Living without a dryer

[kitchwitch]

Well, the time has come... our dryer decided to shuffle its mortal coil yesterday and we're dryer-less.

The old me would have whined for a new HE model.

The new me says "eh, why do i need a dryer anyway?"

What I need to know, from all those voluntarily or involuntarily dryer-less, is this: What do you do in the wintertime?

 

[Denim Deb]

I was w/out a dryer for several months 5 years ago. So, during the winter, I dried everything on lines in my basement-unless it was warm enough. Then I dried them outside.

 

[animalfarm]

freeze dry outside, shake them, hang them somewhere in the house to finish if they are still slightly damp.

 

[hwillm1977]

We have a woodstove, so in the wintertime I hang lines back and forth across the kitchen... it takes about 30 minutes for a load to dry with the heat being thrown off the woodstove... as an added bonus it adds some moisture to the air in the house

 

[moolie]

We rarely use our dryer, but we live in a very arid climate.

We do get cold winters, and we have railings between our kitchen level and our family room level (2 steps down) on which we hang heavy things like jeans and towels, the rest (shirts, socks, undie etc.) gets hung on a rack like this:

 

[gettinaclue]

Our dryer went out a couple/few years ago and we were faced with this same situation - and it wasn't something I was looking forward to since winter was coming. My MIL mentioned freeze drying. She said she did it when she was growning up (she grew up waaaaaay up high in the NC mountains). She said freeze drying would even freeze out some of the stains that wouldn't come out with washing.

I never tried it. My Mom gave us a dryer and that's what we use in the winter and on rainy days.

I did use a rack for a while with a fan or two blowing on them. It worked well enough.

Just don't get behind on the laundry. LOL

 

[Neko-chan]

We usually dry outside if it's sunny and breezy. Winter drying usually takes a couple days outside because the sun is much less intense. Moolie has it right though: if you got a wood stove or a sunny place, use a rack. We have two of that model she shows. Only thing I don't like about them is that if we do have to use them, they really get in the way (our house is small). We also have an "airing cupboard", which is the closet that the linens and hot water cylinder is in. There's enough hanging space in there for hubby to get his work clothes pretty much dry by morning.

 

[savingdogs]

My mom very thoughtfully gave me the very same thing moolie posted a picture of. I put that in front of the woodstove. Normally it is to dry off our winter coats and jackets but when the dryer was broken I used it to dry our clothes.

 

[Marianne]

Our neighbor used to hang clothes outside all year, she said the same as the other posts that the clothes freeze dried. Luckily, I have never had to do that. I have lines in the house that I can use.

A little off topic, this made me remember that years ago when our dryer shot craps, I had two babies in diapers. Hanging diapers outside wasn't too bad, but occasionally I would complain about it. Nothing got fixed. Then our washer went out. A month later I still was washer and dryer-less. I complained a lot without any luck. Finally I sent DH to the laundromat with two babies, a diaper pail and a basket. I figured he might as well have first hand experience of what I was going through every couple of days. Both washer and dryer were fixed that weekend.

 

[keljonma]

Freeze dried is good. But nothing beats winter like clothes dried and warm by the wood stove.