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.

@SirenSays

They just built a very posh new estate, most houses there cost upwards 300k. Yet there's no space for dryers anywhere. Most people are keeping them in their sheds at the bottom of their gardens.

That’s just shameful.

Why take it all downstairs to then hump it all upstairs again?

How is my child supposed to go to sleep with a loud washing machine and dryer going off in the room next to her? I can hear the neighbours laugh through our walls, let alone what you can hear through the walls inside your own house.

I like having it downstairs because it means I can put a wash on when people are asleep and shut the kitchen door, the front room doors, and the noise doesn't carry to them.

Electric heaters.

The whole development is off the gas grid, although the gas mains serve other houses on the street.

It is cost saving by tight arsed builders and as such not that unusual, especially not if the houses were being built for or marketed for landlords who don't want the expense or hassle of gas safe certification.

Although tbh they are expensive to run so we don't stay very warm.

DS rented a ground floor flat , his landlord kicked off because he put a airer on the doorstep with door open...then also complained that drying clothes was causing damp issues inside. 🤔
Houses in this country are generally badly designed. Small bedrooms without enough room for a bed, wardrobe and chest of drawers.

A friend in a new HA house had to re hang a door to swing outwards as her sons single bed blocked the door opening. No room for wardrobe at all.
I live in a 50s bungalow, nowhere to dry indoors but I have room for tumble dryer, although energy bills will reduce use of that! I have a small garden so roll on better weather.

@Hyenaormeercat It's the lack of space in the country and the emphasis on number of bedrooms that seems to have driven the design. ie a preference for more rather than larger bedrooms. Not all though houses are designed that way.

I admit though dedicated drying areas isn't something that is generally done in the UK.

@Hyenaormeercat lots of flats and some houses have covenants which mean you can't dry clothes at the front of the building. As a landlord you need to ensure all your tenants are aware off them as they are bound by them also.

One of my friends' was moving into a new house with covenants about where she could dry washing and told them to remove them. Funny thing is they dry washing where initially dictated or in part of their hall.

redwing that's rather the point though isn't it, flats with covenants preventing people from drying clothes in open air but not providing somewhere for people to do so. Then wondering why damp is a problem. Utterly ludicrous.

Covernants banning people from drying washing on balconies in flats need to be outlawed on environmental grounds.

It's also shameful that so many people use tumble dryers as a default even when the weather and space allows line drying. Hopefully the increase in energy prices will force a change back to line drying as much as possible.

limited space, population density, always comes up in these threads.

but countries like netherlands or belgium and many areas of germany have even higher population density and they manage to have minimal building standards that are more practical.

more practical doesn't always mean bigger.

It is pretty bad. Some 1930s London blocks of flats were built with shoots for rubbish and basement drying facilities and with people using send your washing out to be washed services. Even in the 1960s my parents sent their sheets and my father's work shirts out to a laundry service to be done externally.

My sons' houses are let to tenants and that is 2 up 2 down but with a garden in each case and one has an area next to the kitchen which is glassed in so you can dry in there and the other has a utility bit at end of the galley kitchen where you can just about put up a clothes drier and both houses have a drier in the kitchen or utility area. You can see why there is such massive demand for little houses like that with people wanting to move out of flats into that kind of thing.

Many places in the US, especially newer property developments, have covenants or rules against drying outside. But some states have "right to dry" laws that override those rules. My state has a right to dry law, but I can't remember the last time I saw clothes drying on a line.

Our flat in London, built 1980 even had rubbish shoots. Was great. Also communal heating with space inside flat for large mega flow water storage so always hot water available. Even being just a 1 bedroom flat, we had one large coat storage cupboard, and another separate airing cupboard.
I was rather shocked at the lack of storage in a friends new 3 bed flat.

I've always had an irrational longing for a laundry chute. When I lived in the states they were ten-a-penny and many led to nicely little staked-out laundry areas, often in a basement.

Many UK properties pose a real problem for this, particularly when it comes to the dreaded washing label 'dry flat'. I love my current laundry room/utility, self-designed, which accounted for all these things the architects hadn't, especially as it's the first time I've owned one and not had my home marred by drying laundry on radiators, etc.

Then there's the perennial problem: do laundry facilities belong in kitchens? This doesn't account for the fact that whilst most kitchens don't really have the room for these things, there's simply nowhere else in many properties to put them.

Agree, OP. It's a terrible design flaw and has been the bane of my life in many homes I've had!

NB. My granny had a purpose-built little shed in her garden where all her laundry was done!

have covenants or rules against drying outside

For any specific reason?

Laundry chutes seem like a disaster waiting to happen to me - what do you do if something gets stuck?

@Xenia

It is pretty bad. Some 1930s London blocks of flats were built with shoots for rubbish and basement drying facilities and with people using send your washing out to be washed services. Even in the 1960s my parents sent their sheets and my father's work shirts out to a laundry service to be done externally.

My sons' houses are let to tenants and that is 2 up 2 down but with a garden in each case and one has an area next to the kitchen which is glassed in so you can dry in there and the other has a utility bit at end of the galley kitchen where you can just about put up a clothes drier and both houses have a drier in the kitchen or utility area. You can see why there is such massive demand for little houses like that with people wanting to move out of flats into that kind of thing.

I do not know anyone ever who could afford to send laundry out.

In a parallel universe perhaps people would routinely send out washing to be done externally, but not in the real world where most folk live....

@deadlanguage

Laundry chutes seem like a disaster waiting to happen to me - what do you do if something gets stuck?

Or someone gets stuck, or shoved down it😫🧐🤔😱

Rubbish chutes in my gran's tower block were always being set alight. They are practical, but attract anti-social behaviour.

I don’t know what laundry chutes are like, but the bin chutes at our old flat were outside at the end of each row, so not inside your house. Just saved you walking down 3 flights of stairs.
The chute was only big enough for small supermarket size bags so you couldn’t get a person stuck in them.
Although people used to always attempt to put large black sacks in which just got wedged in opening and then the management team would forever send notes through doors explaining not to. Probably why they stopped building them tbh.

Or someone gets stuck, or shoved down it

Veruca Salt, the little brute, has just gone down the rubbish chute ...

Our last house had no gas, just electric storage heaters - built in 1993! Some joker is now trying to sell it for £200k, twice as much as we sold for.

With regards to laundry - I would love a utility. Unfortunately we live in a newish build and (I couldn't see anyone mention this) a downstairs toilet accessible to wheelchair users is in building regs as far as I know. Otherwise I'd have just left it as a big understairs utility cupboard.

Currently we have an expensive washer dryer (cheap ones are a false economy) and use a corner of our playroom/4th bedroom to dry washing.

The attached is basically my ideal floorplan.

@UnevenBooks

have covenants or rules against drying outside

For any specific reason?

Because it's considered unsightly, similar to rules in the UK about not drying things on balconies.

Energy is (still) relatively cheap in most of the US; I think that accounts in part for the almost universal use of tumble dryers.

No need for a dryer I dont think. We havent had one for 8 years and havent missed it. Clothes go on clothes airers to dry - one in the bath, one elsewhere. Takes a couple of days to dry with the dehumidifier on (which removes other moisture too) and thats despite us rarely putting the heating on.
We all have a shower, hang out the washing, it takes two days to dry then washing gets folded, time for us all to have another shower, washing in the washing machine and repeat.