What is it against dryers?

As an American, what it is that Brits have against dryers?  I gave it a good try for coping without one, but I don't fancy my home being taken over by clothes, waiting for days for clothes to line dry, not washing them or potentially getting sick from all the extra moisture.  My MIL is a Brit and even she agrees.  I've bought a condenser dryer, it arrives Wednesday and it's better than Xmas! 

my home being taken over by clothes

Moving and flipping clothes is like my hobby now....I love it. Different radiators have different uses and settings....some for socks and the long one for towels.

This warm spell has been a challenge though....I have a couple of t-shirts that smell a bit like a compost pile....a bit earthy.

Lack of room, lack of cash to buy one and run it would be the main objections?

I don't find it a chore to dry clothes on the airer, but we do have a very warm west facing sun room which is like an oven when the sun shines. I also hang out clothes in every season when its dry as I like the smell of air dried clothes. My experiences with dryers in Houston resulted in a few shrunken items until I learned better!

I grew up in the UK and the impression I always got from my parents was that dryers were too expensive to run and wasteful of energy, making them bad for the environment.

So, although they had a dryer, they rarely used it, except in emergency situations when they needed something to be dried really quickly so they could wear it. They use their dryer a bit more now, but mainly just for socks/underwear, while everything else is hung on airers and radiators (or outside in the summer).

I have a combination washer-dryer in my rented apartment, but I don't use the dryer part, mainly because it doesn't seem to dry very well and also because I don't want to shrink my clothes. I used a dryer every week when I was working overseas for a few months last year and it's kind of ruined some of my clothes now - my jeans and some of my tops have shrunk .

I used a dryer every week when I was working overseas for a few months last year and it's kind of ruined some of my clothes now - my jeans and some of my tops have shrunk .

You should be able to stretch the jeans and tops back into the right shape while they're wet, as long as they are made from a natural fibre. You just need to do it slowly. I'm not sure there is anything to be done with man made fibres.

http://thesecretyumiverse.wonderhowto.com/how-to/unshrink-jeans-other-clothes-shrunk-dryer-0154339/

http://www.onegoodthingbyjillee.com/2012/10/how-to-resize-shrunken-clothes.html (I've totally stretched a few sweatshirts that shrank in the dryer while they were wet and air dried them hanging on a clothes airier)

I'm with you Sshoben. I hated not having a dryer when I first came to the UK, and rejoiced when we finally got one after buying our own house. Now that we've got two kids, I have no idea how people with kids/more than two people in the house cope without.

Hi,

As pointed out above, the main reason is the cost of using/running one from an electricity point of view. Whilst they've become more 'efficient', they are still serious 'electricity' guzzlers. Also, your usage amount will affect actual running prices and if you are like our household which is very busy and soon to be even busier, running costs are significant (along with all the other white goods we have, 4 adults, 1 little baby and another to arrive mid this year, doggy too, our bills are relatively high!)

Here's an article which shows comparisons between purchasing costs and running costs, the variance can be a lot of money !

http://www.whitegoodshelp.co.uk/running-costs-tumble-dryers/

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

Wow, great to read this explanation because I wondered myself. Even when my husband was living here in the US with me he wasn't a huge fan of drying clothes in the dryer... This explains some of that to me!


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I love my dryer. 

I have a vented one. Cheaper to buy, uses less electricity and dries more quickly than a condenser so it was a no brainer for me!

Everything comes out soft and warm and fluffy and smelling beautiful. Ahhh! 

soft and warm and fluffy and smelling beautiful. Ahhh! 

I was walking through a neighbourhood and caught a whiff of vented dryer the other day....it was like in Ratatouille when Anton Ego was transported back to his mother's table...I could almost feel a warm 100% cotton tshirt straight from the dryer.

I was wondering about this too! My husband thinks that dryers are a waste of energy and money, so he sometimes grumbles when I use the dryer in our combo washer-dryer. The dryer isn't hugely effective and would take a long time to dry a full load, so I really only use it for towels or if I need a certain item dried relatively quickly. I hardly ever iron so it's also helpful when I need to get the wrinkles out of something. We keep the drying rack in the guest bedroom- I'm a neat freak and I couldn't deal with clothes all over the house and radiators. During warmer months I put the laundry on the washing line as much as I can.

now that we're back in the USA..we  hang our clothes on  'clothes horses" ..just two,  that are set up in our  master  bedroom..for the most part i don't mind..clothes don't seem to  fade  as  fast..or shrink...but since Dh is in charge of laundry  that does mean  some clothes get stretched      I grew up  with  a dryer  being very  'normal" but now  I'm used to it

I've known my MIL for over 20 years and have visited her more times than I can remember but only this past July, she said this to me: "I bought some sweets for the kids but I had to hide them from Tom (FIL) so I put them inside the TUMBLE DRYER" !!!! It is under the stairs next to the fridge but it has been covered for over 20 years. I can't tell you how many times I've helped that woman with putting the laundry outside or how FIL's jeans took four days to dry (they live in Greater Manchester). It's weird. But then my neighbors in England put books in their dishwasher so... I'm moving back to the UK around 2019 and I've already told the husband to look for a house with a utility room with a plug for a dryer!

I got my dryer and love it.  Happy to have clean sheets and towels more frequently and fresh from the dryer .  I would gladly sacrifice to have a dryer. I have my 3rd bedroom back and can do multiple loads in one day (start to finish).  If it came down to it, I'd make sacrifices to have a dryer, but I'll consider not opting for a tv license and avoidance to driving off-set my dryer costs.

I love the eco benefits of air drying but the lint is killing me! The dryer I do have doesn't have a lint trap (how does that even work?!?!?!?) and I have to constantly use sticky tape to get the lint off all my dark coloured clothes.

The wash cycles take AGES though. How is that eco friendly at all? The washer's normal setting takes 2 1/2 hours, and that's one of the quickest! In the States my washer takes just 56 minutes. Drying in the washer/dryer combo is another nightmare, one hour later my clothes may or may not be dry, it's almost a game at this point. Not to mention I have then spent nearly 3 1/2 hours on one load! What am I going to do when Alex and I eventually have a baby and we're doing his/her washing too? Ugh, sorry for the rant, I guess laundry will take longer to get used to than I thought!