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MHCLyons
Citizen
Username: Hamandeggs
Post Number: 250
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, April 16, 2006 - 12:11 pm: | 
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My husband and I are trying to figure this out. How much is saved per load of laundry NOT dried in the dryer? What are the environmental benefits -- tiny, worthwhile, lots? I am loyal to my clothesline, but am wondering about it. We have a LOT of laundry flapping in the breeze... |
fiche
Citizen
Username: Fiche
Post Number: 119
Registered: 3-2002
| | Posted on Sunday, April 16, 2006 - 2:24 pm: |
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I don't know the answers to your questions, but I do know that the smell of laundry dried in the breeze is wonderful. However, I have read many cautions about drying laundry outside if you have allergies. It seems that the clothes, sheets, etc. pick up the pollen and then you are wearing and sleeping upon pollen laced material. |
Eponymous
Citizen
Username: Eponymous
Post Number: 180
Registered: 6-2004
| | Posted on Sunday, April 16, 2006 - 9:40 pm: |
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MHCLyons,
What's the problem with line-drying? If you're loyal to your clothesline, who cares about the alternatives? Obviously they use gas or electricity and your way doesn't.
Up until what, 50 years ago?, everybody dried on clotheslines or in the warm kitchen or by the furnace, I suppose. |
Crazy_quilter
Citizen
Username: Crazy_quilter
Post Number: 265
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, April 16, 2006 - 10:06 pm: |
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I'm hearing the MCHLyons may be getting a little tired hanging out the laundry. what about getting a dryer and still putting some things out on the line? I used to line dry child #1's cloth diapers, but other things went in the dryer. hmmmmm, child #2 hasn't gotten much use out of those diapers.... |
MHCLyons
Citizen
Username: Hamandeggs
Post Number: 251
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 5:55 am: |
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Yes, the problem with linedrying is that it's heavy and it requires weather-related planning. There are 5 of us, so there's quite a bit of laundry. I guess I'm wondering what it costs to run the dryer for an hour both in terms of $ and environmentally. I'd like to think about what I'm saving! |
thegoodsgt
Citizen
Username: Thegoodsgt
Post Number: 956
Registered: 2-2002
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 7:35 am: |
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Line drying was very popular when I was a kid, and I remember that distinctive aroma in my clothes. (To be honest, I never really liked it.) Unfortunately, despite calls to save energy and the environment these days, many communities ban clothes lines because they're ugly. Not sure if Maplewood or South Orange have ordinances that ban them. |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 13690
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 9:36 am: |
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I told my friend who lived in England and Ireland that Americans think line drying are gauche and declasse, and she was shocked. We really have become snobs.
I don't know HOW MUCH energy you save, but the line uses NO energy, and the dryer uses some, so you could say the use of a dryer represents an "infinite increase" of usage of energy.
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Joe
Citizen
Username: Gonets
Post Number: 1210
Registered: 2-2004
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 9:37 am: |
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I guess I'm inately low-class, because I was completely obliviious to the perception that clothes lines were ugly until my sister made me aware of it, noting that we were the only family in our boring development to have a clothes line. Actually, I find the sight of clothes hanging out to dry charming. Wife doesn't agree however. Hence the lack of a clothes line. |
Dogbert
Citizen
Username: Dogbert
Post Number: 78
Registered: 1-2006
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 9:42 am: |
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Tom: Of course the clothesline uses energy. It uses *your* energy and your time. This is part of what you save with a dryer. Plus how do you do it in winter? Don't the clothes freeze? |
Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 13694
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 11:54 am: |
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I googled "clothing dryer energy use" and the top two links are interesting:
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/worldwise/clothesdryers.html
http://oee.nrcan.gc.ca/equipment/english/page162.cfm?PrintView=N&Text=N
My guess is that an electric dryer uses 1500 to 2000 watts. You run it for about an hour, so you consume 1.5 to 2 kilowatthours each time. A gas dryer might use 10% or 30% less energy, though it's hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison of gas and electricity.
My friend lived in the WEST of Ireland, where it rains almost all the time. She said people there get very good at yanking the clothes down in the first minute of rainfall.
As for winter, I don't know, but consider that clothes dryers are a fairly new invention. They were not around when my parents were growing up, and they were still fairly rare when I was little. They are still not as common in western Europe as they are here, because their energy costs are so much higher.
Sure, clotheslines use human energy and ambient heat energy, too, but I assume MHCLyons was asking about the energy we pay money for, which causes pollution when used.
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Case
Citizen
Username: Case
Post Number: 1369
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 3:02 pm: |
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Tom,
That's very short sighted of you - if we use up all the ambient heat energy drying our clothes, how are we going to keep warm?
Then again, with all this global warming zooming around... maybe if we all put the clothes out on the line it'll help slow down the melting of the polar caps.
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Tom Reingold
Supporter
Username: Noglider
Post Number: 13714
Registered: 1-2003
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 3:27 pm: |
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Actually, that is my point about global warming and energy consumption. We're making much bigger "fires" than we need to, especially when there's enough ambient heat to do the job passively. You can't coast to work but your clothes will "coast" their way to dry, yet we create a 2000 watt fire anyway.
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Zet
Citizen
Username: Zet
Post Number: 19
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 3:36 pm: |
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Tom:
You can still hang the clothes outside in winter. They will freeze-dry. |
CLK
Supporter
Username: Clkelley
Post Number: 2181
Registered: 6-2002
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 3:50 pm: |
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My Irish mother-in-law has no dryer (called a "tumble dryer" there) and says she can't stand clothes dried in a dryer.
She is in Dublin, but it still rains a lot there, especially in the winter. Yes, they put the clothes out in the winter. They just take them in if it starts to rain. Then she drapes them over the radiators to dry.
Most homes in Ireland and England are heated with water heat, and the water heater "lives" in an upstairs closet - called the "hot press" in Ireland. (a "press" is their word for "closet".) You put slightly dampish clothes into the hot press to "air" - i.e., get that last little bit of dampness out.
Another secret to the success of this system is that people tend to wear garments other than underwear for several days in a row before laundering. So there is less laundry to do in general. She makes no secret that our habit of changing clothes daily is wasteful and a nuisance to her - though I've offered to take care of them myself, take them to the service wash place, etc she won't allow that.
I think here in the U.S. where daily changes are the norm it would be difficult to rely solely on hanging out the wash. A mixture of both air drying and tumble drying would be a big improvement in terms of energy use though.
I don't have a clothesline but would like to put one in - I used to be in charge of laundry for the family when I was a teenager, and my favorite chore was hanging out the wash. I know it's nuts but I really enjoyed it. |
Crazy_quilter
Citizen
Username: Crazy_quilter
Post Number: 266
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 5:06 pm: |
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this site might be of interest
http://www.fightglobalwarming.com/page.cfm?tagID=270
it doesn't mention dryers but seems more concerned with how may airplane flights you take a year. |
Lydia
Supporter
Username: Lydial
Post Number: 1782
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 6:15 pm: |
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If you have an attic, that's a fine place to hang a clothesline in any weather.
One of "The Tightwad Gazette" books by Amy Dacyzyn (sp?) breaks down the savings of line drying v. dryers. I love her books, she's not one of those seperate-the-2-ply-TP wack-os, BTW. |
MHCLyons
Citizen
Username: Hamandeggs
Post Number: 252
Registered: 8-2005
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 6:35 pm: |
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Since I lived in NYC all those years ago now (when I had a washer but no dryer at all), I refer to my clothesline as my "solar dryer." Until they see it (or get it) people are often impressed at the idea of this New Cool Enviromental thing. I would love to read The Tightwad Gazette. I wonder if the library has it. |
Lydia
Supporter
Username: Lydial
Post Number: 1783
Registered: 5-2001
| | Posted on Monday, April 17, 2006 - 7:07 pm: |
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Probably the library has it - library fits the spirit of the book!
A friend of mine was so into the book she wrote to the author and they started a friendship.
She's one of those authors that feels like an old friend from the first page.
I've adopted many of her ideas as second-nature once I got the rhythm down, it changed my whole relationship with money and even our family.
Forinstance, we save money when I grow our own tomatoes (not a lot, but some) but gardening with my children means we have quiet time to talk, we can check on the progress of our "crops", and there's nothing tastier than a sun-warmed tomato picked off the vine.
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