Independence Homestead

Here is another post we started when we were in the town-house about 2 years ago but it never was published. We have continued to air-dry our laundry almost exclusively in our new homestead, using the dryer only for large items that are urgently needed.

Original Article

For several months now we have been primarily air-drying our clothes.  The first time, something that seemed to be so easy was somewhat difficult.  I had all these clothes, and two drying racks, and I didn’t know what to put where.  But, like almost everything we do around the homestead, air-drying clothes became easier in time.

Why would we take the time to air-dry our clothes?  Well, it saves energy.  According to sources about 6% of residential energy usage is used by the clothes dryer.  Plus, during the summer, we’re paying to cool the house, and then we’re paying to heat it with the clothes dryer.  So using it in summer also costs more in air conditioning.

The Process:

Now, I unload the washer and separate the clothes into piles based on their size.  The first pile is socks and similarly sized items, then pile 2 is boxers through tank tops, pile 3 is men’s shirts through shorts, and pile 4 is larger items such as jeans, towels, etc.  I have found that taking each clothing item, shaking it out, piling it, and then hanging the clothes based on the pile is faster than what I was doing at first.

We have two drying racks, as you can see.  One of them has rails that are the same height, and can hold large items.  That rack gets items from piles 3 and 4.  The other rack has rails that are at various heights, and the vertical space to hang is less, so pile 2 items are hung there.  At the top of the rack are 4 bars close together, so the items from pile 1 just get laid across the top of those bars.  Trying to hang them takes too much time, and they’re so small that they fall a lot.

Weather/Seasons:

We first started hanging our clothes in Winter.  I worried that the clothes wouldn’t dry quickly since it wasn’t hot and sunny.  But since it’s so dry in our region, like many others, the clothes dried really quickly!  It was great.  We are in the process of getting a wood stove installed, and that will make drying clothes in Winter even better.  I’ve read that one should set the drying racks near the wood stove, and they’ll dry quickly.  Plus drying them inside put moisture in the air, which counteracts the drying effect of the wood stove.

Now that it’s summer, it has been a bit more of a pain to dry the clothes.  Our region gets humidity in the summer.  Plus we have an HOA that prohibits clotheslines, so that’s not an option.  I have been setting one of the clothes racks right outside the back door, where it’s not very visible, and those clothes have dried very quickly.

The laundry rack outside

Of course this requires that it’s not raining, and if it does rain, I must remember to bring in the rack.  I’ve found in the summer that sometimes some of the heavier clothes, especially those that don’t get dried outside, need to be turned so that all parts of them dry.

Another method I’ve read about, and that we’ve utilized once, is to dry the clothes for just 5 minutes in the dryer, and then to hang them up.  This does a good job of fluffing them, it helps to remove lint and pet hair from the clothes, and it makes them dry faster.  I wouldn’t bother doing this in winter when the clothes already dry quickly, but it can be helpful in summer.

The Results:

The benefits of air-drying have been that we use less energy, our clothes will last longer, and we’re more green!

The only real negative is that the clothes need to be lint rolled more often.  We have a small dog that sheds, and her fur gets on a lot of things.  The dryer removed all her fur and lint, and with air-drying we don’t get that dryer benefit.  I think the 5 minute dryer option would mitigate this problem.

Another challenge of air-drying is that the clothes can be musty.  If they don’t dry fast enough, they can smell funny.  We have found the best way to prevent this is to hang the clothes up soon after the washer finishes.  Leaving them overnight is bad!  But hanging them within a couple hours is great.  Also, not overloading the racks is key.  The clothes should not be scrunched up at all.  Following those guidelines we haven’t had problems!

We are glad that we have started air-drying our clothes, and we would recommend it to others.  It lessens our energy consumption, we didn’t have to buy anything new for it, and our clothes will last longer.  It takes a bit of time, but who doesn’t have some time to spare?  Have you had the time to watch TV or go on Facebook in the last week?  If you did, then you have time to air-dry your laundry!