Hung out to dry: For part of year at least, clothesline saves energy, gives fabrics sun-dried feel

Published September 13, 2011 in the Commercial Appeal

Mindy Creech, a real estate agent who lives in Cordova, tries to do as many things as she can to be more eco-friendly.

She recycles, composts and uses only cloth napkins and eco-friendly cleaners and beauty products. She decided that hanging her clothes on a line to dry was the next logical step in her decision to live green.

"I have only been using my clothesline since the spring, but I just love it," Creech says.

Saving energy is the biggest and most important advantage for Creech, but she also says it is relaxing.

"I have my line next to my garden, so I get to check on the garden and just enjoy a little peace and quiet while hanging my clothes," she says.

Creech says it is hard to say how much money she is saving by using a clothesline, but she has seen her utility bill go down. The only real disadvantages she has found are that her towels are no longer fluffy soft but a little crunchy, and if it rains while she is away, her clothes get wet.

"My neighbors have never said anything to me, but I do see them staring at it, so I don't think they like it," Creech says.

According to TVA's energyright.com, clothes dryers are found in about 70 percent of homes in the United States.

The energy efficiency of dryers has increased markedly over the past 20 years, owing mostly to automatic shutoff technology and the elimination of pilot lights in gas models, but ENERGY STAR does not label clothes dryers. Most of them use similar amounts of energy.

Mary Adams grew up on a farm in Hopkinsville, Ky., about an hour north of Nashville. Her family had a washing machine, but they used only a clothesline to dry clothes.

It was strung between two maple trees, one of which she says was great for climbing. Adams never used a

dryer until she moved to Memphis to go to college.

"Sun-dried clothes have a wonderful feel that you just can't get from a dryer. I don't know how to describe that," she says. Furthermore, a clothesline will never over-dry or underdry your clothes, and it's great for fabrics you are not supposed to put in a dryer.

On the farm, she could hang the clothes out in the morning, and when she came home in the afternoon, they would be dry, unless it rained.

"There was no dryer to watch or turn off, and it saved electricity, which is probably why Dad never wanted a dryer," she says. Her dad also liked that a clothesline required no maintenance or repair.

Today, Adams uses a stacked washer/dryer combination unit in her High Point Terrace home.

"When I bought the house, there was a clothesline in the backyard, but we took it down to make more room in the yard," she says.

Clothesline user Stephanie Miller never had a problem with neighbors, but her landlord had a policy against tenants using them.

"We loved having a backyard, where we could stretch a clothesline from tree to tree and see our laundry swinging in the breeze along with the flowers," she says.

One day, she and her husband were bragging to their landlord about how beautifully they'd transformed his yard into a lush garden, and invited him to see it for himself.

"He was amazed by the garden, but promptly, and with a sort of embarrassment, told us that the clothesline would have to go," says Miller.

"I was bummed and of course felt a little dirty for having an icky clothesline, but only for a moment. It was in that moment that I became determined to own my own home so that no one could ever tell me again to take down my clothesline," says Miller.

Now that she owns her own home, she dries everything but bath towels and jeans because they dry too stiff for her taste. She has a completely fenced-in backyard, so there haven't been any comments from the neighbors. (Subdivisions and areas may have covenants governing use of clotheslines.)

She has no idea how much money she saves.

"For me, it's more about preserving the quality of Earth's atmosphere that extra little bit," she says.

Karen Golightly, who lives in Cooper-Young, used a clothesline for about three years.

"I bought one of those retractable ones and hooked it to my basketball goal and swing set," she says, noting that her yard is mostly shady and that she was limited as to where she could string up the line.

"I started using the clothesline to save money and to be more eco-friendly, use less electricity, all that good stuff. But it was seasonal at best," she says. Golightly notes that spring, summer and fall were more clothesline friendly than the winter.

She loved the act of hanging the laundry on the line, though.

"It was sort of like meditation meets obsessive compulsive disorder. The process was relaxing: the lifting and arranging, watching the sheets blowing in the wind or at least hanging there nicely in the dead of summer," she says.

"I was doing laundry for five people, and it was a challenge to make everything fit on the line without weighing it down too much," she says. Wet towels went on the ends, lighter sheets in the middle, lots of socks and shirts in between, napkins wherever there was space.

Then a friend told her that she was saving only about $27 a year by hanging her laundry on the line.

"Maybe it had run its course by then, but that was in late fall, time to head into the dryer anyway, and I never really went back," Golightly says. "Who knows? Maybe I'll return to that some summer," she says.

The Department of Energy (energysavers.gov) puts the savings at about $75 year. That may not seem like much, but Project Laundry List (laundrylist.org), a nonprofit group "leading the air-drying and cold-water washing revolution," notes that it typically costs 30 to 40 cents to dry a load of laundry in an electric dryer. Over its expected lifetime of 18 years, the average clothes dryer could cost you approximately $1,530 to operate.

Additionally, the group estimates that 8 percent of households line-dry their laundry during five months of the year. If all Americans who do not use a clothesline started to use one for 10 months of the year, the group estimates we could prevent 12 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere annually.

Laundry Tips (energystar.gov)

Wash your clothes in cold water using cold-water detergents whenever possible.

Wash and dry full loads. If you are washing a small load, use the appropriate water-level setting.

Dry towels and heavier cottons in a separate load from lighter-weight clothes.

If using a dryer, don't overdry your clothes. If your machine has a moisture sensor, use it.

Clean the lint filter in the dryer after every load to improve air circulation.

Use the cool-down cycle to allow the clothes to finish drying with the residual heat in the dryer.

Periodically inspect your dryer vent to ensure it is not blocked. This will save energy and may prevent a fire. Manufacturers recommend using rigid venting material, not plastic vents that may collapse and cause blockages.

Consider air-drying clothes on clotheslines or drying racks. Air-drying is recommended by clothing manufacturers for some fabrics.

Long-Term Savings Tips

Look for the ENERGY STAR and EnergyGuide labels. ENERGY STAR clothes washers clean clothes using 50 percent less energy than standard washers. Most full-size ENERGY STAR washers use 15 gallons of water per load, compared to the 32.5 gallons used by a new standard machine. ENERGY STAR models also spin the clothes better, resulting in less drying time.

When shopping for a new clothes dryer, look for one with a moisture sensor that automatically shuts off the machine when your clothes are dry. Not only will this save energy, but it also will save the wear and tear on your clothes caused by overdrying.

ENERGY STAR does not label clothes dryers because most of them use similar amounts of energy, which means there is little difference in energy use among models.