Every so often I like to take a look at what I'm doing to keep our household bills in check. In particular, I like to see if some of the old-time frugal choices would make sense in my modern world.
Today I'm looking at hanging laundry to dry. Before you totally check out of this conversation, consider if there is a place for this choice. Give me your thoughts, so I can understand where hang-drying might work and might not.
Okay, so the pros:
- energy/cost savings
- gentle on fabrics
- if outdoors, natural whitening
- fresh scent (although I argue this, as I don't care for the smell of outdoor dried fabrics)
- fewer wrinkles
And the cons:
- weather dependent, not just outdoors, but indoors if you live in a damp climate and don't heat your home very much
- time-consuming, both in the work involved in hanging to dry and the time to actually dry
- texture and stiffness, especially with towels and other items like baby diapers
- color fading for non-whites
- risk of shape distortion
- you need enough of each item to use while similar items are currently drying
- pollen, birds, and dust issues
- HOA bans on outdoor line-drying
- if drying indoors, you need a space to put up a line (basement?) or racks
- a member of the house objects, for whatever reason
Fortunately, we have choices. This needn't be an either/or proposition. There are ways to implement hanging laundry to dry for some pieces while tumble-drying the rest.
Who remembers their grandmother or mother hanging unmentionables and hosiery over the shower rod above the bathtub? Both my mother and grandmother did this. I just grew up seeing underwear and stockings hanging in the bathroom. While my grandmother also had an umbrella-style clothesline in the side yard for hanging other clothing to dry, my mother used the tumble dryer for everything except delicate fabrics and clothing that might shrink in the dryer. My grandmother eventually got a tumble dryer. However this was long after her children were grown and out of the house. My mother had a tumble dryer fairly early in my parents' marriage.
For myself, I've used both hang-drying and tumble drying. In the early years, I hung dry all of our laundry -- diapers, towels, sheets, everything. I did this out of necessity. When we had more wiggle room in the budget, I began to use a dryer more. Even with a dryer, I've always hung delicate fabrics to air dry.
In the last few years our electricity bill has really jumped. At the same time, our natural gas bill has also surged. The rates of both have increased enough to make us uncomfortable with our bills. For the record, we use natural gas to heat the house and cook on the stovetop and electricity for everything else.
So I've been considering hang-drying some of our laundry, but not all by any means, in order to off-set the cost of using a space heater in the family room a couple of times per week when we're all gathered together. I calculated that if I hang 3 loads of laundry to dry each week, I can use the 1500 watt space heater to boost the indoor temperature in our house for 6 hours. In this scenario, I don't gain anything financially by hanging laundry while using an electric space heater for a few hours each week. But we are more comfortable for those hours of extra heat.
So far this week, I've hung dry 2 loads of clothing and dish towels. I use indoor racks. The limitations: There's only so much space on those indoor racks. It's a rainy week and no possibility of drying outdoors. The air is damp and some things don't dry very fast. For this week's rack-drying, I've chosen loads that contain lightweight clothing or dish towels. I've been running the laundry through one extra spin out after a cycle completes, and this seems to get just a little more water out of the fabric. And our racks are currently in the kitchen. When I have hung and dried my 3rd load of the week I can put the racks away until next week. In the meantime, they're moderately in the way.
I'll add that I am continuing to tumble dry sheets, towels, jeans, and thick items like terry or fleece bathrobes, plus any clothing a specific family member wants dried in the dryer.
So far it hasn't seemed like too much extra work to hang just a couple of loads per week. I'm experimenting with this for the month. If I make it through November, I'll assess whether or not this was worth it in exchange for the extra heat. It has always bothered me that in winter we heat air for the dryer just to send that air outdoors through an exhaust vent.
So give me your thoughts on hanging dry vs tumble dry.
- Would it be a good trade for you to have a slightly warmer house for a few hours each week if you hung 3 loads of laundry weekly?
- Are there some situations that you choose to hang some of your laundry to dry?
