Saturday, June 4, 2011

Experiments in Air Drying

I think I MIGHT have mentioned the freakishly high temperatures we've been having. Just maybe. And that the AC runs all day, but it never gets below 80 in the house. So, I've been hoping for a break in the weather and have put off doing laundry because I really didn't want to heat the house up with running the dryer. Well, I just can't put it off any longer. And these temps aren't breaking.

I've always hung most of my work clothes up to dry and quite a few of our nicer clothes. They tend to last longer that way, and black doesn't fade as fast. Honestly, most of them are some sort of blend, so they do really well that way. I tend to just put them on hangers, hang them up over the shower curtain rod, and when they are dry, just pop them in the closets. No ironing required. That works for us.

I have never been a fan though, of air-dried towels, undies, sheets, towels, socks, etc. However, at this point I'm desperate enough to give it a try. I figure I'll air dry them and then pop them in the dryer for about 10 minutes after they are all dry and crackly to soften them up. However, that shower curtain rod isn't going to handle the weight of a full load of laundry (that includes jeans), so I need another solution. I just didn't see myself draping wet clothes all over my wood furniture. Clothes lines are not really an option where I live. So I dragged a plastic utility table out onto the deck and have laid the heavier clothes out there to dry. The shape of my house and the elevation makes to where the neighbors would have to really look hard to see it the clothes up there. So I'm testing out the air drying today on one load of clothes. I'll see how well the 10 minutes in the dryer works, and if it works well, I'm heading out tomorrow to buy an actual rack for this purpose.

Regardless of the outcome of this experiment, I don't see it becoming a  year round thing, as its kind of labor intensive. However, I can see it as a summertime thing. We will see how it goes.

2 comments:

  1. I air dry ALL the time :) This is what I use: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=clothes+drying+rack&hl=en&prmd=ivns&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1280&bih=591&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=2738252810582770200&sa=X&ei=IXbrTaOnIMi3tweZzaSYAQ&ved=0CJIBEPMCMAU

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  2. Okay, so I went out today and got a wooden rack --- need is immediate and it was within my budget. Well they don't make the wooden racks like they did when I was in college. It had little plastic joints. As soon as I put the thing together and added two articles of clothing. It collapsed. Yeah, that is going back to the store! If you can, send me that link in an email --- for some reason my computer isn't letting me copy and paste or link to it. Thanks!

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