HOW To Line Dry??

[chely7425]

I would like to try and line dry our clothes.. but I have no idea how!! We have a very small yard, we can't stick anything in the ground or nail anything to the house. Potentialy we could string some sort of line from the fence but I don't think it would work very well. We have a garage, and then indoors...

[Turquesa]

Is it windy where you live? Could you just put a few standing drying racks in your backyard?

[FillingMyQuiver]

Originally Posted by Turquesa

Is it windy where you live? Could you just put a few standing drying racks in your backyard?

Yes, this. We use drying racks on our deck right now b/c we don't have a line set up in our yard (which is down a flight of deck stairs, something I don't want to climb w/ a heavy basket of wet laundry). We use 2 of these, 1 of which we bought 6yrs ago and it's still going strong. They easily paid for themselves in 4mo by lowering our electric bill, but then again, when we started regularly using them, I had 2 2 toddlers and a babe in CDs. Even now, I do 5 loads of laundry/ week, so we're drying a lot of clothes.

[chely7425]

Those racks look really nice!! I wonder if I could find something comparable at the Walmart, which though evil is the ONLY store within 45 minutes of us... I will have to look! I never even thought of using those kind of racks outside!! When it gets to the more rainy season what do you ladies do? Set them up in the kitchen? Do you ever find yourself popping things in the dryer for a few minutes to soften/fluff them up? I am really wanting to try this because we are going to have three in diapers come October and washing diapers every day and using the dryer every day just seems insane!!

[yukookoo]

where i grew up everything was line dried year round, we had lines out the window with coverings over them for winter.

Now we use 2 drying racks from ikea and they hold 2 big loads.

Make sure to shake things out before and after hanging, it makes them a little softer and then there's a whole art to where to put the pins and how to hang, for example hanging pants by the legs so they dry straight and faster

My problem is that we have 3 dogs! So there's lots of dog hair that came out in the dryer but line drying doesnt and i end up rolling the clothes with a sticky pad thing and also the back yard smells like dog and there isnt really anywhere i can put the two stands where the dogs wont go. So the big dog will rub against the wet clothes and the ones hanging closer to the ground smell like piss and its just not working as great as i thought so far but it is saving a ton of money and its sort of relaxing and fun.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50095091

These are amazing! dd loves to hang anything she can on these and actually its a big help she does a lot of hert own clothes and socks and underwear and stuff. I need to get a few more of them, right now we have 1.

http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/80189663

[chely7425]

That Ikea stuff is great looking too!! We do have a dog but she is a 6 pound pekingese so I am not too worried about her getting hair on the clothes if they are on the back patio... It is REALLY humid here, but I should be ok as long as I put things out first thing in the morning right?

[corrie43]

I do one load at a time and use a drying rack I got at wally world. I also use my deck chairs. Our dryer is broken (runs but no heat). Eventually we will get it fixed. We are in maine and winters are difficult to dry stuff. I have hung inside and then fluffed in the dryer to finish it off. But mostly just hang outside. Our electric bill has gone down significantly. Like 20 a month probably

[LeahBoo]

My apartment is just an old work room or something attached to a garage, it was converted to a studio apartment. My outside area is basically my driveway. There's a 6ft chainlink fence on two sides. I strung my clothesline in the corner of the fence, think spiderweb. Works very well, and is compact. Can you do something like this?

[chely7425]

We can't hang anything from the fences.... I was going to do that but yeah, that is a no go