A Few Notes About Clotheslines

When I was growing up it was common to hang laundry outside to dry. I still remember how the clothes smelled fresh in a way they don’t coming out of a dryer. It was one of the simple pleasures I took for granted.

Today, in some neighborhoods, you’re prohibited from doing that. It seems some people in certain neighborhood associations feel that hanging laundry is a detriment to property values.

I think people had clearer heads way back when. Maybe it was the fresh air dried laundry.

Growing up, one of my chores was to hang out & collect the washing and I loved it. There were seasons when we couldn’t just because of weather, but as soon as it warmed up we never used the dryer. My grandmother also had a wall mounted drying rack near the wood stove that she used throughout the year.

I’m surprised to hear that clothes lines are sometimes associated with lower class living. Is it that people think of those photos of tenement living from the turn of the century? In my mind, it takes me back to rural landscapes and big back yards.

I have a clothes line. It is oddly satisfying!

Currently we live in a community that doesn’t allow clotheslines! I’m trying to figure out a way around it.

We lived in Alaska from 1967-69 while my dad was stationed at Elmendorf AFB. My mom did not have dryer, so she hung all Dad’s fatigues out on the line, even in the dead of winter! I remember those pants coming off the line frozen dry, so stiff we could stand them up!

Ditto on the pleasures of sun- and wind-dried clothes, towels and sheets. I like my towels not too soft, so really miss that wonderful smell!

JD, I’d like to see the post about taxes! Do share.

Deb (60)–Where I live HOA neighorhoods are more common than non-HOA ones, and the restrictions can get as weird and life-restricting as you can imagine.

Some don’t allow kids toys to be stored outside the house, one that I know of doesn’t allow cars to be parked in driveways overnight (MUST be garaged). And yes, some have language in the covenants that specifically prohibit hanging clothes out to dry!

It’s property values over people.

I’m in England, where it’s always raining, yet most people manage to air dry their clothes without a problem. Many people here grew up with one of these retractable dryers over the bath http://www.amazon.com/Whitney-15-7-Outdoor-Retractable-Clothes/dp/B0000BYDEA which are a space saver and keep the laundry out of the way.

Another great convenience are the high spin speeds of the front load washers here. Even better are the spin dryers, http://www.spindryers.com/ which I have never seen in the USA, but manage to wring practically every last bit of dampness out of your clothes.

Almost every house in the UK has an “airing cupboard” consisting of a small closet with wooden slatted shelves above the hot water tank, where towels and linens are placed in order to get the last bit of damp out of them for storage.

However, since moving to the UK and getting used to air drying, the best thing I’ve noticed is that I don’t have to buy so many clothes, because now they stay like new! Elastic waistbands stay springy, cottons don’t shrink and man-made fibers keep their shape when you kick the dryer habit. A big savings.

JD, if you’re not a fan of crunchy clothes, you could throw them in the dryer on the “fluff” or “no heat” setting for 5-10 minutes to soften them up some.

This has been one of the better articles lately. Thanks.

JD – I’ve been trying to figure out what is missing from your assistant blogger tryouts and I think I have it.

Your blog is about personal finance but when you write it is about personal finance for a reason. Money, financial independence, all of that stuff only matters if you are saving, being frugal for a reason. Your guest posters write clearly, have good ideas of subjects, and have their facts straight but whoever you pick will need to put all of that into a personal context to keep us interested. Why did the one poster want to get ahead so bad that he went into enormous debt? What gave him that kind of drive? Why save on children’s activities? Did the poster decide to give up a job to be home with her kids so money is tight? Is she wanting to save for their college since she wasn’t able to go? Can she give us an example where the kids enjoyed their free activities more than more expensive ones? And so on with the other posters.

You could have witten this post just about the economics of hanging out your clothes but you included a quote about the smell of freshly hung sheets, a picture that gives the feel of the color of clothes hanging on the line. And finally you tell us what you are going to do with that saved money.

Any of these potential assistants will do a good job but I’d advise you to coach whoever is picked on how to add context to their articles.

I don’t use a clothesline, per se. Nowhere to hang it, but I got a few tension fit shower curtian rods and made my bathroom dryer central. I do have to be careful or it can get musty in there, but that’s nothing 5 minutes with a portable fan can’t fix.

As a side benefit, my hubby’s work shirts are so much easier to iron.

I grew up in sunny San Diego, CA, where my family regularly dries our clothes on a clothesline. I live in MA now and in an apartment so I can’t do this anymore, but if I move back to SD, I will definitely go back to line drying. You do save a lot on electricity and it is great exercise. The clothes do get crunchy though and your darks fade faster, so there are some tradeoffs.

I just bought a house that has a clothesline pole – no actual clothesline. Until I can get clothesline put up, I’m calling it my stripper pole.

I just love the smell of sheets that have been hung out to dry.

I am impressed that clothes line drying and taking out a computer can make your electric bill cheaper. Was this a laptop computer or a desktop?

To those USAmericans living in home-owner associations that forbid outdoor clotheslines, now is a good time to get that rule changed. You are not helpless against the rules of your HOA. Rules can be changed. Go for it now while people are more conscious about money saving and energy saving. Beyond that, I believe all houses in an HOA would be big enough to find space for indoor drying. My house is 980 sq ft and it is not trouble to find space.

@KC #74: Your darks don’t fade if you dry ‘em inside. Line-drying is much better for your clothes than dryer-drying them (what do you think lint is? Little bits of your clothes!), so drying darks indoors is the best option of all.

As for crunchiness? I adjusted after the first load, and now I like knowing that my clothes aren’t disintegrating in the dryer, aren’t shrinking, aren’t losing elasticity, etc. I hang my JEANS to dry, for heaven’s sake, and I only noticed a difference for the first washing. You can make softness your god and “crunchiness” your enemy, but you’re not wearing clothes made of canvas and burlap, so how bad can the “crunchy” be? You can get used to a lot of tiny changes, and this is one with a big impact, both financially and environmentally. Clothes dryers are silly and wasteful, and it’s high time we stopped being such wasteful prisses.

@Kevin #83: Takes a little longer to dry, but you don’t have to check the weather reports, so it evens out. I hang everything inside, just for convenience and to avoid outdoor allergens. (For those worried about homeowners’ associations, it’s a great option — they can’t tell you what to do inside your home.)

People tend to throw up (emotional?) roadblocks about lack of space, either out of resistance to change or an unwillingness to sacrifice the (IMO, largely perceived) convenience of a dryer, but my home is not a large one, and clothes dryers are an anomaly in Europe, where dwellings tend to be significantly smaller than the U.S. average. It takes a little thought in smaller spaces, but people have been doing just fine for centuries, and I think there’s something telling in Europeans’ “um, why do you waste money on a dryer when you can just hang your clothes — are we missing something?” A clothes dryer is the third largest electricity-sucking appliance, and it’s an easy one to get rid of. Hanging clothes, like anything else, becomes second nature, and it’s really not a hassle. I’ll never go back to my dryer, which I expect to last me a REALLY long time since I use it about twice a year now (for guest linens). I’ve actually taken to storing my cleaning rags in it (hey, it’s wasted space!).

One caveat is this: large families need a more carefully thought-out plan, but can probably get pretty far with doing as I do: I stagger my loads, and just don’t have a dedicated “laundry day.” But I don’t know many parents of big families who knock everything out in a shot — it tends to be an ongoing thing, where you put a load in here and there as needed. And if you dry outside, which is faster, you can condense loads more.

I tend to toss a load in before bed and hang it sometime the next day, and I feel like laundry’s less of a chore now — I’m not a slave to the dryer buzzer and the folding, they fit into MY rhythms. I used to hate doing laundry, and avoided it whenever possible. Now, I do it in bits here and there, when I’m in the mood, and I really don’t mind doing it anymore. YMMV, of course, but I’d encourage even the reluctant to give it a shot — you can always go back if you feel that strongly about your dryer. And for the non-allergic among us, drying outdoors also comes with fresh air and sunshine, which are great mood-lifters.

The timing on this article was great! I just replaced the lines and a post for my clothes lines.

I must agree with many other commenters – I really enjoy the clean, crisp sheet smell!

Marie (#73) – I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve been hanging laundry for about 10 years and I’ve never had bird poop on it. Lots of birds in my neighborhood and yard (my dog does bark at them but they still visit my trees) but they leave the laundry alone. My sister has chickens and they sometimes try to roost on the clothes lines and cause a mess, but she just coops them now when she’s drying laundry and has no problems, either. Maybe it’s time to try again?

And I’d just like to second the suggestion that if you’re hampered by an HOA it’s time to try to change the rules. You might not succeed, but at least you’ll get people thinking about it.

I agree with the other australians; dryers are really uncommon here and considered very wasteful. I don’t think of the cost but the environmental factor. Even apartment buildings will have shared lines for residents use (though strangely my building does not and I have gotten sucked into using the dryer way more than I should).

Clothes also last much longer when you air dry them and I think it makes them (towels and sheets especially) seem extra clean when they’ve spent time in the sun.

Also in most buildings I’ve lived in people would bring in other residents laundry if it was about to rain and that was always a much appreciated gesture that helped build good relations with the neighbours (especially since a sunny day can easily turn into a torrential downpour that leaves your clothes so soaked you have to run them through the spin cycle again).

Savings sometimes come in unusual ways . . . the other benefit of hanging clothes is the fresh smell.

@Lesley #91:

“Our HOA does not allow clotheslines. And frankly, I’m glad of it … we live in a nice neighborhood, and that would look, well, tacky. Unfortunately, many people cannot be trusted to actually remove the clothes they are drying outside in a timely manner.”

There was a time that it wasn’t considered tacky — sensibilities have just shifted with the times. You’ll find that many (most, I’d say) clothesline-dryers enjoy the sight of clothes on the line, fluttering in the breeze. Yes, some people might leave their clothes out longer than you’d like, but where’s the actual harm? It sounds like you’re just being a bit of a snob, honestly. Clotheslines used to be all people had, and it didn’t do anything to property values….

“I bought a super-efficient washer and dryer last year. They are LGs. I saw both my electric and water bills drop. Plus, I pull most of our cotton and cotton-blend clothes out of the dryer while still damp, to save the fabrics. I hang them on a spare rod in the garage, where they dry quickly. I’m sure that helps minimize the electricity usage.”

A super-efficient energy hog is still an energy hog — washers and dryers are behind only refrigerators on the list of energy-suckers. Reducing your dryer’s energy usage is all well and good, but when the alternative is eliminating it? You’re still being wasteful.

“I’m very frugal in many areas … but not this one. Crispy clothes do not sound appealing.”

Have you ever tried line-drying? It sounds as though you haven’t (“crispy,” “do not *sound* appealing”). You can’t really make a comparison, now can you? I line-dry my jeans, even, and I only noticed a difference in the first wearing. I think people who don’t line-dry make a big deal out of the “crispy” to justify being wasteful. You’ll notice that the line-dryers don’t think the “crispy” is particularly noticeable — because it truly isn’t. It’s a little different, yes, but so is switching to a different brand of sandwich bread, and people generally don’t find that a hardship. We don’t like change, but we get used to all sorts of little changes, and this is one with a big fat benefit associated.

People make way too much of the “crispy,” and are a) missing out on sunshine, energy savings, and longer life for their clothes, and b) needlessly wasting resources that belong to us all.

Too avoid stiff and crunchy you really need to give everything a good shake and snap. It even helps with the towels. I never have a wrinkle in any of our clothes and they are not crunchy. Different from the dryer, but they all look like they were ironed.

People need to get over their “nice neighborhoods” and what “tacky” supposedly is. There is more to life. All of my appliances are energy efficient, and I still line dry, as tacky as that may be.

@#97 TWoP Fan: It also works with white vinegar, and smells less funky when you’re putting it in. I’ve not tried cider vinegar, but it smells worse, to me, than regular vinegar.

In any event, honestly? I’ve tried using vinegar as softener, and it just didn’t make enough of a difference to warrant it — I think the important thing is to make the minor adjustment to less-floppy clothes, and you can avoid ALL additives (which all cost money and resources).

People need to actually give it a shot — sure, “crunchy” and “stiff” SOUND scary, but once you actually try line-drying, you realize that they’re just the easiest words to describe the difference, not an indication that line-dried clothes can, like, stand up on their own, or be used to hammer nails, or something. Try it, then if you still can’t handle the MINOR (and it really is) stiffness, go back to the dryer, but it drives me INSANE when people make up their minds based on…nothing. It’s like deciding a different brand of ketchup is no good when you’ve never tried any brand but yours. Different, cheaper, more environmentally-responsible ketchup could also taste better — you can’t possibly know until you try. For a site called Get Rich Slowly, what better experiment? I know for a fact that my clothes last a LOT longer since I quit dryer-drying them.

It’s been said earlier but here in Australia clotheslines are the rule rather than the exception. I don’t own a drier and don’t really have any desire for one. I enjoy hanging the clothes out in the sunshine (which admittedly we have for all but a week or two a year) and in summer things like thick towels will dry in a matter of minutes. I don’t find my clothes get stiff at all – if your washer has a proper spin cycle then this shouldn’t be a problem.

Also, line drying clothes is better for them (makes them last longer) and drying in the sun also makes your whites whiter (my sheets are blindingly white) as it acts as a natural bleach.