No, I’m never going to fix my clothes dryer
Hanging out my laundry this today, it suddenly hit me: I may never get around to fixing that clothes dryer.
For me, this is a big deal. I’m totally a guy when it comes to taking care of clothes, and my teenage son is even worse. He thinks nothing of announcing he’s out of clean laundry jut before going to bed on a schoolnight, which used to mean many of my days would end with a frantic laundry run. Finding his clothes still wet in a cold, broken dryer one morning last autumn was an unpleasant surprise.
It’s not as if clothes dryers are complicated machines. I knew the problem was a burned-out thermostat or heating element, both user-replaceable items if you have the right tools. But I’m the guy who writes about reducing your environmental footprint, so I decided to untangle my clothesline and give outdoor drying a shot.
The humble clothesline
We take appliances for granted. Your parents — and certainly your grandparents — got along just fine without a thousand dollar washer-dryer combo. I’m in no hurry to learn the lost art of washing clothes by hand, but drying is another matter. All you need is a piece of line and a handful of clothespins.
Rather than buying dryer parts, I decided to invest that money in an aluminum-framed, parallel clothesline. These are handy, offering plenty of room to hang one or two washer loads in a very small footprint. They can be folded down or taken indoors for storage when not in use, a necessary feature here on the hurricane coast. Mine cost about $50, plus another $10 for the gravel and quickcrete required to properly anchor its base.
An extra clothes basket, a sunny day, and you’re ready to go.
Your clothes dryer is an energy hog
Take a look at this estimate of residential energy use, compiled in 2001 by the U.S. Department of Energy (click to enlarge):
In terms of energy use, clothes dryers are a big-ticket item (this chart does not apply to gas-fired models, which are cheaper to operate). Electric dryers are one of the home’s hungriest energy centers, ranking immediately behind refrigerators, climate control, hot water heaters, and lighting.
The best estimate for my personal use is around $6 on my monthly power bill. Yours could be higher or lower, but the message is clear: A commercially produced clothesline and all the little conveniences to go with it will pay for themselves in their first year. I’ll be well ahead if I repair and sell my old dryer.
There’s something great about line drying
Which brings me back to my laundry day epiphany: I’ve come to genuinely prefer line drying. There’s something worthwhile about cooperating with nature. Every morning I hang laundry, I get to feel the sun and wind which will do the former job of machinery in just a few hours time. It takes about ten minutes to get things properly hung, and perhaps another ten to check on things during the day.
And then I fold and gather the clothes. Time well spent, I think. Since our local power grid is largely dependent on coal, I’ve kept the air a little cleaner than if I’d simply thrust everything into the dryer.
Tomorrow morning’s breeze will be all the fresher.
This article originally appeared on Chris Baskind dot com.
View Comments to “No, I’m never going to fix my clothes dryer”
Comments
Read below or add a comment...
Leave a comment...
About the author
Chris Baskind writes about the environment and simpler living. He's also an advocate of carfree transportation, relying entirely on bicycles since June, 2009.Three years ago, Chris launched Lighter Footstep, a pioneering website focused on greener, healthier, more affordable living. It was recently acquired by the Mother Nature Network (MNN). Connect with Chris on Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
I've just started hanging clothes to dry on a makeshift clothesline in our apartment.
Saves us $2.00 each time & a lot of energy
Thanks for tis post. Every year I am trying to do one big thing and several smaller things to reduce my carbon footprint. Over the winter, I have been dressing in more layers, and have found that I wash less clothes, as only those t-shirts near my skin need regular washing, not the outer sweaters and such. So this summer, I have the perfect place to hang a clothes line and I think I can save a big chunk of electricity by line drying. I am going to give it a go and see how it works out.
Not as convenient as the clothes dryer, but it has its fringe benefits. Such as standing outside this morning in perfect, spring-like weather.
My next step is an indoor drying rack (for small loads, handwashed stuff, and during long periods of inclement weather).
I think I started line drying in October. The first few weeks were a pain — you have to learn the best way to space things and actually pin them on the line, how to plan for weather, and the discipline of mentally keeping track of how much clean stuff you've got on hand.
Then, suddenly, it's less a chore than a pleasure.
Your son should be taught to do his own laundry so that you don't have to do last-minute laundry runs. Honestly, I didn't do my own laundry until I hit college in August, but it was a lot less daunting and time consuming than I thought it would be. It's good practice for when he'll have to do his own laundry when he moves out of the house and it'll save you stress.
Spoken like a mom. Actually, James helped today. You're right: We need to be teaching our kids how to do these things.
I so agree with you on this one. I have a fancy washer (uses way less water and energy) and a old dryer that we are waiting to finally die. My mother always hung her clothes to dry and so did my grandmother. I just love the smell of all our clothing and especially my sheets. My husband was so against a line for years until he finally realized that this was me take it or leave it. So he kept me
Anytime the sun it out or there is a good wind, my clothes are outside hung up. I would love to have one like your getting. My grandmother had one that was aluminum and I loved watching my mom hang her clothes up when we visited my grandmother. I would be in the garden eating tomato's till I was sick and watching my mom hang or unhang clothing.
It wasnt until my husband saw our energy bill lower by $20 because of me line drying our clothing that he finally said hey your onto something.
There really is nothing like it. No fancy machine can give you these great results.
All I do is indoor drying. We have JUST rigged up two lines inside our
apartment, and now we can dry year-round.
It's actually better than having to go down to the basement after waiting
for exactly an hour to pick up the clothes.
I'm next on the indoor drying (done right). We've pressed bikes into service as impromptu drying racks, but laundry and chain grease are natural enemies. I'd hate to cause a scene.
A friend of mine read this article and comment exchange yesterday:
“Promise me that of something like your toilet breaks, you won't learn to get along without it, OK?”
Yeah, OK. Promise.
The DOE estimates strike me as potentially low. Here in this dryer hating family of four, where we’re proud of our clothesline but seasonally challenged at the moment (Maine), our dryer was 10.6% of our electricity over the last 25 days. (Data from our eMonitor.)
Or perhaps I need to keep a closer eye on our teenager who’s found the dryer the only solution to last-second-before-school dewrinkling of clothes….
Keep us posted if you find a good solution to inside racks–the greaseless kind. Our rickety two sweater model isn’t cutting it.
I appreciate this – and a nice pic of the green clothesline!
I always hang up clothes, winter or summer. I might tumble work clothes for a minute or two in the dryer to get out the wrinkles. But then I yank 'em out and put 'em on hangers. I have a coupla racks that I position in front of the heat vents in the house (in winter or rain). That does a remarkable job. If less urgent, I hang them in our basement/crawl space which is right next to the furnace. On a dry day above freezing, they go out on the clothesline. I enjoy juggling them to minimize drying time. It's a little game I play to see how fast I can get them all to dry. The thought of running the dryer is about on a par with leaving the door open on a freezing day. Ack! So much energy lost…. Dryers actually suck heat out of the house, contrary to popular opinion.
I'm 18. I actually started doing my own laundry in August 2009. Perhaps I'm maternal beyond my years
I hang my clothes in my tiny little laundry room where the stackable washer/dryer lives. I've actually grown to like the stiff feel of the towels after they dry. Like a louffa (sp?)
It's mostly just expectations. I agree: that stiff towel feel is normal to me now. Really soft ones feel treated somehow.
I’ve never owned a dryer and I’m definitely never going to. I just feel I need to have the basic appliances and that’s it, because then I would start to be dependent of them and basically not do anything at all. Not to mention it takes the load off of trying to find the right Appliance Parts and it’s just one of those simple things that I feel like doing myself.