AIBU to think UK houses and flats are badly designed when it comes to doing laundry?

[YellowBalloonsandOrangeBaboons]

Inspired by moving into an otherwise lovely flat, built in the 90s, which has no utility room (obviously), no space for a tumble dryer, no garden, and a rule for the whole development which prohibits drying washing on balconies. It's got me thinking about all the houses and flats I have lived in in the UK - at least 7, of very different sizes and types, and in different areas - and I have come to the conclusion that architects are spectacularly crap at designing properties as they never routinely seem to take account of something as basic as washing and drying clothes. The only one I have ever lived in that had a purpose-built utility room was built in an extension. Another was old and huge and had a room converted into a second kitchen-cum-utility room. Everywhere else, drying washing has been a monumental, daily pain in the arse.

I just don't get it. It's not a secret that UK weather is generally cold and wet for a good part of the year, meaning that even if you're lucky enough to have a private garden you can't really dry washing there for half the year. Hanging washing all over the house means excess clutter, looks terrible, and creates dreadful problems with damp unless it's hot enough to have the windows open. Now that increasing numbers of flats are being built with no gardens, the problem will surely only get worse. I get even more confused by new builds without gardens that have multiple en suite bathrooms but still no utility room. Why isn't designing somewhere purpose-built to dry your clothes considered a basic in architecture, in much the same way as designing places to eat, sleep and shower? It's rare to design a new flat without at least a second loo now, for example, so it's not like it's just a space consideration. AIBU?

I'd be fascinated to know whether other countries (especially ones without acres of space per property) share this problem, or whether there are any more modern solutions out there.

@jgjgjgjgjg

Surely everyone has room for a Lakeland heated airer or similar? Combined with a washer dryer for emergencies that should suffice.

Thinking back to my old council flat, I could

Block off the toilet by putting one in there.
Block off the kitchen.
Put it right in front of the living room door and directly in front of the small two seater sofa that was the only one that would fit in through the 2'6.5" front doorway.
Put it on my bed.
Put it in the hallway and block off the bedroom.
Put it in the hallway and block off the bedroom and the kitchen.
Put it in the hallway and block off the bathroom.

I'd also need a very long extension lead trailing across the flat from the one electrical outlet in the living room or bedroom or unplug the cooker and plug it into there (as the fridge was plugged into the only standard socket).

Considering that I could only get things from the fridge if I stood in the hallway to reach through and the oven door blocked the kitchen door from the other side when opened, no, not all people have room for a heated airer.

It was also a condition of the tenancy that you didn't dry clothes on the 3 foot by 5 foot balcony as apparently, there had been a secure drying area downstairs from 1946 to 1982, after which point they had knocked it and the lockable storage sheds for each flat down in favour of building a brick thing to put a big metal bin inside.

Upon asking what exactly people were supposed to do with their washing following a snotty letter to all tenants saying it was now a breach of the tenancy to dry clothes indoors as it would cause mould, they informed me that there was a launderette 340 yards away. It didn't seem to matter that the launderette, shop and old people's home had been compulsorily purchased by the same council in 1993 and they had sold the land off for flats.

So this is what I have done after years of struggling with this issue of laundry and storage.

• For me the game changer was a dri buddi. It stands in the bedroom. The blue plastic cover it came with was so ugly, so I got this £10 IKEA wardrobe. I cut a hole into the bottom and cut air vents on the top, then I put the actual dri buddi fan thing in there and got rid of the blue plastic tent thing it comes with.

A bonus is that clothes go on hangers and then can go directly into the wardrobe and don't need ironing.

I also use a peg thing (like on the first page of this thread). I use that for bras and things that don't go on hangers.

CLEAN LAUNDRY
The two things (apart from toys everywhere) that instantly make a place look untidy are laundry. Clean and dirty. So since the dri buddy laundry is on hangers already, it goes directly into the wardrobe as is.

If I then want to sort it into categories etc, that can happen later, but it is clean and dry and hanging out of sight.

I also have a laundry basket FOR CLEAN CLOTHES ONLY. I keep it in bottom of my wardrobe. Yes, ideally things should be put away, but this way, at least it is not piled on the bed or sofa.

I hate doing laundry, so I have an audiobook series I listen to only when doing laundry. So if I want to know what happened next, I need to fold laundry.

OTHER THINGS

1. In the cupboard in the hall it is exactly wide enough for a dryer and hoover.
2. On top of the dryer is a shoe rack. And a folding laundry basket.
3. On a hook on the door is the ironing board.
4. On the other wall of the cupboard are hooks for one coat each.
5. I used a glue gun to put laundry pegs on the inside of the cupboard. That is for gloves, hats scarves.
6. The bed is a lift up one with storage underneath.

I don't know why utility room/washer/drier isn't upstairs (in houses, obvs not flats/bungalows) Everything apart from teatowels or tablecloths goes back upstairs.
Why take it all downstairs to then hump it all upstairs again?

M

Y toy yay

YANBU my second bedroom or bathroom are basically a very expensive laundry room the majority of the time! We're not meant to hang washing on balconies but I'm damned if i'm wasting a rare sunny day! To be fair, I only put the clothes airer out so it's barely visible from other flats, it's not like the washing lines in previous photos. My old flat had communal washing lines behind the garages, I never realised just how useful they were until i moved!

@Knockoneofftheshelftowin

I don't know why utility room/washer/drier isn't upstairs (in houses, obvs not flats/bungalows) Everything apart from teatowels or tablecloths goes back upstairs. Why take it all downstairs to then hump it all upstairs again?

Houses often have a garden to dry washing in. It is easier to hump a basket of dry washing up the stairs, than to hump a basket of heavy, wet washing down the stairs.

We emigrated to Canada and the new townhouse we lived in had a laundry cupboard upstairs with the bedrooms. It was my favourite feature of the house!!! (Maybe an exaggeration but it was amazing!).
It was stacked washing machine and dryer with shelves for towels/sheets/detergent etc next to them. It wasn’t huge and easily could be translated into new builds in the Uk.
It’s not cultural to dry clothes outside here, everyone uses dryers so that is a big part of the equation. We’re west coast with weather that is similar to the Uk so it would make sense to create better laundry spaces in Uk homes.
(Our current house has the stereotypical laundry space in the basement which is good as it’s out of the way but annoying as I have to carry laundry down two floors and often forget about it!)

@WobbleMolly

So this is what I have done after years of struggling with this issue of laundry and storage.

• For me the game changer was a dri buddi. It stands in the bedroom. The blue plastic cover it came with was so ugly, so I got this £10 IKEA wardrobe. I cut a hole into the bottom and cut air vents on the top, then I put the actual dri buddi fan thing in there and got rid of the blue plastic tent thing it comes with.

A bonus is that clothes go on hangers and then can go directly into the wardrobe and don't need ironing.

I also use a peg thing (like on the first page of this thread). I use that for bras and things that don't go on hangers.

CLEAN LAUNDRY
The two things (apart from toys everywhere) that instantly make a place look untidy are laundry. Clean and dirty. So since the dri buddy laundry is on hangers already, it goes directly into the wardrobe as is.

If I then want to sort it into categories etc, that can happen later, but it is clean and dry and hanging out of sight.

I also have a laundry basket FOR CLEAN CLOTHES ONLY. I keep it in bottom of my wardrobe. Yes, ideally things should be put away, but this way, at least it is not piled on the bed or sofa.

I hate doing laundry, so I have an audiobook series I listen to only when doing laundry. So if I want to know what happened next, I need to fold laundry.

OTHER THINGS

1. In the cupboard in the hall it is exactly wide enough for a dryer and hoover.
2. On top of the dryer is a shoe rack. And a folding laundry basket.
3. On a hook on the door is the ironing board.
4. On the other wall of the cupboard are hooks for one coat each.
5. I used a glue gun to put laundry pegs on the inside of the cupboard. That is for gloves, hats scarves.
6. The bed is a lift up one with storage underneath.

That dri buddy plus IKEA wardrobe combination is a fantastic idea!

YANBU. I’ve lived in a variety of flats and houses, and generally the older places have been much more practical with things like cupboard spaces, utility rooms etc. Houses from the 90s onwards seem to cram in as many bedrooms and en-suites as possible, without thinking about how people actually live.

The worst place was a flat with no balcony and a kitchen so small it wouldn’t fit a washing machine. Besides which, we’d have nowhere to dry the clothes even if we could wash them, as they’d built a beautiful communal garden with no drying area. There was a laundrette nearby, which closed down, so we had to fill two camping rucksacks and take a 20 minute bus ride to another area of the city. Absolute pain in the arse.

I agree.

I am in a 3 bed 1990s house.

Tiny kitchen, definitely no room for a dryer (no room for a dishwasher either) and it is so tight that we were restricted to only a couple of brands of washing machine and our fridge freezer barely fits (we can't open the door fully).

Garden is small and overhung by mature trees that were subject to a TPO prior to the development.

No utility room. No central heating. No fires or stoves.

So how the heck are we supposed to dry washing without making the house damp?

Then there are the houses down the street who have a Wheely bin store that is up three steps 🤦🤦🤦

""It was also a condition of the tenancy that you didn't dry clothes on the 3 foot by 5 foot balcony as apparently, there had been a secure drying area downstairs from 1946 to 1982, after which point they had knocked it and the lockable storage sheds for each flat down in favour of building a brick thing to put a big metal bin inside.""

The high rise flats that I grew up in had a flat sized room on each floor whose outside wall was large spaced air bricks, each flat (floor of four flats) had their own drying space. We moved out in 1983. Looking at them nostalgically on Zoopla, I saw that the drying space has been turned into another flat. The people living in these flats generally can't afford to run a tumble dryer.
I like a pp have a dry buddy. I'm looking at kitchen designs for a small kitchen and have been inspired by scani/Japanese designs, but people who I talk to seem aghast had the thought of using every bit of space to the ceiling, over doors etc.

No room in my kitchen for a dryer
Lease says I can't hang washing out (private garden)
Useless

@JamMakingWannaBe

In Scotland, the Building Regs dictate that space has to be made for drying laundry indoors. Maybe it's not the same in other parts of the UK. Many old properties have ceiling airers.

I'm in a flat in Scotland. There's no provision for drying. I use a heated airer in the spare bedroom. It's a 1970s ex Council Flat.

My friend had an extension built including a laundry chute. It leads to a utility room with the washing machine, tumble dryer and purpose built hanging space with dehumidifier. Love it

When I lived in Germany, the building had a dedicated room to hang up laundry in the basement, it was close to the heating system so clothes would dry quickly. Loved that each flat also got a decent sized lockable 'cellar' space to store stuff

In fairness, I remember my father’s (large) house in the US had a washer and a dryer but nowhere to dry clothes. He had a tiny yard but the residents’ association wouldn’t allow anyone to dry clothes outside in case someone saw - the only way his neighbour could have seen was if he’d leant out his top floor window.

As a result he took most of his laundry to the Korean laundry place and tumble dried everything else. So wasteful.

It isn’t just laundry that isn’t well catered for in the UK. I remember looking round a few flats and an estate agent showed me the tiniest flat I ever saw BUT it had a built in cupboard (he showed this very proudly) so I should have been thrilled with it.

@BarbaraofSeville

I'm happy to have the washing machine on the ground floor as we line dry at least 70% of the time.

It's also the case that most UK houses have wooden floorboards upstairs so a washing machine would be very noisy. It would also be a huge job to get a washing machine up and down narrow often curved staircases.

Just been busy talking with DH about all of this. He said the same - there's no logic to putting washing machine in a cupboard upstairs as the noise levels and vibrations would be worse.

In flats you are expected to have a washer/dryer combined machine. 90% of clothes can be dried in them these days. If you buy new build it's usually included as standard whereas a house just gets a washing machine

Also under HQI and other such regulations new build developers are expected to provide over bath airers in flats that pull out from the wall

Most new build house utility rooms are bot big enough to also stand an airer in to dry washing - you're expected to use the garden

Just been busy talking with DH about all of this. He said the same - there's no logic to putting washing machine in a cupboard upstairs as the noise levels and vibrations would be worse.

You'd need to put the machine on a couple of lengths of timber to raise it a few mm off the floor - this will then prevent most of the vibration being felt through the house

@gogohm

You can stack on top of the worktop (dryer on top) did this at my old house

Only if there is nothing above.

I can't fit a dryer on top of a work surface without blocking the window, sacrificing the sink/draining board or the freezer and some of our very limited work surface.

Totally agree. Sitting here admiring my clothes horse that takes centre stage in the living room. Such a good look

I dream of a good sized utility with a pulley and space to store all the associated crap. I do have a pulley in my kitchen just now but it's still not ideal!

@NeverDropYourMooncup

Most architects were men ay least until very recently.

The washing fairy obviously dealt with their clothes. Her and the girl in the Dry Cleaner's.

more to do with lack of space rather than penises

We are in an apartment and whilst there is a laundry cupboard nothing would dry in it. I do have outside space when the weather is ok.

When we move I'm having a pantry and a verandah to keep stuff in and hopefully dry outside when its raining.

@Knockoneofftheshelftowin

I don't know why utility room/washer/drier isn't upstairs (in houses, obvs not flats/bungalows) Everything apart from teatowels or tablecloths goes back upstairs. Why take it all downstairs to then hump it all upstairs again?

If our washer/dryer was upstairs rather than being in the utility room (*) right next to a door into the garden I don't think I would ever put things outside to dry.

(* house was built in the 1990s with a small utility room - not a large house, just built by a decent developer)