Doing my laundry with style
I am a big fan of natural clothes drying.
We do own a tumble dryer from years ago and still keep it for emergency use (like when my son refuses to wear anything but his favourite sweater non-stop for months). But right after Fukushima we decided to do our bit to decrease power consumption and bought a rotary clothes line for our garden and two indoor laundry racks for bad weather and winter use.
Whilst the rotary clothes line is not a beauty, the cost savings outway its uglyness. By turning off the tumble dryer, we were able to save about € 350 on our electricity bill in one year. And I don't need to buy expensive body peeling gels, as we airdry our towels, too, which gives them a nicely abbrasive quality, when you use them for the first time after the wash.
As our garden is quite windy, I need to secure the clothes on the rotary line with cloth pegs, which I like to carry in a bag on my body. I use a wonderfully oldfashioned bag, which was designed for the purpose and probably owned by all of our grandmothers.
Yesterday I have tried to make my own more stylish version of this bag using some vintage fabric, an old pair of jeans and some biais ribbon.
We do own a tumble dryer from years ago and still keep it for emergency use (like when my son refuses to wear anything but his favourite sweater non-stop for months). But right after Fukushima we decided to do our bit to decrease power consumption and bought a rotary clothes line for our garden and two indoor laundry racks for bad weather and winter use.
Whilst the rotary clothes line is not a beauty, the cost savings outway its uglyness. By turning off the tumble dryer, we were able to save about € 350 on our electricity bill in one year. And I don't need to buy expensive body peeling gels, as we airdry our towels, too, which gives them a nicely abbrasive quality, when you use them for the first time after the wash.
As our garden is quite windy, I need to secure the clothes on the rotary line with cloth pegs, which I like to carry in a bag on my body. I use a wonderfully oldfashioned bag, which was designed for the purpose and probably owned by all of our grandmothers.
Yesterday I have tried to make my own more stylish version of this bag using some vintage fabric, an old pair of jeans and some biais ribbon.
I hope that this stylish "peg bag" will encourage all of you to go for natural clothes drying!
However, if you are still not convinced think about this: More and more people have solar panels on their roof and get wind power from the national grid. Now just think: You are using electricity which has been harvested from the sun and wind at a high cost and with a low efficiency in order to make heat and wind in your tumble dryer, just to recreate the conditions you have when you hang your clothes into the sun and wind in the first place. Does that really make sense to you?
I am looking forward to reading your comments on this.
Sabine,
AntwortenLöschenIch liebe deinen Blog! Ich frage mich, was das Klima ist wie in Ihrem Teil der Welt. Ich weiß, ich könnte Line-trocken im Sommer, aber unsere Winter sind so feucht und oft nass. Wie wirkt sich das für Sie im Winter?
(Ich bin Google übersetzen diese, so dass ich hoffe, dass es nicht dumm kommen in Deutsch!)
Rita
Dear Rita,
AntwortenLöschenthank you very much for your nice comment. Google did a fine job at translating it. Nothing too funny there. But please feel free to write to me in English without translating. As I lived in the UK for several years and my husband is English, I sometimes find writing in English easier than in German.
The climate here in Bavaria is continental. Very similar to parts of the US and Canada, but I am not sure where exactly you live. We do have cold winters although the last one was the mildest I have ever witnessed.
In regards to clothes drying, I normally dry everything indoors over the winter. I have two drying racks in the laundry room and one in the stairwell, which with a constant stream of washing all week long, is just about enough to cope with the laundry of 2 adults and three kids.
The rest of the year I use a large rotary dryer outside, which is more than enough.
I have read about a month ago that you can dry clothes outside on dry cold days even at temperatures way below freezing. The wet clothes will freeze and then dry by a process called sublimation (where ice evaporates missing the liquid stage out alltogether). This sounded really cool to me, but unfortunately we did not have any more dry cold days this year. I am looking forward to trying this out next winter. I have also read that you have to be careful not to bend the frozen fabrics, as the fibres could break.
I love your blog and the style of your house. It is a great inspiration.
Sabine