Clothes lines

[demarco]

I imagine in most of the more northern parts of the world you'd wake up to clothes that were frozen solid.

Clothes dry as the freeze, that is they don't end up a solid lump of ice but just dry clothes (apparently the water freezes and the ice sublimates into water vapor and the clothes dry, or something like that).

That was never my experience.  I grew up in New England in a household with no dryer.  I can remember bringing frozen clothes off the porch and into the house, after an unexpected freeze.  They were wet when they thawed.  We had to haul clothes to the laundramat in the winter to avoid this. 

If I leave a wet facecloth in the freezer and bring it out to put on my head (migraine remedy) it's still wet when it thaws out. 

[Ms_Cellany]

We dry towels, bath mats and other heavy stuff outside. I've found if I put them in the dryer first for about two minutes before hanging to dry, they come off the line nice and fluffy and unwrinkled.

[Decimus]

NY, NY -- I've always used dryers.  Certainly there's no room in my apartment for one.  I'll hang very thin shirts in the bathroom to dry but everything else gets tumble-dried.

I find it efficient; I can take sheets off the bed, wash them, dry them, and put them back on two hours later.

[katycoo]

This thread is strangely fascinating.

At the risk of looking like a doofus, I'll be honest and tell you all that I have never, ever used a clothesline in my entire life. I don't even really know how. So I have some possibly naive questions for those who use a clothesline almost exclusively.

Drape clothes over line, peg to hold in place.  Remove when dry.  That's about it!

-How long do clothes typically take to dry indoors? What about outdoors? I know weather plays a huge factor in this, but I'm just looking for an approximation.

Indoors - overnight is usual.  Outdoors - a couple of hours if its sunny/windy.  Longer if its overcast and cold.  Putting it out in the morning and bringing it in in  the afternoon is common, even thought its probably been dry for ages. I haven't found fading to be a problem but I'd probably avoid leaving delicate items out too long.

-I noticed a few posters mention that they have clotheslines in their apartments. So, when you do laundry, do you have, say, ten shirts, seven pairs of socks, and nine underpants hanging in your living space? Or do you not wait until all your clothes are dirty to finally do a few loads of laundry (like me)?

I can fit a whole load onto my airer, which is a bit bigger than this:

-Does your wet laundry drip water onto your floors?

Nope.  After the spin cycle, enough water has been removed that it doesn't drip.

-Do you have to iron all of your air-dried clothing? Or do the wrinkles caused by the spin cycle magically disappear like they do when I use my dryer?

Depends on the item.  Business shirts, yes.  A lot of other things you can get away with.  If the item will flaten with my body heat after a few minutes I won't bother.  But its not as good a getting wrinkles out as a dryer.

I have more questions, but I'll stop there. It'd be super nice to be able to dry things in my apartment, so I'm really curious about anyone's answers.

Certainly socks and undies, fitted clothing and pyjamas you could do!

[Ms_Cellany]

If something ends up wrinkled, we run it in the dryer for a few minutes with a damp washcloth. Much easier than ironing!

[Ereine]

I imagine in most of the more northern parts of the world you'd wake up to clothes that were frozen solid.

Clothes dry as the freeze, that is they don't end up a solid lump of ice but just dry clothes (apparently the water freezes and the ice sublimates into water vapor and the clothes dry, or something like that).

That was never my experience.  I grew up in New England in a household with no dryer.  I can remember bringing frozen clothes off the porch and into the house, after an unexpected freeze.  They were wet when they thawed.  We had to haul clothes to the laundramat in the winter to avoid this. 

If I leave a wet facecloth in the freezer and bring it out to put on my head (migraine remedy) it's still wet when it thaws out.

Maybe it depends on the temperature or humidity or something? And maybe the clothes need longer time to dry, as far as I remember they freeze first and then they dry. Because it did work for us, though I can't remember if we did anything but sheets.

From Wikipedia:

Snow and ice sublime, although more slowly, below the melting point temperature. This allows a wet cloth to be hung outdoors in freezing weather and retrieved later in a dry state.

[WillyNilly]

I have lived in NYC my whole life.  As a kid we had a back yard but my dad thought a clothesline would make us look poor (we were poor but did well concealing it).  But we had open rafters in our basement ceiling and good ventilation (and a dehumidifier) so I would hang clothes on hangers from the ceiling.

Then I moved to an old apartment building with a line out our window across the ally.  I used it if it was warm & dry enough because I was still poor, but it was very heavy to bring home damp laundry the 3 blocks from the laundromat.

Now I live in an apartment without any lines out the windows (against he rules) and quite honestly I even if it did allow them I wouldn't use them as I'm on a busy street and I see the grime that accumulates on my window screens - I wouldn't feel like my clothes were very clean drying them out there.  I do hang some stuff on hangers from my shower rod though.

[Arianoor]

I imagine in most of the more northern parts of the world you'd wake up to clothes that were frozen solid.

Clothes dry as the freeze, that is they don't end up a solid lump of ice but just dry clothes (apparently the water freezes and the ice sublimates into water vapor and the clothes dry, or something like that).

That was never my experience.  I grew up in New England in a household with no dryer.  I can remember bringing frozen clothes off the porch and into the house, after an unexpected freeze.  They were wet when they thawed.  We had to haul clothes to the laundramat in the winter to avoid this. 

If I leave a wet facecloth in the freezer and bring it out to put on my head (migraine remedy) it's still wet when it thaws out.

Maybe it depends on the temperature or humidity or something? And maybe the clothes need longer time to dry, as far as I remember they freeze first and then they dry. Because it did work for us, though I can't remember if we did anything but sheets.

From Wikipedia:

Snow and ice sublime, although more slowly, below the melting point temperature. This allows a wet cloth to be hung outdoors in freezing weather and retrieved later in a dry state.

The humidity matters quite a lot.  I grew up in eastern Montana, we had freeze-dried clothing because the humidity was very low (the snow blew around like dust it was so dry), New England is much wetter.

I live somewhere where it rains eight months of the year, so a clothsline will only work in the depths of summer and I can't use one because of our HOA.   

[Brisvegasgal]

Thank you all...your responses have been very interesting! I live in a sub-tropical city where clothes lines in the backyard are the norm and drying is not generally a problem, so hearing about your experiences has answered a lot of my questions.  I never even gave clothes freezing a thought!

[camlan]

There's also the fact that it is somewhat difficult to hang up wet clothes while wearing gloves or mittens. And if you take the gloves off, then you are handling wet clothes in freezing temperatures and your fingers get really, really, really cold.

[Snowy Owl]

England here.  I live in a small flat in London with no outside space so no room for a clothes line.  I use the tumble dryer and it works pretty well.  I have a small clothes airer of the style dawbs uses and I use that to dry any hand wash items.  Everything else goes into the dryer.

If I had outside space I'd line dry things a lot more but that's less common in my part of London. 

[cicero]

American living in Israel. i live in a city that is hot in the summer and generally not too humid. winters are cold, rainy, and occasional snow. other parts of the country are more humid.

dryers became more popular here over the years - they are not too expenisve to buy but they generally run on electric (vs. gas) and cost a lot to run.

we have a dryer but haven't used it in years because of the expense. we have a foldable clothing rack that we keep on our balcony (I live in an apartment). there are units that put outside lines that run between two windows. in winter, we put the rack in the living room near the radiator and clothing dries quickly overnight.

[kckgirl]

I have a dryer, but only use it occasionally. I have two racks in my spare bedroom. One is similar to a closet rack, and I hang my shirts/pants/dresses on hangers, then on the rack. The other is similar to the one pictured above, where I hang socks, underwear, and towels. I have a small fan running in that room. The clothes dry faster, and the moving air helps the wrinkles smooth out a bit.

[Dazi]

I had clothes lines growing up and have an umbrella one now. The pollen has been too bad this year to use it.  When I do, I still chuck the clothes in the dryer for maybe 10 minutes to soften/fluff them up a bit and to remove any pollen.

I hang my delicate work shirts inside to avoid sun bleaching.  It usually takes overnight for them to dry.

I have seen several people with detachable clothes lines that they run in their garage...they just open the door part way for some good airflow and the clothes dry very quickly that way.

[Dindrane]

I have an odd washer/dryer combo. It does the wash okay, but because it's a steam dryer with no actual vent, it takes FOREVER to get anything dry, and everything ends up being incredibly wrinkled. The unit was free, and it beats using quarters in the laundry room of our apartment complex most of the time, but it is kind of a pain.

Partly because of that, and partly to avoid shrinking/wear and tear, I hang up most of my clothes to dry. There are a few things I'm okay putting in the dryer, but they mostly don't end up hang drying because I lack the space.

I have found that if I use hangers to dry my clothing, it's rarely wrinkled enough that I have to iron. It's never as crisp as if I had ironed it, but it's usually free enough from wrinkles that nobody is going to notice. I have also found that if I fold my pants-legs so that the creases down the middle are preserved, and then hang them upside down, gravity takes care of basically all the wrinkles and ironing is pretty much unnecessary.

I live in a relatively humid climate -- summers aren't super humid, although you'd never call them dry, and winters are very rainy. My clothes usually take overnight to dry, although my pants can take more like 24 or 36 hours to dry completely.  I often toss them in the dryer for 15 minutes if they are just a little damp to speed up that process (particularly if I need to wear them).  The only place I have to hang anything up is over my shower rod in an un-ventilated bathroom, so they'd probably dry faster if I had a better place to hang them.

The other advantage of hanging most of my stuff on hangers to dry is that, when it's time to put it away, I just have to grab the hanger and put it in my closet -- no folding or otherwise fussing with clothing necessary!