10 September, 2017

Drying Laundry


My niece just moved back to the states after living in Singapore for the last year and a half. She brought back a folding laundry rack cuz no one uses/has a dryer over there. Nor does much of the world. But, here in the states, we all have electric clothes dryers.

After my trip to Japan two years ago, I lusted after a simple drying solution. But all the outdoor drying tools in the USA were permanently attached to your house or inconveniently placed as an umbrella in the lawn. All vetoed by the other person in the household.

All amazon sells is the tiny version of the foldable rack above - suitable for drying lightweight items like lingerie.

I was raised to be environmentally conscious. I compost, re-use what I buy for other purposes, try to keep my (destined-for-the-landfill) garbage to a minimum and generally leave the planet a better place for my children.

So I wanted this foldable, small footprint rack above bad enough to beg my friend in Kyoto to send me two. They are each big enough for a medium load of laundry.

In Singapore and Japan, they also have rods across their patios for hanging big stuff and these racks just hook over them.
I still want to install a big rod across my patio  but I have found a way to use these racks year-round just by hanging it off my kitchen chair.

What I have found in nearly two years of using them?
1. My knit tshirts stay long and no longer shrink "up".
2. Less pilling and everything lasts longer.
3. duh - less energy usage.
4. In the summer, most items are dry by the end of the day. In the winter, inside my house, they are dry in less than two days.
5. Planning ahead if you want to wear that favorite shirt/shorts on a certain day skillset.
6. I still have a dryer for emergencies.
7. In my two person household, in the winter, I use the dryer once a month for sheets and towels. In the summer, they go outside.
8. With my auto-immune bloating tummy, I love the fact that my tshirts stay the original length still.
9. It only takes 5 -10 minutes to clip everything on to the rack.
10. Pencil Girl asked if clothing got musty in the winter and I haven't found it to be so.

This very quickly became my routine and I don't really think about doing it differently.
It's easy to do - my first indicator of success.





Can't recall if I showed pictures of the two planes in the hangar. Still doo-hicking around with the J-5. Still hasn't gone on it's maiden voyage.
And the big old Stearman biplane.

Hope you hop over to my IG feed - RocketGirl50. I just figured out how to use my gorilla tripod to take a video of me skinning tomatoes. Exciting times, I tell you.

9 comments:

  1. My clothesline was a Mother's Day gift from my husband and sons, almost 10 years ago when the then-premier of Ontario lifted bans on outdoor clotheslines. Lots of towns (including mine) and subdivisions had banned them because they were "unsightly". Imagine! I love mine - it goes from my house to the back of my yard, and I use it from about April through October or November, depending on weather. I never line dry towels because I don't like how crunchy they get - everything else is fair game :) I will admit publicly that I'm the queen of the "rain game" - sometimes I don't bring my laundry in promptly and it gets rained on - it isn't summer until my clothes have had to dry twice outside, haha :D I'm glad you've found a workaround and can enjoy line drying :D I don't know how your laundry room is set up, but in mine, I have a shower curtain rod permanently installed above the washer/dryer so I can hang things on hangers as they come out of the washer - I do that year round :D Right now my aquafit towel is draped over the rod, and my swimsuit is hanging beside that, on a plastic hanger :) LONG LIVE CLOTHESLINES and air drying our bits and pieces!

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    1. I have cupboards above my w&d, so I wouldn't be able to open/shut the cupboard doors. I could use the shower curtain rod in the bathroom....

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  2. I also line dry in and outdoors. I've found a fan very helpful indoors in our humid climate.

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  3. I'm a big hang dry fan as well. On wash day, my laundry room looks like a yard sale! I am fortunate to have lots of hanging space, and since the air is dryer here, things dry quickly. So many have no idea how destructive the dryer is to clothes. I'm looking for an antique drying rack that hangs on the wall. They fold down and look more like an art piece, but when in use, the sticks fan out and give lots of room for hanging. Love the Sherman BTW 😊

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    Replies
    1. In england, older places have the rack that is hung from the ceiling. It can be lowered by use of pulleys and then raised up again.
      Finding anything in the states is difficult.

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  4. Somehow I stumbled on a British on-line seller with the best drying racks, hanging from the ceiling, mounted on walls, etc. I'm blanking on the name, but as I recall it was sort of a pun....it may come to me in the night.

    Lacking all that, I have a rod mounted in a door way that things on hangers can dry on, and a web of clothes line over the washer/dryer that things can hang from. As everyone says, the clothes last longer....

    ceci

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  5. I have the Victorian style pully drying thingy, it's great! We have a covered patio so can at least partially dry stuff outside all year. I get really fed up with handing up the small stuff- I got a couple of yards of camping elastic - folded it half then wrapped the two halves around and around each other so they were twisted. Then I tied a knot in the ends. I looped this around two uprights (that hold the patio roof up) and joined them by putting the knot through the loop at the opposite end (following?) now I can easily shove a bit of each small thorough a twist and a few hours later grab handfuls of socks, pants (remember I speak English English!) and flannels/face cloths and yank them off the line - and no matter how strong the wind is ive never lost anything!

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  6. Well done on finding a solution. Even though we have a clothes dryer, I never, ever use it. My husband, does, though, but only for his clothes. Everything else I hang up outside on lines that are permanently attached to the house and a metal pole several metres away. If it's raining, I hang them up on foldable racks inside the house.

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