The world is instantly a better place when the sun is shining, apart from the incomparable unmistakable warmth it brings to my skin and through my bones I absolutely love line drying clothes. I get enormous satisfaction from it, it's free, not as hard on the clothes, environmentally friendly, and makes clothes easier to iron. We have a south facing garden which is very rarely wind free so as long as it's not raining it's a prime clothes drying location.
I am not a fan of the rotary clothes line. If it's fully laden I think the clothes are hanging too close together to dry quickly. What does work well in a suburban garden is the retractable clothesline, fixed to a wall or shed with a hook opposite to secure the line when it's in use. You can even put up a second hook opposite if distances allow and pull the line even further. When not in use they are discrete and don't interfere with lawn mowing etc.
Des Bishop's new venture with the ESB is a blog detailing his energy saving efforts. He has only briefly mentioned clothes drying so far, but it's early days. His focus has been lighting and predictably hot water heating (he brought the Irish obsession with the immersion to our own attention with a brilliant sketch several years ago).
It's worth a look and it's good to see Jim Curran from the ESB contributing as I am skeptical about armchair energy consultants!
It's unfortunate that people got out of the habit of using clotheslines. They save so much energy, and it is kind of peaceful to hang the clothes.
We live in an apartment and don't have a clothesline, but still air dry our clothes using this laundry drying rack - being round it works really nice under a ceiling fan!
Posted by: Nicky | 10/17/2009 at 03:43 PM
Well done for making an effort to "line dry" in an apartment. I would even go so far as to say hanging laundry is therapeutic!
Posted by: Cleansheets | 10/18/2009 at 09:36 PM