The man who installed my solar panels two years ago mentioned that many people become very conscious of their energy use and constantly check to see how much of their daily power use comes from the Sun. I was no exception to this, using my Kill-A-Watt meter to measure the energy use of everything from my paper shredder (48 Watts shredding, 1 Watt waiting) to my big screen television and cable box combined (75 Watts off, 300 on).
Knowing that any appliance that heats something with electrical resistance (dishwasher, water heater, oven, toaster etc) is inherently inefficient, I did a few calculations for the dryer. I recorded the electric meter readings before and after using the dryer, adding the kWh used from the street to the kWh produced from the solar panels making sure everything else in the house was off or that I could account for it. 3 kWh for a 40 minutes dryer load, or 4.5 kWh per hour of use. $0.69 of Clean Energy Option electricity per load. In my house, thats $251.85 a year. If we did not get our power from renewable solar or wind from our own panels or from Community Energy or Sterling Planet, we'd pump a couple tons of greenhouse gasses into the air from the power plants just drying clothes.
The greenhouse gas emissions (from the power plants supplying Connecticut's standard power option) of using an electric dryer insead of hanging them on the line is similar to driving an 8 mile round trip to the mailbox at the end of my driveway. Not using the line therefore is about as silly as driving to the next town and back to check the mail .
Being obsessed with being efficient with energy (probably compensating for the rest of my messy life), I use a cost/benefit approach to clothes drying. When you consider the environmental costs of using electricity to dry clothes instead of the good old fashioned clothesline, the clothesline wins the comparison. This is especially true if you approach your clothesline use as a time and motion study.
Where you place the clothesline can affect its ease of use, drying rate of the clothes and the visual impact. I was able to connect the house end of the pully system outside the door closest to the laundry room to minimize distance carrying the clothes. This happened to be on a deck several feet above the ground. but it would have worked at ground level because the yard slopes down from there. My clotheline runs forty feet to a conveniently located tree, but a pole would have worked also. A stainless steel hook in the tree insures that the wound healed quickly. By making it a slight downhill run from the house, gravity assists to put out the wet clothes, pulling the dry clothes uphill is easy because then they are lighter.
The ideal location for a clothesline to minimize seeing the clothes on the line is to set it up at a corner of the house so it runs out at an angle to both sides. This makes it less visible from the windows on the sides of the house that have a viewing area primarily straight out from walls. It also assures that wind from more than one direction can blow over the clothes.
What about the shade under the tree? If drying time is of concern, put darker colors of the lightest fabrics that dry faster on the line first so they are in the shade. The slower drying lighter color and or heavier fabrics keep back in the sunshine. This will help all the clothes to dry at the same rate. Or, you could reverse the order so the clothes that dry fastest are the first to come off so you can add another load to the line.
"But there are bugs outside!" I routinely put the clothes from the line through the fluff air cycle (no heat) and the bugs, if any, are never seen again. Bird droppings? I don't think they like to perch on clothes, at least I've never come across any droppings.
Can't use the line in the winter? Sure you can! It takes only a little longer because the dryer winter air compensates some for the lower temperatures. Just be sure its not snowing on your wet clothes or the snow will stick. You also want to hang the clothes while they are still warm from the washer. Even if you have to bring in the clothes before they are done and use the dryer to finish them, it will save a lot of energy. I actually weighed a load of clothes before and after hanging them out in a light snowstorm, then after using the dryer, and discovered that they lost 80% of the water while hanging in the snow!
Takes too long? Bah. With practice you can develop a rythym that minimizes movements and the laundry zooms out there. Time yourself and challenge your family to beat your best time. I find I pull in the clothes faster because I pull off clothespins starting near the house with one hand while dropping the laundry into the basket with the other, then pull the line as I turn toward the house to drop the clothespins in their sack hanging on the pulley hook. Then repeat. (I told you I was obsessed.) In a real hurry because its starting to rain? Yank the clothes into the basket sending the pins flying in every direction, pick them up later. I once took in two loads in 30 seconds flat.
Line lint, the scrourge of the fresh air laundry people. Most lint comes off if you put the clothes in the fluff air no heat cycle. Some dark clothing still may keep a little lint if the clotheline is older and starting to wear. Other than replacing the line, try turning the darkest clothes inside out before you hang them so any lint can't be seen when you are wearing them. Stubborn lines of lint often appear when the laundry gets blown up over the top of the upper line, then gets rubbed along that upper line when you pull in the clothes. You can minimize this by hanging long items like pants halfway between the line spreaders where the two lines are farthest apart. This makes it harder for the clothes to get flipped over the upper line.
Check the weather! Besides putting off doing laundry if its going to rain, see how windy it will be. Double your normal number of clothespins on windy days. Use a lot on normal days too, the extra time using more clothespins is worth the time saved looking for a t-shirt in your neighbors yard. Speaking of clothespins, be sure to buy American made renewable wood pins from sustainably harvested forests.
Have items of clothing you don't want displayed to the world? An inside drying rack is always a handy item to have.
There are probably many more ideas out there to help with using a clothline, send them to tonymitchell@conservect.org and I will add them.
Protect your Right To Dry! The CT state legislature considered a law forbidding the outlawing of clothelines. Maybe it will pass next year.
A gas dryer is much more efficient than an eectric clothes dryer, so when its time to replace your old, evil power hungry dryer, maybe you can get one that runs on biogas, and cut your clothes drying greenhouse gas emissions to zero.
Tony (Mr. Energy) Mitchell