Great drying out there: How to make drying clothes a breeze

Kya deLongchamps puts sails on the laundry with refreshing reasons to dry outdoors.

Why bother to dry outside? Let me breeze through just a shortlist that will have you out pegging out the family smalls, clothes and sheets like a vintage Emergency beauty in rollers, a head-scarf and housecoat.

IT FEELS SO GOOD

Something skips barefoot across my spirit watching a full load of immaculate laundry rising, falling and snapping in the breeze. I’m a serial killer regarding parallel lines and spacing. Being forced outside discreetly re-connects us with a precious slice of the natural world and hanging systematically organises the load.

Peg out by order of wearer and fold and collect to a basket in bundles ready for storage, delivery or the ironing board.

Yes, there’s some physical effort, a few more minutes needed than throwing the load into the open mouth of the dryer. Use it as a teaching moment for children strong enough for the chore, or ask little ones to hand you the pieces and pegs.

IT’S FREE

For all its valiant, lean green engineering, even a heat-pump dryer will takes around 1.5kW to 2kW to run per load. Three times a week, that can quickly escalate to €60 per year.

A vented or condenser model muscling 8kg of washing, lurking down at a B or C energy rating, will cost two–three times as much. Drying outdoors on the brighter, drier days you can at least half those figures.

Try this compromise if your water is hard and your cottons are atrophied. Get the clothes partially dry outside and finish them on a cool cycle indoors. Simple. If your open-ended porch, greenhouse or poly-tunnel has good cross-ventilation, they can also be used to dry clothes.

ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY

The UK’s Energy Savings Trust estimates that a household can spare the planet 90kg of CO2 in emissions by line drying over the summer. Check the weather forecast for conditions with humidity levels of less than 60% with a 10% or less chance of rain and a light breeze of 8km/h-25km/h, energysavingtrust.org.uk.

Not everyone has access to a line. Some management companies for say an apartment block or set of town-houses without gardens will get into a twist at the very idea of knickers flapping al fresco. Set the spin speed of the washer to 1200rpm to get as much of the water out before using that watt gobbling dryer.

LINE LORE

With hundreds of years of waltzing baskets to the garden — we have the techniques of outdoor drying pretty much sorted. Properly hung up, wrinkles will be minimal. Pin large towels into triangular baggy sails to catch the wind. Wear it on top — hang it from the bottom.

Trousers should be hung from the waist-band, and shirts from the tail and cuffs to disguise peg marks. Flopheavier garments over the line on a supporting fabric to avoid line scars.If the piece is marked “dry flat”, keep it off the line.

To reduce the chaffing and soften fabrics, add a quarter of a cup of white vinegar to the wash and shake the pieces out violently before hanging. You don’t actually need direct sunshine, and a little shade together with stirring in the breeze keeps garments softer. Turn dark pieces inside out.

IT’S HEALTHY

Drying clothes on horses, racks and radiators indoors is rarely a good idea unless you have a dedicated drying room with mechanical ventilation (hangs the whole point out to dry really). Released moisture can encourage mould spores and creeping condensation issues. The jury is out on whether sunshine actually kills bacteria (a proper wash and correct detergent should do that).

Still, fresh, streaming air certainly does clear odours. Bury your face in the heady smell of clothes riding on a line and you’ll never go back to fabric softeners.

Be warned: pollen can collect on line dried clothes — significant if someone if the family suffers from allergies.

BETTER FOR CLOTHES?

Mechanical drying stresses clothing and balds out even towels over time. If you are not meticulous about settings, overly hot, repetitive cycles simply cook the fabric to the point that threads start to thin and break. The lint collector is bagging tiny shreds of your clothes. Line drying will stir fabric rather than beating it to death and will never shrink your skinny jeans.

Good sunshine has a bleaching effect on whites. Obviously, if you live by a very busy roadside, your clothes can ingest petro-chemical honk and sherds of pollution. If you have a line by a fruit cage — the birds will spatter the load in berry-rich droppings.

IMPROVED LINE DESIGN

Whatever space you have, there’s a line to match, and it’s possible to include 60m of space in a rotary line.

Examine fold out designs that crank out from the wall. To ensure smaller family members can manage what is a relatively exerting stretch, examine products like the Lift-O-Matic from Brabantia (from €75).

Spears that fit firmly into a ground socket and slide out for storage ensure you can hide the line for summer occasions in the garden if your plot is small. Aluminium lines are extremely light. Ensure the turning circle of any rotary won’t give you a rude wet smack in the face or accost taller adults.