For Mother’s Day this year I got an awesome present. Two clotheslines! They are retractable and are just outside our back door. I feel so… green… when I hang a load of laundry to dry, especially diapers.
Our dryer sucks, so a lot of things require 2 full cycles to get completely dry. I do have a drying rack in my basement that I use, but I can’t help feeling that the drying appliance just gets shifted from the dryer to the dehumidifier in the basement. Plus, I’m not wild about clothing drying next to our catbox.
Diapers are pretty crunchy after line-drying. A lot of people will put them through the dryer on no-heat for a few minutes to soften them, but I haven’t done that yet. I’m sure it uses very little energy to do that, but so far stiff clothing hasn’t bothered me enough to try it.
Now that the weather is starting to cool, I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to use my clothesline. Already I’m noticing that clothing takes longer to dry. On hot, sunny days I could get a load of diapers to dry in about 3 hours! Now they might still be damp after a whole day.
But, my other main reason for the clothesline is to SUN the diapers to get out stains. It is AMAZING how well it does removing diaper stains. If only I had taken before and after pictures. But here is a picture of my first load of clothes I dried this spring.
