Do You Line Dry Your Clothes?

I air dry all my clothes by putting them on hangers and hanging them over the door facings. Yes, it does look like a chinese laundry, but I end up drying only ONE load of undies/tees. I do dry sheets and towels and the males of the household jeans.

I used to line dry my clothes and slept so soundly on those line-dried sheets. I had to quit when a neighbor started raising homing pigeons!
That was an obstacle I was unprepared for! I do still air dry some clothes indoors by hanging them in the shower, but there isn't a space large enough for the sheets.

I do only when my dryer is out! I just don't like the stuffness for the line dry. Call me spoilt. BUT I did grow up on line dried clothes...

Line-drying clothing really makes them last longer. The heat of the dryer breaks down the fibers and also causes pilling and continued shrinkage. I line-dry most of my clothing, although I don't hang them out to dry in the sun because that also breaks down the fibers and causes fading, too. I purchased a rolling rack from the Container store and I hang my drying clothing items on it, w/ hangers. I keep the rack right next to my machine, in the laundry room. My clothes last so much longer now!

I line dry. I really like it. I just bought a $4 clotheline at target and some clothespins. I tied the line between two trees and was good to go! The wind is what actually dries the clothes, not the sun or the heat, so you don't need to wait for sunny days at all, and your line can be anywhere (I wouldn't put it under a pine tree). It has cut about $10/month off our electric bill. I do about 7 loads of laundry per week, so you can use that as a benchmark.

In the summer I don't find that the clothes get too stiff, in the winter they tend to freeze before they dry, so then they're really tough : ) I don't think that you'd have that problem in texas, though. If you want them a little softer, I just throw them in the dryer on the lowest heat setting for 5 minutes (literally, you don't need more than that) with a dryer sheet. Softens them right up.

If you have any other questions, feel free to message me.

edited to add: clothes dried outside can dry in as little as an hour or two, depending on the weather. So if you dry outside and you're around, you can definately get a bunch of loads of laundry done in one day (I did three loads yesterday).

I hang almost all of my clothes and my daughter's clothes... All I do is hang them above the doors on hangers. It drives my husband absolutely bonkers - hates ducking under them to get into a room - but it saves on the electricity bill AND keeps our clothes looking new for a lot longer. I only dry towels, sheets/blankets, socks, my daughter's jeans (so they aren't scratchy and stiff for her) and my husband's work clothes and boxers. I hang everything else.

We have a screened-in porch and that is where I do my outdoor drying so that I can avoid bugs and birds. I also have an indoor line in my bathroom and one in my laundry room for the winter, rainy days, and such. It's really easy and it does save a lot of energy. I agree with Jane and B that you can get the stiffness and wrinkles out by running them in your dryer on air-fluff or no heat for 5-10 minutes, and you'll still save a ton of energy.

You could, but see if there's a neighborhood association rule against it. Some places won't let you because they think it makes the neighborhood look low class. Silly, but every neighborhood is different. Towels, shirts, jeans should all be fine. I'd dry your underwear / lingerie inside. Some fabrics come out feeling very stiff after drying on a line. You can tumble them in the dryer on no heat for a few min to soften them up. In my experience, colors fade in sunlight over time, but whites will brighten. Make sure the spot you pick will not have a problem with birds (and droppings). You will need clothes pins to keep the breeze from blowing your clothes away. Good luck!

yep, i line dry now. our dryer broke when i was about 5 1/2 months pregnant, and now my son is 5 wks. i got to say, the first month i did it, our bill went down about 60 dollars. i didn't realise we used it that much! i put a line up in the house because tx heat is killer :( but it makes the house smell like fresh laundry...

I don't line dry but I think it's a great idea. My only complaint is when clothes sit outside, they take on an outdoor smell (which I do not like). However, maybe once dry, you can fluff the clothes with a dryer sheet. ???

I don't now (W. Washington is too damp), but in the past the BIGGEST trick is to line dry colors in the shade and whites in the sun. If you line dry colors in the sun they BLEACH.

I dont line dry cuz we dont have the room, but my cousin does and she says that her electric bill didnt go up at all when she started using the ac because the fact that she wasnt using her dryer made up for it.

I've been line-drying for over a year, now, and really love it! This summer, there were 6 adults and one toddler in the house, so we did have a lot of laundry. Here in central Texas, if it is hot out, most things are dry in an hour. Jeans and towels usually take longer, but not that long. I have 2 lines strung under my porch, so they are shaded away from the sun, but they still dry quickly. I can even put a load out in the evening, and they are done quickly.

One thing to remember, about fading... long ago, I heard this phrase... "When the drying stops, the fading starts" .... Don't leave the clothes on too long, or you will have issues with fading.

If you need to, you can toss a few items in the dryer with a damp towel or t-shirt to get rid of wrinkles for just a bit, and you will still save money. Yes, towels and jeans come out stiff, but they loosen up quickly.

The thing is that the fabrics are different now than when my mother dried her clothes outside. We have more knits or Lycra blends which are going to be full of static and uncomfortable to wear. Even if you add Downy the fabric will still have a tendency to cling or shock you a lot.

Also, many people forget that those mom's spent one whole day a week doing ironing. They would dampen the clothes and put them in the fridge to keep them from mildewing then iron them. Anything with any cotton in it will need to be ironed, including tee shirts, tops, jeans, slacks, etc...my BFF dries all their clothes outside on the lines and she and her family NEVER look very clean and well dressed, no matter what they have on. The tiny little wrinkles stand out and the clothes just look worn out, they look like they are cheap clothes and the family looks poor, and they are not poor.

I personally would do other things to save money than skimp on clothing care. Wash your dishes then let them air dry without using the dry cycle, use less hot water in the shower or tub, let the water be a bit cooler, turn the temp down on the hot water heater a few degrees, change all your light bulbs to less watts or use different styles, buy store brands on some food items, use heavy curtains on your windows to cut out the sun heating up your house and then in the winter they keep the warmth inside.

Washing in cold water is NOT something I do, most detergents are made to dissolve and clean in warm water and they don't do very well in cold. Plus body oil and sloughed off skin just doesn't come out as well as with warm. If the hot water heater is turned down then the temp will be cooler than the normal worm but not really cold.

Also, think about time management. How much is your time worth to you? It takes a lot of time to shake, hold, pin, move over, repeat, for every item you have in the wash load. Then there's the ones that fall and have to be rewashed and rehung. I just don't find this to be a time saver or money saver at all.

Because of outdoor allergies, I cannot hang my clothes outside to dry. I hang them inside on hangers. Tide makes this great hanger that is really wide. It is designed to hold your shirts open so they dry faster. Before I got those, I hung my shirts on a regular hanger and put plastic grocery sacks wadded up in the shoulders to hold the open and keep from getting puckered corners. I hang my pants up on pants hangers and hang them on the bar in the shower. I bought an octopus hanger from IKEA that has 16 clothespins (2 on each leg) that I hang socks on. It is a tough transition to hang every thing, but it becomes habit before too long. I still dry towels and sheets. Good luck.

I like to line dry, too. Use a softener in your wash cycle to cut down on the stiffness that line dried clothes and towels get. Make sure you have enough line to do the amount of laundry you want. There is nothing more frustrating than having a few shirts that won't fit somewhere.

I line dry my clothes all the time, I check on it to see if they are dry enough, i don't try to leave it hanging all day. The towels are the ones that get rough, so probably hang the towels out and check on them before they get too dry in the sun.

Well if you consider that I hang them inside the house in an empty closet. I hang all denim, tshirts, polos and nice lingerie which virtually leaves socks and white tshirts and towels to the dryer.......saves on clothes and utilities. Good Luck!

Make sure you use fabric softener in the wash or your clothes will be like cardboard. DO NOT use fabric softener with towels and some clothing- read the label. The towels will not be as absorbent. Don't know what happens to clothing as I have made that mistake and have not noticed dire consequences. Happy drying. They smell so fresh- watch out for pollen though if you have allergy sufferers.

I only line dry my cold water wash, delicates. I have a rod set up in my laundry room. it works well for my daughter's cheer uniforms and everything I wash in cold water or delicates.

At one point I had so much that I liine dried, I set up an extra rod in the guest bath downstairs next to the laundry room . I put things on hangers and then hang them on the rod.

I do all the time, especially the delicate things I own for myself and the children. One thing I use is a indoor clothes line, you can purchase these at most Walmarts in the area where they sell clothes pins. They are metal and a string pulls out and stretchs across the room, when you are done you can push a button the string goes back inside. I love doing this with the laundry hanging in the shower! Shower curtain closed and nobody knows!

I grew up in a family that line dried, except when it was snowing. A few considerations... Does anyone in the family have allergies to pollens? Is there a homeowner's association or landlord who regulates line drying? Will the "stiffness" of the fabric after line drying bother you? If the answers are no, no, and no then go for it and save yourself some money!

Yes, A/C can be a huge electricity spender!! Make sure he checks the ductwork, no point in maintaining the A/C if they don't check the ductwork. I used to line dry my clothes, but after I moved to TX, Rio Grand Valley, the whites started getting yellow and I was told it was because of the sun, so I dont line dry my whites but do the colors and darks. Unplug whatever appliances youre not using, and if your not using the efficient bulbs I strongly recommend them. Once your A/C has been maintained, keep it at 75 - 78 degrees, don't be turning it on and off because that will have the opposite effect.

if you have the space it's the way to go. I do it with all my knits(which is all my boys wear) because dryer shrinks it.

I line dry and love it!! Morning hours are best because the clothes don't end up as crispy. Occassionally I will transfer them to the dryer for 5-10 minutes on low or air dry to tumble away some of the roughness. We have noticed a big difference in our electric bill because not only was the dryer using energy, but it was heating up the house making the AC work harder. I also love the quiet peacefuly time I have hanging up the clothes outside...my zen time.
Only problem is that I am going back to work full time after a 2 year break, so I am line drying less due to lack of extra time and energy. :(
Good luck!!

We, like a couple of the last posters, hang to dry on the door. Things like jeans or towels are put in the bathroom with the dehumidifier. We needed the money more than the dryer, so sold it. Have been pretty happy ever since. I don't have the stiffness problem that some people have talked about. I don't use softener & most often forget to add the vinegar, which does work.

Thats how my boyfriend likes his t-shirts to be dried. Everything else he doesn't care if they go in the dryer. We just out them on the hangers and hang them up outside. They dry pretty quick too. If I had a line I would probably dry bigger things on it. AC is a killer. Our bill jumped about $40 - $50 bucks just from running it, and it wasn't even that hot of a month. Good Luck!

My dryer broke a couple of months ago, and I've been line drying ever since. I put up lines in my shaded porch. Clothes dry within a few hours. Some even dry in just one hour. It does NOT take 12-24. Jeans take the longest, and even they dry within say 5-8 hours.

I do not use fabric softener. Instead, I put 1/2 cup of vinegar in the rinse cycle. This dissolves the remaining detergent and also counterbalances the hard water. You might also try adding 1/2 cup of baking soda to the wash to soften the water. The only thing that comes out truly stiff is the towels - and the jeans to some extent, although they soften up quickly. None of the rest of the clothes are stiff. True, they aren't fluffy like from the dryer, but they soften up as soon as you put them on, and they don't scratch or anything when you wear them. I love the natural smell. Also, nothing wrinkles too badly - but then, we wear almost all knits and not woven cotton, which might be different. Then again, my clothes often wrinkled in the dryer because I didn't take them out immediately. I find that our clothes are actually less wrinkled on the line.

I don't get the comment someone else made about static cling - it's the dryer that does that, not the wash. The one problem I've encountered is lint. If you have enough clothes to separate light from dark, that might help. Also I wash towels separately to try to keep the lint down. Otherwise, keep one of those roller brushes around and brush off the lint.

I really enjoy line drying my clothes. The only thing I would put in the dryer anymore is towels. Good luck with it, and i hope you enjoy it!

I started line drying for the exact same reason. I have a line up in my garage that I use. Things definitely dry faster in the summer, since it's like a sauna out there, but I do use it all year round. Mostly for the kids stuff. I need to get another line up out there since I can't hang all their stuff. Right now I mostly hang the jeans/pants that take a while to dry and the underwear. I've heard that the heat from the dryer breaks down the elastic...that's why the elastic "ripples" in some of the kids underwear. I haven't had that problem since I started line drying. I do bring the stuff in and throw it in the dryer for a few minutes to combat the stiff feeling.

It works for us! :-)

Our dryer broke about a month ago and we don't have $$ to fix/replace it. So I've been line drying about everything. We have one stout clothes "horse" (wooden lines all attached) that I hang underwear, pants, etc on it. I hang most of the shirts on hangers and put them on the shower bar (even if I'm taking them off to put in drawers later). I don't use ANY fabric softener (highly sensitive skin) so the clothes are a bit stiffer than if I used a dryer, but not horrible. I do take my towels to my mom's to dry, I notice the biggest difference there (I like them fluffy from the dryer).

Biggest tip - plan on doing one load every day. It takes clothes 12-24 hours to hang dry, usually, so you can't just do everything in one day. Also, shake them out really well and make sure to hang them straight, so they dry in funny shapes; if you hang them right away you might not get as many wrinkles.

Updated

Our dryer broke about a month ago and we don't have $$ to fix/replace it. So I've been line drying about everything. We have one stout clothes "horse" (wooden lines all attached) that I hang underwear, pants, etc on it. I hang most of the shirts on hangers and put them on the shower bar (even if I'm taking them off to put in drawers later). I don't use ANY fabric softener (highly sensitive skin) so the clothes are a bit stiffer than if I used a dryer, but not horrible. I do take my towels to my mom's to dry, I notice the biggest difference there (I like them fluffy from the dryer).

Biggest tip - plan on doing one load every day. It takes clothes 12-24 hours to hang dry, usually, so you can't just do everything in one day. Also, shake them out really well and make sure to hang them straight, so they dry in funny shapes; if you hang them right away you might not get as many wrinkles.

Updated

Our dryer broke about a month ago and we don't have $$ to fix/replace it. So I've been line drying about everything. We have one stout clothes "horse" (wooden lines all attached) that I hang underwear, pants, etc on it. I hang most of the shirts on hangers and put them on the shower bar (even if I'm taking them off to put in drawers later). I don't use ANY fabric softener (highly sensitive skin) so the clothes are a bit stiffer than if I used a dryer, but not horrible. I do take my towels to my mom's to dry, I notice the biggest difference there (I like them fluffy from the dryer).

Biggest tip - plan on doing one load every day. It takes clothes 12-24 hours to hang dry, usually, so you can't just do everything in one day. Also, shake them out really well and make sure to hang them straight, so they dry in funny shapes; if you hang them right away you might not get as many wrinkles.

Oo I've been wanting to also, but don't have the space outside. . I can't wait to hear your responses. And if anyone can say how not to get them all crinkly. I hate that stiff clothes feeling.

I have line dried my clothes for 20 yrs!! If you don't leave them out long, they won't get stiff. With line drying, if the items are cotton-you will have to iron them. You could just go to doing linens on the line. You can also hang t-shirts on clothes hangars to avoid wrinkles. I also use the small fold up racks in the house in the winter. You can get them pretty reasonably at any store. Line drying protects your clothes from shrinking and elastic does not "rot" as quickly.

we did growing up and liked it. we didnt do it in the winter, though, or when it was too cold out due to freezing issues. It's a little more work, but you can fold as you pull off the line, which helps cut it down.

We line dry outside on the weekends when we're more likely to remember to bring the clothes back into the house. (I left clothes out overnight one time and had to re-wash the whole batch because instead of the fresh laundry scent, the clothes got the "outside" scent instead.) Yes, the clothes are stiffer (we don't use the liquid fabric softener in the washer) and the towels aren't fluffy (but they definitely absorb better!) but the idea that we're saving some $$ is incentive enough for us to keep doing it. We also line dry inside the house using those contraptions that fold and hangers hanging on the shower rod for easy-knit clothes. Sometimes when there's just too much laundry piled up, we line dry a batch outside while running the dryer inside. Laundry gets done faster because more clothes get a turn being dried instead of sitting in the washer waiting for the drying cycle to finish.

I line dry all of my clothes that are not underwear, jeans, sheets, or towels. I don't have a line outside, and jeans might work better if I did--the reason I stopped line drying jeans was because it took too long to dry so they'd start smelling kind of moldy. Maybe drying them outside would help. I keep my line inside because I've had clothes fall on the ground, and then I've had to rewash.

The big advantage to line drying everything is that clothes that have never been in the dryer look NEW almost indefinitely!! (That's the reason I do it.) And they don't shrink if washed in cold water too.