Thirty Days Dryer Free

Today marks day 30 of no dryer in my home, and I have to admit so far it has been easier than I thought. I probably average 15-20 large loads of laundry for my family of five, including towels and bedding... a fact I wasn't fully aware of before this for many reasons. In the past we were always to one extreme or another behind on laundry...

The weather plays a huge part in successful outside line drying. I say outside line drying because it is my preferred method, if for nothing else the smell of those clothes dried in the breeze and sunshine. So, for my family to be successful at living dryer free we need to do laundry every day there isn't rain. Rainy days are the only days in the last 30 I haven't line dried and I am completely caught up with all of our laundry.

I have enjoyed my time at the clothesline, the evenings and early mornings are a little chilly but having the whole neighborhood to myself here and there is kind of nice... they call it meditative, which for me line drying is.

Our next steps are to find the electrical vampires in our house and stabbing them to death with unplugging of unused items and purchasing of energy saving strips for our computers, TVs and gaming system... being diligent can net us another 10-20% savings on the electric bill... more money in our pockets, less CO2 gas into the air and I help lessen our need to strip this world of it's natural resources of oil and coal. More on that at another time.

Another change will be to reevaluate the products we use for cleaning... we need to be more aware of where the things we use come from and what their true environmental impact is.... many if not most of our cleaning products are either oil or animal based... I for one am not going to be a part of that anymore, again more on that later.

So the short of it is the first 30 days have been successful... now onto the next 30 which are colder.

Dryer vs Clothesline

The Dryer:

Accounts for 6-10% of your electric bill, second only to your refrigerator.

Uses natural resources to run, natural gas, oil, coal; all are burned in the production of electricity, putting countless pounds of CO2 into the air we need to breathe.

Clothes dryer and washing machine fires account for about 17,700 structure fires, 15 deaths, and 360 injuries annually. The yearly national fire loss for clothes dryer fires in structures is estimated at $194 million. Please visit www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/pubs/5022.html for more information.



The Clothesline:

Is a tried and true method of clothes drying that has been used for thousands of years.

It's free.

It has no adverse affects to the environment.

The sun will naturally whiten your clothes and remove stains without the use of bleach.

The air is a natural deodorizer.

The sun a natural germ killer.

Clothes last longer... what do you think lint is??? Little pieces of your clothes being tumbled off of them.

Using the clothesline is considered moderate exercise, along with getting outside and breathing the fresh air there are health and mental benefits... many people say putting clothes out and in on the clothesline is medatative.

Drying clothes inside during the winter adds moisture to dry air.

For more information:
http://www.laundrylist.org/
http://www.linedry.com/
http://www.solar-dryer.com/

http://www.earthlingshandbook.org/laundry

Divorce Your Dryer

I've been with my husband 17 years, in that time we have gone through 3 new dryers and at least 2 used... that's not to be out-done by the 3 new washers and no clue how many used... with a family of 5, 3 boys our washer and dryer have always been worked hard.

When we moved into our first house together our neighbor offered to help us string a clothesline from a very large pole on his property to our back door... the line was about 100 foot long and went 30 feet in the air. Even nicer still was he provided the pulleys and rope; industrial in nature, after 10 years it was still like new and it NEVER sagged. I don't think my neighbor knew the beast he would unleash with that clothesline.

During the warmer months, if it wasn't raining you can be assured there would be laundry flapping in the wind at 55 Fairview Avenue. If the weather was just right you might see load after load go up and down on the clothesline. I was a stay at home mom, it gave me time with the kids in the yard, it got me outside, and we all seem to prefer the line dried clothes. My kids have not once complained about stiff jeans or scratchy towels. Even to this day when my second son does his own laundry he air dries the majority of his clothing.

So October 1, 2010 comes around and my dryer spins but produces no heat... I call Sears parts center for the thermal coil and am told it is on back-order and no clue when it will be available but they can send a repair man out to fix it... I refuse to pay someone for something I can fix myself. The dryer isn't even 6 years old as of yet and this will be it's second what I consider major repair. We paid $650 for the dryer, put $175 in a repair and am staring down another $200... that's over $1000 for a dryer, in six years; plus the electricity that it needs to run to the tune of about $300-$400 a year... now we are pushing the cost to $4000, that's about $666 a year just for the convenience of ruining our clothes and the environment.

I live in New England and we are staring down the winter months and here I am seriously considering divorcing my dryer. My husband thinks I am crazy, he wants the dryer fixed and here I am just disgusted at the prospect.

I have always been aware of the implications we as humans have on the environment and try to walk a path that does as little damage to this earth as possible. On April 20, 2010 we had the worst hit to our environment to date; the Deep Water Horizon oil rig exploded killing four with others to follow in the coming months. Millions of gallons of oil spewed into the Gulf of Mexico, the rig wasn't officially killed till 5:54 am on September 19, 2010. Countless animals lost their lives, we wont know for years what implications the oil spill will have on our health in eating affected seafood; dangerous chemicals were used and only God knows what was used and what went on behind our backs, done in secret. Oil is still being found on the ocean floor, tar balls are still washing up on the shoreline an BP claims the spill is entirely cleaned up. Whatever.

I can't help but sit back and admit to myself I own some of that, I use gas to run my car, I use oil to heat my house and electricity to light it. Can my family cut back? Of course we can. We have been more diligent with recycling, we discarded properly a second refrigerator, we have been more diligent shutting off lights and since March, 80% of the clothes have been dried on the clothesline, and with the help of nature having the hottest summer on record we didn't mow our lawn very much either... but in truth we keep the grass longer than most already; one of the first steps to living a more eco-friendly life. With 80% of our yard being gardened for the wildlife we have little need for a mower in the first place. Know that running your typical gas powered lawn mower for one hour puts out as much pollution as running your typical American car 350 miles down the highway... all that pollution just to have short grass which which does nothing but leach the life out of the environment. I digress much, other blog posts for other preachings; we are here about dryers.

Dryer busted, I'm disgusted, so what do we do? I am an internet addict, for 17 years I have been plugged in and engaged... I remember the months where our AOL bill was more then the cable... now AOL is free. I get online and Google "clothesline winter drying", start researching and YES I can do it... I can go dryerless with a little diligence; $30, 200 foot of clothesline, some nails, a hammer and a couple hundred "pegs" aka clothespins I am in business. To date four loads have been dried in the basement, and at least for now I feel liberated that I have divorced my dryer.