TIP – Take It Outside

After washing your clothes, save energy by hanging them outside to dry!

Clothes dryers are among the biggest energy hogs in a typical household.

Air drying your washed clothes, instead of putting them in your loud, energy sucking, house-heating electric dryer is a great way to save energy … and it is making a comeback.

People talk about recovering the lost art of line-drying clothes idea the way our grandparents did it, but the ease and efficiency of modern technology is enticing.  It may help to consider the other advantages of line-drying:

  • You don’t have to hang around the house to pull out the clothes and fold them before they wrinkle (or set the timer for 4 hours of tumble).  After drying, line dried clothes are ready anytime.
  • Clothes last longer because they don’t get overheated, which can lead to the shrinking of some things (pants) and the stretching out of others (anything with elastic.)
  • Rather than using detergents, whose chemical scents most often fall short of the fresh air they are trying to simulate, with line-dried clothes, you have the real thing!

Air drying your wash uses no electricity, and can be as easy as hanging a cord between two trees or as complicated as installing the big, spinning, pole-mounted one that looks like a huge TV antenna.

Of course, line-drying your clothes may cut down on the electric energy you use, but what about the extra energy needed from you?

The secret is to handle each piece of clothing as little as possible.  One way this can be done is by hanging your clothes on plastic hangers, right out of the washer, while they are still wet and hanging the hangers on the clothesline…even those pieces that don’t usually hang on coat hangers, like your leotards and superhero capes.  Smaller items, like socks and underwear can be placed on a drying rack.  This aids in drying and keeping the wrinkles out, as well as avoiding the little indention’s that the clothes pins can leave in some of the clothes.

Once the clothes are dry, you just grab the hanging clothes and move them to a closet.

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