Do you air dry most of your clothes? How/where?

myname1

Tue, Feb 06 2024, 5:15 am

amother Orchid wrote:

It sounds like so many air dry instead of dryer- is this to save money or are there other reasons?

It's not that so many people here air dry. It's that this thread is titled "Do you air dry..." so that's who responded. Not so many people compared to the amount on this site! I am another one in Israel who doesn't use a dryer and air dries everything. It's to save money and also because my mom used to use a dryer for almost everything and it shrunk and messed up a lot of clothes and I don't feel like dealing with it. And B"H in Israel with a garden, hanging is really not a big deal.

My family is 7 people. Most of the year everything is outside on two large racks and dries in a day. I do loads twice a week usually. On rainy weeks I do a load every couple of days and hang it on a rack in a room or the living room. Some things do take 2-3 days to dry and that is annoying. If I open the window or have the heater on nearby it's a drop faster. If I take clothes that are dry off and then it's less crowded that also helps the bulkier things dry. But that's sometimes too much for me to deal with.

myname1

Tue, Feb 06 2024, 5:29 am

Basya wrote:

It sounds like so many of you have drying racks consistently full in your common areas. I was really trying to avoid that, and hoping for a better solution that would be out of sight and/or in a small area.... Appreciate your responses though!

I don't understand- where did you think you could put the clothes that you hadn't thought of? They need to go somewhere, there's no magical solution to finding an empty room in your house. You could theoretically put a rack on the wall high above a bed, or get a bunkbed and keep laundry on top. Maybe think of what room you'd like them to be in and people will have suggestions of how to make that work, whether with a line or rack. Someone mentioned a chin-up bar- if you put clothes on hangers they may take up less space on a bar or shower rod. I sometimes hang in the shower and then just push it all to the other side to actually shower- then spread it out again after. I'm assuming you don't have outdoor space or non-rainy weather. Maybe you can put a small roof out a window and install lines there? A larger area would be even better. I don't know your set-up.

You have folding racks so you could fold them up when not in use. So the retractable things wouldn't really help you. Your issue seems to be that they're in use so often. You can try a dehumidifier to make the drying faster. It could actually be that the retractable lines spread the clothes out more so they dry much faster, too. Then their time out will be much less.

Doing loads more spread out would also help. You said you wash Thurs/Fri/Motz Shabbos and then the kids' stuff on Sunday. How about if you move two of those loads to Tuesday? Then you have just two racks (maybe with some extras in the shower) out the whole time. Better than 6 but still not great. I don't know how large your living room is- can you put bookcases or dividers to separate off a small section so it's not such an eyesore? Tell us more about your home and where you have extra space- also outdoors- maybe in a shed? If I have some extra space in my bedroom, that doesn't help you...