mightn't need more than one?

How about a pulley system out the window? Old style?


Or one of those that stretch /retract over the bath. I cant describe it- I'll find a pic.

Here: http://www.minky.co.uk/index.php?page=product_details&cat_id=9&subcat_id=13&product_id=48

 

[geminisnake]

Up here you often drive past a house with the same set of sodden washing hanging out for literally days and days

That's not that's

I dunno why but I really dislike the idea of leaving washing out. I think I found insects in my mothers washing when I was younger or something. I won't leave anything out over night.

Shirl, slap him til he doesn't do it

 

[Shirl]

Why?

Cos the room is me favourite place and I spent shedloads on making it cosy, don't want his skanky undies hanging from the beams

 

[El Jefe]

even if i had a tumbledryer i wouldn't use it - instant shrinky-death to tshirts and the like

 

[pennimania]

That's not that's

I dunno why but I really dislike the idea of leaving washing out. I think I found insects in my mothers washing when I was younger or something. I won't leave anything out over night.

Shirl, slap him til he doesn't do it

Do you think that because maybe they died or something? I think it's the real old schoolies who do it.

I always try to bring it in as soon as it's dry because here it can all go horribly wrong in 5 seconds.

 

[Looby]

We've got a tumble dryer and use it far too much. Our garden is shit though, it's up a big, unsteady slope with an overhanging tree that makes hanging out washing a pain in the arse especially in the winter.

We don't really hang stuff in the house because it get's really damp anyway and I don't want to make it worse (landlady and agent asked me not to, I think it's in our tenancy). If we hang stuff inside it's just in the bathroom.

We do hang stuff out in the summer but I finish stuff like towels off in the dryer because they don't smell right otherwise and are too rough. Maybe if I used fabric softener it would sort that out but I've got really sensitive skin and haven't found one that doesn't affect me.

 

[red rose]

I don't have a dryer and use airers/radiators but the last place I rented had a combined washer/dryer which I used whenever I'd forgotten to wash something I really needed and occasionally if I got behind on my laundry and did a mega-wash of everything and ran out of space to hang stuff up to dry.

When I was living on the university campus and using the campus launderette I almost always used the dryers. This was because the washing machines were crap and barely cleaned the clothes (despite being fucking expensive ) and the dryers were the only way of making the clothes smell/feel nice. When I went home for the summer my mom insisted on washing EVERYTHING, even my 'clean' clothes because she said they smelled like a 'gypo'.

 

[nadia]

I put my washing out all year round when its dry. Used to have e tumble drier but lost it in a relationship breakdown

 

[sheothebudworths]

Do you have a bath, spangles?

I have an over the bath thing - you can get shit loads of stuff on to it and then from that I move things on to radiators and then as they dry, move more things from the line, so a whole load doesn't take long to dry at all.

Towels and bedding and jeans go over the doors.

 

[Geri]

I've got one of these:

which is next to the radiator in the kitchen.

You can get a lot of stuff on it.

In summer I put stuff on the clothes line outside.

 

[Ms Ordinary]

I use a spin dryer like this:

which takes about half a washing-machine load at a time, and spins out a couple of pints of water in about 5 minutes.

(I don't think your poll should lump spin dryers in with tumble dryers as they don't use anything like as much energy )

Then it gets draped over a wooden clothes airer / doors at the warm end of the house. Unfortunately this is either the living room or the littl'un's bedroom so its in the way for most of the week.

I'd really like a mangle though and one of those pulley things that comes down from the kitchen ceiling . When I was up a ladder putting the Xmas decorations up I really noticed how lovely & warm it is at the top of the room.

 

[idioteque]

'Fuck off dryer' LOL

I don't have a tumble drier, I use a clothes horse thing. I am really paranoid about what should and shouldn't go in the drier when I'm at my parents' house, because I shrank all of my t-shirts when I first went to university All I put in them now is bedsheets, towels, jeans and underwear.

 

[bi0boy]

I use the dryer always in the winter becasue like most English places the house likes to get damp and mouldy if given an opportunity.

In the summer they go outside unless I forgot.

 

[subversplat]

I'm a tumble dryer addict. I hate the planet

 

[subversplat]

Fuck sake. Just 8 minutes after posting that I accidentally ripped the door off of my tumble dryer Now I have a limping, half destroyed one!

 

[spanglechick]

Spangles, those airers have 20 metres+ hanging space. You mightn't need more than one?

How about a pulley system out the window? Old style?


Or one of those that stretch /retract over the bath. I cant describe it- I'll find a pic.

Here: http://www.minky.co.uk/index.php?page=product_details&cat_id=9&subcat_id=13&product_id=48

if you use all the bars on the airer, everything dries more slowly as less air can circulate. Our flat is quite cold and borderline damp.

Do you have a bath, spangles?

I have an over the bath thing - you can get shit loads of stuff on to it and then from that I move things on to radiators and then as they dry, move more things from the line, so a whole load doesn't take long to dry at all.

Towels and bedding and jeans go over the doors.

the bathroom is damp for most of the day - recovering from our showers. i'd be forever moving wet washing.

 

[mentalchik]

I have a dryer and use it when i have a lot of washing or for stuff like bedding and towels...the rest of the time i use an airer !

 

[Ms Ordinary]

Our flat is quite cold and borderline damp.

That really will make a difference - in my last place, clothes would start to smell mildewy by the time they were properly dry .

Opening all your windows - even if its just for 20 mins after you get home, or 20 mins before you go out - will help a bit. And squeegee-ing down your shower walls so the water goes down the plughole instead of evaporating into the air really does seem to help as well.

My (cold & dampish) bedroom is right next to the bathroom door so I am very strict about keeping the bathroom door shut & opening the bathroom window after showering to send the moisture out of the window and not into the bedroom.

Maybe a dehumidifier would help clothes dry quicker? I don't know what the running costs / energy usage is like though.

 

[sheothebudworths]

if you use all the bars on the airer, everything dries more slowly as less air can circulate. Our flat is quite cold and borderline damp.

the bathroom is damp for most of the day - recovering from our showers. i'd be forever moving wet washing.

My flat is cold and damp too...but I am both cunning and
anal, so I do alternate rows of big things (t-shirts etc) and small things (knickers etc) but yes, I do turn them as soon as the outer side is dryish.

And like I say, jumpers/jeans/towels would go over a door.

Then you use the radiators to dry the smaller stuff first, which creates more room on the airer and by the time it comes to dry the bigger stuff (when the small stuff is all done), they've already dried a fair bit anyway, so that you're not just making huge amounts of dampness to add to your existing damp!

Leave a window slightly open in the bathroom too.

I do anything from 4 to 7 loads a week this way.

 

[Orang Utan]

cunning and anal should be your new tagline

 

[sheothebudworths]

Maybe a dehumidifier would help clothes dry quicker? I don't know what the running costs / energy usage is like though.

Yeah - that's what I'm looking at getting...just for the damp in general, but apparently they dry your wet clothes out astonishingly quickly too!

But it looks to be at least £100, if not more, for a half decent one (£150 for the one I want).


I wonder about the running costs too though - particularly because the idea seems to be that you have them running pretty much constantly....

 

[sheothebudworths]

cunning and anal should be your new tagline

You're so right!
It would work so well with the old one!

 

[oryx]

I am both cunning and
anal

We hang stuff on the radiators or a clothes horse, & hang them outside in summer.

When I had a house with no central heating I really relied on the tumble dryer to dry sheets & towels & stuff.

The half-decent stuff I hung on a clothes horse in the spare room.

 

[feyr]

jeans, towels and undies get put on radiator in winter, and almost everything else goes in the dryer. in summer, everything gets put out on the line, apart from undies which go on a dryer rack in the bedroom. have tried not using the dryer in winter, but the radiators are small and we only have the heating on for a few hours a day, so not hugely practical. we also have mild damp in the house so dont really want to add to it!

 

[gentlegreen]

I live alone and my weekly wash consists of 7 tee shirts, 14 pairs of pants, 1 pair of socks and I even wash my combats occasionally, and towels annually.

I have a conveniently wind-swept bathroom so it all gets hung over the bath. In fact at the moment I don't have a washing machine so it gets "washed" in the bath too.

I don't heat my house so ther are no radiators - though over the hostilities I did actually light my gas fire and dried some things in front of it.