Have you been wishing you could save money, conserve resources, and make your clothes last longer by line-drying your laundry instead of machine-drying it–but you just can’t figure out how to fit a clothesline into your home configuration and weekly routine? I am here to help! My new guest post at Live Renewed gives you 16 questions to consider and detailed suggestions about the line-drying options that will work best for your particular situation. Check it out!
Choosing a Clothesline that Works for You
Seeking more guidance in the art of line-drying laundry? Here are my other articles on the subject:
- How to Get Started Line-Drying Your Laundry (also at Live Renewed) talks you through the reasons to line-dry and spells out my personal laundry routine.
- Laundry Drying Dilemmas? Pull a Solution Out of Thin Air! is my “all about it” article written in 1995.
- Line-Drying Laundry is my “all about it, but attempting not to duplicate the above” article written in 2009. The additional 14 years of clothesline experience taught me a lot!
- Clothesline Hangers for Basement or Porch explains how to make a specific type of clothesline hangers, using scrap lumber.
- How Our Thrifty, Green Lifestyle Makes It Easier to Cut Ourselves Some Slack explains a situation in which I did go back to using the dryer for a while–and the downside.
- Cloth Diaper Details is an article about the cloth diapering system that worked for us, including the 4-day laundry schedule that made it possible for me to maintain the supply of clean diapers and clean clothes while working outside the home.
Visit Waste Not Want Not Wednesday for other ways to conserve resources! Visit Works-for-Me Wednesday to learn about hundreds of things that work for other writers! Check out the Laundry Tips Linkup at Mums Make Lists!
The Earthling's Handbook 
While in England, we had a neat little retractable clothesline that ran across our enclosed back porch. Because of all the rain we had, that little gadget was a godsend!
I missed your handmade clothes hangers post. Off to check that one out.
I gotta say, I’m not much of a clothes line gal. I hate that stiff feeling. How do you combat that? (Visiting back from We are THAT Family!)
Well, mainly I have learned that the stiff feeling means my laundry is clean. With jeans, especially, on the first wearing I like feeling the clean, stiff fabric gradually adjust to being worn. When I wear them the second or third day (I try not to wash anything more than necessary!) they are all flabby and…used-feeling, you know? But it took me a while to get to that point.
Stiff clothes or towels that bother you can be softened up by a quick tumble in the dryer on the “air” or “fluff” or “no heat” cycle. It uses a lot less energy than heated drying. I did this with cloth diapers because making them more fluffy makes them more absorbent, as well as (I assume) more comfortable.
Also, laundry will be more stiff if you are using too much detergent for your machine to rinse it all out. When I try a new detergent, I use about 75% of the recommended amount. If that seems fine, I see if 50% will work. If it doesn’t seem to be getting the clothes clean, then I use more. Most detergents work well at 75%, and I get more loads per bottle that way!
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