Hanging out clothes on the line in the winter.

Another thread made me think of this topic, instead of derailing it, I thought I'd start a new thread!

Drying clothes in the winter. Do you hang them inside on the radiator or outside on the line?  Is it a mixture? (Everyone who has a tumble dryer... please enjoy this gif and know I'm giving you the stink eye! )

The first winter I was here in 2011, FIL told me that you don't hang clothes on the radiator to dry in the winter.  Instead you hang them outside on the line.  (I assumed the radiator as that's what his daughter did. *Shrug*) He said to hang them outside on the line for a couple days, then bring them inside, put them on the radiator for 10 minutes to warm them, then put them away.  Mind you at this time the radiator is barely turned on to where the house it just freezing. 

So, that winter hubby and I hung out our clothes during the winter.  We'd leave them on the line for about five days then take them off.  They were still wet.  We'd put them on the radiator or hung over chairs at the dining room table, three days later they'd eventually be dry. Forget ten minutes of warming them up.  They always stunk of mildew.  It was really gross. 

Starting this winter hubby and I do laundry when FIL is out and crank the radiators up high and get them dry within a couple hours then put them away. Covert washing operation!

But the thing is, I've seen people in the neighbourhood hanging their washing out when it's cold/snowing outside.  I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here.  What am I missing?

I've asked another member on here before it they've experienced this and they said no, so I thought I'd ask a wider audience.  How do you deal with clothes in the winter? Do you find yourself smelling like a mushroom? If you hang them outside do they ever get dry? How does this work, I'm boggled!

I do have a tumble dryer (sorry!), but don't like using it for a variety of reasons, so I really try to line dry whenever possible.

The thing is, clothes will only dry on the line if there's at least a bit of sunshine and a slight breeze. Really cold damp still air will not dry them, no matter how long you leave them out.

So if we have an extended period of rain or sunless days, I'm afraid I do resort to the dreaded tumble dryer for a lot of things.

However, I use an airer for things like jumpers that I don't want to tumble dry. Some things also go on the radiators, but our radiators are old and rusty and often leave marks on clothes, so that's really the very last resort.

If you have room for a big airer, get one and put it either in front of a radiator, or in front of a big window that gets the sun.

I occasionally put clothes on the line in winter (only when it's sunny, so very, very occasionally) but none of my neighbours do this and for most things I put them on the radiator.  Sometimes I put the dehumidifier on as well.  Chary's suggestion of an airer is a good one.  We put small things on the airer and larger things on the radiator.  We also put shirts on hangers and hang them on the doorframes.  It is annoying to have clothes spread out everywhere all the time, but if you apply some strategy they will dry in a reasonable amount of time. 

We installed two fold-down airing racks from IKEA, plus have three of their socktopus things for drying small stuff ( forget the proper name but they look like an octopus with pegs for holding socks).  In the spring/summer/autumn we can hang the socktopus (soktopui?) on the line outside too.  We dry some stuff in the combi machine in winter but try to air dry as much as we can.

Lakeland has some really good options for drying clothes.

I'm afraid I'm a rebel.  I use the tumble dryer, much to my MIL's annoyance.

She'll either hang clothes on the line, or, if that's really not an option (pouring rain, gale force winds, etc.) she hangs them on a drying rack in her room, or all around the kitchen stove.

I cannot abide having my laundry hanging all over the kitchen.  Aside from looking like poverty, I'd rather my clean clothes didn't end up smelling of cigarettes and bacon.  I also have a real problem with the idea of my clothes taking 2 days to dry, or of having to pick them up off the ground or out of the bushes. 

So, unless there's zero chance of rain, there's no more than a 15 mph wind, and it's at least warm enough that my fingers won't freeze while I'm hanging up the wet clothes, I just use the dryer.  As you can probably imagine, this means that I rarely hang laundry.

The one exception, that I'll go out of my way to make sure I can hang outside, is sheets/bedding, because I like the fresh smell.  But even that doesn't happen for most of the winter.

socktopus

If that's not the proper name, it should be! 

Everyone who has a tumble dryer... please enjoy this gif and know I'm giving you the stink eye! )

 LOL! We have one, but rarely use it. In the winter, we hang our things on the radiators or doorknobs. We may "finish off" something large in the dryer if it hasn't dried in a day or so.

In the summer, I hang everything outside. It's lovely.  We never hang clothes outside in the winter.  I haven't seen anyone around here do it either.

I am actively shopping for a second-hand tumble dryer in my price range.  I am sick of having washing hanging up on clothes horses, door frames, etc all over this flat.

In other places I've lived in the UK,  i always had a washer-dryer, or a spare bedroom i could hang things up out of sight while they dried, but this flat is so small... I just can't take it anymore.

I do a load of washing every day, and would use a tumble dryer every day if it meant i could put things away in their proper place at the end of the night.

It's too wet here to hang stuff outside most of the winter, plus...the area I live in, I couldn't guarantee the clothes would still be there when I went back to collect them.  I am also not a fan of the 'outdoor' smell of line-dried clothes.  I want them to smell of the washing powder/fabric softener I paid to wash them in!

Everyone around here puts things on the line year-round ... but maybe we're not quite as cold and wintry as other parts of the country? This week, for instance, I've had stuff out nearly every day and even towels have dried.

We hang it up if the weather clears up, but that hasn't happened much this year. We certainly don't leave it up overnight though. Even if it doesn't rain, there's so much moisture in the air that it comes out more wet in the morning. So it's mainly an airing rack, radiators, or the airing cupboard for us in winter.

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Nobody around my neighborhood puts stuff on the line to dry in winter except one house a few blocks away and I just don't get how the stuff can dry.  In fact it seems my neighbors know when it's going to rain even if the day starts out dry and sunny--I'll wonder why no-one else is taking advantage of the weather when I'm the only one putting washing out, and then.....it rains!

Once the letting agency lady came around to do a routine check in early November and I had stuff out on the line, and she laughed at me and said, "I think you can stop trying to dry stuff on the line now that it's November!"  (I hadn't lived here very long yet at the time.)

Radiators are fantastic and most stuff dries within a couple of hours.  Of course stuff like jeans and thicker towels will take longer, but not too much.

I'm so glad that I'm not the only one dealing with drying the laundry in winter. No one around me hangs their clothes out in the winter. I did one day...it was very bright and very breezy and the clothes dried and smelled so nice.Other than that, I don't bother because the air just seems to hold onto the moisture and nothing dries. We use the airer, radiators, backs of chairs...pretty much anywhere we can, and it drives me insane because it looks so messy. Come on spring!

Sunny and windy here today! Perfect drying weather! 

Sunny and windy here today! Perfect drying weather! 

Here too! Just waiting for the load in the washer to finish and I'll go hang them out!

We use the line when it's sunny/breezy out (rare in the winter). Our neighbours have stuff out all the time, but it looks (from a distance, at least) like it's just sitting there constantly wet, so that's not very appealing.

We bought this heated airer a couple of months ago and it's brilliant. It can dry a full load of laundry in an afternoon/overnight, and folds up enough to slide behind a wardrobe (though we've pretty much always got something on it). Supposedly it only costs 5p/hour to run (our electric bills have gone up, but we've also had the heating on).