Another good reason to hang clothes to dry

Summary- modern laundry methods are gross.  Sunshine saves the day.

In Australia exterior clothes lines have been normal for a long time.
Many people in Units and apartments use electric driers unfortunately.
I will add, to much sunshine can bleach colours out , if the sun is very strong.

John C Daley wrote: I will add, to much sunshine can bleach colours out , if the sun is very strong.

Clothes can be hung out with the wrong side out or inside out to prevent colors from fading.

I have found that the sun will also bleach stains out which is a good thing.

I think that's one of those things that was so obvious that no one bothered to write it down.  Then came electric dryers and we forgot that one hangs clothes inside out.

Protecting the colour is part of it, but also the side of the cloth closest to our skin is the side that is most likely to harbour invisible beasties (and visible ones like moths, fleas, etc) and exposing it to the sunshine is a great way to get rid of both.  

Traditionally we use sunshine to bleach linen cloth.  There's a chemical reaction between water and sunlight to make a kind of natural bleach (whitening agent).  If memory serves, it's H2O2.  

Maybe it's my personal aesthetic sense, but I like the way my older clothes fade and wear to show their age. A little sun bleaching doesn't bother me too much.

I am aware of laws in North America which ban outside clothes lines.
The story I have been told it;
- lowers the standard of the community
- only poor people use exterior lines.
Is this a fact?

John C Daley wrote:I am aware of laws in North America which ban outside clothes lines.
The story I have been told it;
- lowers the standard of the community
- only poor people use exterior lines.
Is this a fact?

There are bylaws in some places, especially in cities.  But I hear a lot of communities are repealing these bylaws and other cities have taken the stance of non-enforcement (a bit like how they don't enforce the law that a pint of beer must be served to a gentleman while he's taking his exam in some Oxford Collages).

It's a bit like the visible mending movement.  It used to be that you would only mend clothing in a sloppy way if you were too poor to get it mended properly.  Now it's a badge of status if you repair your clothing because you have enough free time or income to spend mending clothes instead of buying new ones.  Same with Laundry.  If you are home enough to hang out the laundry and then bring it in again before the dew settles, then it's a sign that you are affluent and care about the environment.  If you are poor, you're working two and a half jobs to make ends meet so you don't have time to hang laundry.  

Agreed - it's definitely not nation-wide, in the USA, and as r.ranson said about Canada, many of those places that do have the ordinance are meeting with people demanding them repealed here, too.

I was going to hang our laundry outside yesterday for the first time this year.
57 degrees and a nice breeze!
I took a video call with my dad and he asked what the temperature was.  I took a look and it had fallen to 39 degrees in about an hour, and it was pouring rain! (still have snow banks around the north side of the house and many through the woods yet).
Spring time in Montana.

For busy (or lazy) people: an indoor drying rack has the advantage of being patient. You can hang clothes to dry, and take them off and fold them whenever you have time. If it is two or more days later, no harm done. (I do not want to think about clothes that have been left in a dryer for two days…) Family members can simply remove items they need from the laundry rack, saving time on folding and putting away laundry.

I often intentionally leave my laundry - especially bedding - out on the line for 2 or even 3 days. The wonderful, clean scent it imbues becomes stronger and lasts much longer, with the added time outdoors. I do it more and longer, in early spring to help not only the laundry but also the whole house smell fresher and cleaner, after a winter of closed doors and electric or wood heat. It soothes my soul.

I like the smell of clothes that have been out for a few days, too. The practical issues with that for us are smoke from wood fires in the cool season, and bird poop pretty much all year round. I hope that when I put a roof over the back deck we can hang things there and at least not have to dodge the birds (and not bring them inside if it starts to rain unexpectedly).

I have been thinking that the high efficiency low water washer was the reason behind drama of these viral laundry stripping videos.

I didn't watch right through the laundry stripping video, but in the example from someone else's video near the start, I noticed the clothes giving the most super-dramatic effect were all dark colours. Though I have no doubt modern machines and commercial laundry liquids don't clean clothes well and can even leave more toxins on the fabric than it started with, I think maybe what was being stripped in the original video she sampled may have been primarily dye, not dirt! Her own example looks way more genuine to me.
Line dried clothes definitely smell and feel far cleaner than clothes dried any other way.

I am sure you are right in some cases (some may even be kind of faked for views) but I have seen that question addressed by skeptics and enough  examples of bedding, pillows, or similar or things where the color that soaked out was not what dye bleed would look like to feel pretty sure that there is a lot of grime embedded in a lot of "clean" laundry.

Probably I am also influenced by growing up with a very *detailed* knowledge of the wash water of my large family's laundry and how filthy it would get in the old top loaders, extrapolating that to the small amount of water used in HE washers...it's made me less confident in the ability of those appliances to do their job as well as advertised.

Great thread! It has inspired me to bump up "make clothes drying rack for inside, and clothes line for outside" many notches on the to-do list for spring.

Lack of $, and distant/expensive laundromats sure help too :)

I was stripping my laundry before it became a 'thing'. I lived for 8yrs, in a 2nd floor apartment with no laundry facilities, and needed a walking staff to manage the stairs. That meant hauling laundry was darn near impossible, unless hubby was available to help. Then, he started having heart attacks - 5 (that we know for sure with more suspected), over the course of about 18 months. My only recourse was washing in the bathtub, and hanging them on a drying rack, indoors.

I'm allergic to tide and most other commercial laundry soaps & detergents, so only used the washing soda & borax. I didn't get the slimy feeling, after the first few washes, so I was pretty sure that was the remnants of the old soaps/ detergents(even the hypoallergenic ones). But, yes, this is very real, and just like her white sheets, all our laundry came out noticeably cleaner, and though it took several washings like that, before the water started coming off clearer, each time I did it, they were cleaner than the last.

Other very interesting things we noticed that seem like they were a direct result of this included easing of the whole family's allergy symptoms, distinct improvement of acne issues (even in the teenagers), improved sleep, the whole apartment smelled better, and there was substantially less dust in the air.

I hang dry any clothes that are soft and underwear, well and wool. They last much longer the waist bands don't deform and my comfy clothes stay soft and the texture is still nice. I hang them inside in the winter too.

I forgot to mention that a person can wash clothes by hand and dry on a clothesline to get a PEP Badge bit (BB):

https://permies.com/wiki/108429/pep-nest/laundry-hand-PEP-BB-nest

Also, a person can get a PEP BB for this one too:

I used lemon juice and line drying in the sun.

https://permies.com/wiki/157686/pep-nest/Whiter-Whites-Chlorine-Bleach-PEP#1260650

I've never been one to use a dryer, first out of frugality and now a mix of frugality and energy consciousness. When I complained about mould in an apartment once my landlord claimed it was because we were drying clothes indoors - we had no access to a dryer or outdoor line so I'm not sure how he expected our clothes to dry 🙄.

Now, at my apartment, our front door (which is a side door) is right beside the vent for our downstairs neighbor's dryer (duplex). The smell that comes from it really knocks me sick. It's like hot fake floral perfume.. Blegh. We hung up a simple line on our porch that works really well. And our other neighbors put their clotheshorse out in the parking lot! Creativity is necessary in urban spaces but usually a solution is possible.

Today is the first day in 6 months that we are able to use the clothes line.  Snow bank finally melted under the line.  ;-)  Heading out now to hang up clothes.

Last week there was a day the laundry could hang outside and become dry before sunset. Yesterday was such a day too, but I did not have a full load of laundry (I never wash when the machine is only half full). Tomorrow, when I will change the sheets of the bed, I don't know how the weather will be, it's so very unpredictable here in the Netherlands ... But I have a clothesline inside too.

The second video, showing a couple’s white sheets being “stripped” could have darkened the bath water not only because of their body oils, but also skin colour. Thirty rears ago, I worked with a girl who was married to a man with dark skin and she told me her husband’s side of the bed ‘darkened’ in the course of the week, so she began washing her bedding every 3-4 days instead of once a week. I’ve also noticed my husbands pillow becomes quite dark and dirty a week after changing our sheets. We’re both fair skinned, but he’s a farmer, so is very tanned on the back of his neck. The skin oils (and body creams) being stripped out of the sheets in the video may have darkened the bath water, but the melanin also contributed.  Skin colour, natural or acquired (fair/olive/tanned) may have contributed to the colour of the bath water.)

Phil Stevens wrote:I like the smell of clothes that have been out for a few days, too. The practical issues with that for us are smoke from wood fires in the cool season, and bird poop pretty much all year round. I hope that when I put a roof over the back deck we can hang things there and at least not have to dodge the birds (and not bring them inside if it starts to rain unexpectedly).

These are really good points, aside from fickle weather. I think it's fair to say that in most places in South America people never even consider a dryer (til recently, the only model available even in the cold corner where I live was like a hair dryer connected to a large square box where you hung your shirt-- you would never, never get a pair of jeans dry, not even in a week) and hang out there laundry as a matter of course, and many people don't even have a washing machine-- a lot of people still do it by hand (which shocks me, even though I washed my clothes by hand in the tub in college too).
If you're lucky, you live in a place with warm sun and a breeze. If not, you need to have a covered place and some time.  In the winter here, where we can have a month of rain and chill every day, many people's clothes start to develop a bit of a moldy funk, but most of the time we're blessed with a great natural dryer outside on the line and there is no reason to even consider a dryer.
We do have the bird problem (hummingbirds, in particular, seem to like to perch and poop). I try to make sure the feeders are taken away on the days I hang out laundry. Also have to keep the vegetation trimmed underneath my pulley line to make sure towels and longer things don't rub against itchy things like okra or beans.

I think one thing I can recommend to anyone is less soap, longer soaks, and more agitation!!! Using the turbo setting seems to get much nastier water out of my washer (and we don't wash with hot water here, also not a thing). Soaking helps get things a bit cleaner, and I don't think I need to convince any permie that more soap isn't the solution.

Despite the water looking grey after doing the laundry by hand or machine, I have never been convinced that it is "dirt" out of the clothes. I remember as a child asking my mother why the washing powder manufacturers put something in the powder to make it look as if the clothes were dirtier than they could possibly be. I always wash brand new clothing and you still get greyness in the water so you can't blame sweat, cosmetics or spilt food on that can you?
My washing is (mostly - I do live in the UK) dried on the line outside although in winter it still comes in damp. I discovered the bleaching effect of sunlight when I washed my son's nappies (diapers)  - they were terry towelling squares - with a red sweatshirt of Mr Aras that I hadn't realised was in the machine and after a day on the line, they were white instead of pink.
I love the smell of line dried clothes although I bring them in before dark as I don't like earwigs setting up home in my socks.

Eleanor Froelich wrote:For busy (or lazy) people: an indoor drying rack has the advantage of being patient. You can hang clothes to dry, and take them off and fold them whenever you have time. If it is two or more days later, no harm done. (I do not want to think about clothes that have been left in a dryer for two days…) Family members can simply remove items they need from the laundry rack, saving time on folding and putting away laundry.

One thing I discovered by using a drying rack during the winter months is that it helps add moisture into the air that heating (any method) the house takes out. Instead of adding humidifiers to rooms, I hang the wet clothes and it becomes a passive method of humidifying the air. Helps relieve dry skin/eczema conditions.

Angela Montes wrote:

Eleanor Froelich wrote:For busy (or lazy) people: an indoor drying rack has the advantage of being patient. You can hang clothes to dry, and take them off and fold them whenever you have time. If it is two or more days later, no harm done. (I do not want to think about clothes that have been left in a dryer for two days…) Family members can simply remove items they need from the laundry rack, saving time on folding and putting away laundry.

One thing I discovered by using a drying rack during the winter months is that it helps add moisture into the air that heating (any method) the house takes out. Instead of adding humidifiers to rooms, I hang the wet clothes and it becomes a passive method of humidifying the air. Helps relieve dry skin/eczema conditions.

This is especially the case for anyone heating with wood.

We had a big storm here in Montana a couple days ago.  It brought a ton of smoke down from Cananda.
I was going to hand the out, but really don't want a smokey smell in them.  Ok if I am camping tho.  ;-)
The dryer will be getting some use today.

Sorry for sending you smoke. I started getting it in my part of Canada yesterday and stared at my laundry on the line and debating bringing it in. However, I decided that I'm probably doomed to an entire summer of smoke and I was going to use my outside line sometime so I might as well use it now, dang it. The ?good? news is that when everything smells like smoke anyway, smoky clothes aren't particularly noticeable...

I have never encountered "laundry stripping" before, and my mind is slightly blown. I do wonder what I'm supposed to do about killing germies on my wool socks in the winter when sun is unavailable.

Angela Montes wrote:

One thing I discovered by using a drying rack during the winter months is that it helps add moisture into the air that heating (any method) the house takes out. Instead of adding humidifiers to rooms, I hang the wet clothes and it becomes a passive method of humidifying the air. Helps relieve dry skin/eczema conditions.

I love this idea! I noticed when my showering habits changed to become shorter that our bedroom air got much drier, I added a humidifier which helped ALOT but it broke last week and I really really don't want to replace it.

Now to convince Hubs that it's a good idea 🙃

I finally did it! Used T-posts I had laying around and some fencing wire. I took pliers and kinked the wire every couple feet to avoid the wind sliding and bunching the clothes.

I wash clothes by hand about every 2 or 3 days now when I shower, since that seems to make the most sense for water usage, and the tub/showerhead is my only hot water source.

Soooo much better than hauling 2 weeks worth of dirty laundry for a 30 min one way drive and fussing with all that laundromat jazz, spending $ on fuel and $15 in quarters. So it saves between $30-$40 a month - not bad!

Easy enuf to string up another wire inside near the wood stove for the rainy/cold times.

I find it amazing that for so long I overlooked such an easy, mostly free option to clean and dry my clothes!?

We just hung our sheets out on the line, over the snow bank, but in the sun and temps are in the 40's now, 10:30 am.  I love the smell of sun dried sheets.

In the US we have something called 'Home Owners' Associations' which function as a form of governance over the homeowners in the development.  They set the rules, including what colors you can paint your house.  Outside clothes lines and HAM radio towers are typically not on their list of 'approved' items.

Karen Isaacson wrote:In the US we have something called 'Home Owners' Associations' which function as a form of governance over the homeowners in the development.  They set the rules, including what colors you can paint your house.  Outside clothes lines and HAM radio towers are typically not on their list of 'approved' items.

HOAs are pretty much the enemy of anyone practicing any form of permaculture or prepping.  They often have strict controls of how you setup your house, if/how you have gardens, animals, landscaping, etc.  They are all about maintaining a "look" to the neighborhood.  Fortunately, there are plenty of areas that don't have HOAs, but you have to live with the idea of not controlling how others live.

I know quite a few people who have changed HOA and Strata bylaws.  A lot of times the requirements were put in place when the place was built and don't reflect current values or trends.  It's not always easy to change, but for something like laundry and vegi gardens where it's now aesthetically pleasing to be seen as eco-conscious, it can be done.  

As everyone else makes laundry hanging norm and a rich person's activity (as described above), it's going to become easier to make those changes.  

I need to sit down and seriously consider installing a laundry line in my backyard like my grandparents had. Sunshine drying my clothes leads to a lower electrical bill and reduced risk of a dryer fire.

My neighbor has used one of those standalone umbrella four sided units but they seem to get crowded fast! They currently use what remains of it to hang bird feeders from.



The picture attached makes it look good.... I dunno, personal preference!

I also on that note should start looking into collecting some clothespins.

As far as HOA's go, I lived in one for about 19 years.  I built an 8 foot fence to maximum area allowed, which was 3/4 of my 1/2 acre.
Hardly any lawn inside that area.  Just enough for the grandkids to play on.  The rest was garden, flower beds, large clothes line etc.
Someone complained about my clothes line once and I threatened to sue them for being a peeping tom.  No way to see into the yard from anywhere unless you were on a roof.
Never heard another thing from them.... lol  Just finished making the bed with my sun dried sheets.  I love that smell.