Entire room taken up with clothes drying racks

[butterplates]

AIBU to seek another way?

We have a second room off our main living room and adjacent to our kitchen. It looks out via double doors to the garden and is a pleasant room though a bit cold in winter. We have a sofa in there and a small table and chairs. I had envisaged it being used as a den by teen DC for when their friends are over but for now they tend to congregate in bedrooms. The small table is occasionally used for homework.

But- I usually have 3 drying racks of clothes on the go in there at any one time. Between work clothes for two adults, school uniforms for teenagers, endless sports and swimming gear, I do a load of laundry every second day. I have a tumble dryer that I mainly use for towels and bed linen. My reasons for not using it more for clothes are partly cost when electricity prices went up and partly because I find the dryer always shrinks things a bit. But I feel we are basically wasting an entire room on clothes drying. I would be so keen to hear what other people do and how you manage this? DH and I have talked about putting some gym equipment in there such as a rower and exercise bike but he actually asked me, what about the drying racks and it seems ridiculous that this is coming before something we could do to be more healthy.

We use radiator racks in winter. Rotate things round every hour or so when heating's on. Autumn/spring is trickiest, so the conservatory becomes the laundry room. We do have a tumble drier, but it's old and inefficient so try not to use it much.

Also if we are going through a heatwave. I iron clothes I am wearing that day while still wet. It soon dries in the heat cools you down as well.

You definitely need to try and dry the clothes outside more often a quick check of the weather forecast will tell you whether there is rain or not. in the winter I tend to do small lots of washing and put things on the radiators when the heating is on obviously I don’t overload them but if it gets some things dry and out of the way then that’s a bonus. The sports gear I do want a quick wash and put outside or on the radiators as they dry super quick due to the material they’re made of.

I buy DS8’s clothes a size too big to allow for the dryer shrinkage- they tend only to shrink with the first dry, don’t get steadily smaller!

90 percent of clothing here goes into the dryer. have invested in a heat pump one last year and although take a bit longer to run is far more cost effective. anything else goes on line or clothes horse in back bedroom as that gets good sun all day. though I detest my clothes horse and its put away as soon as done. wouldn't be without my tumble dryer

Could you get rid of the sofa, table, chairs if they're not being used much? Then would you have space for washing and gym equipment? Also a dehumdifier if you don't already use one to speed up drying times.

Could you build a small gazebo-like structure in the garden, open on three or four sides, and put a few clothes lines into it?

Heated Lakeland airer with a cover (looks better and dries quicker). I do one load per day and it all fits on one airer. Not sure why you’d need three airers if you’re doing a load every other day, is it not drying quickly enough?

I am the same, OP, drying stuff everywhere. I do like the heated racks though.

No where I live. In the winter clothes don’t dry even if there is no rain. Magnolia trees grow very well here because there is hardly any wind.

If you are shrinking your clothes in the tumble dryer you are using it incorrectly.

How about some advice on how to use it correctly then?

We have no separate space for a drying rack and I find it is all about timing. Sports clothes go on a short cycle (30min for “dirty sports” like rugby and freshen up cycle -15 min for gym clothes). Everything else on a hour cycle. Laundry is done last thing at night and put either on a heat drying rack or on a normal rack by the radiator if the heating is on. Then we put it away in the morning. What my partner also started doing is going to the gym in the morning and then wearing the same t-shirt to work (construction) which massively cut down on washing. I reware a lot of my clothes. I managed to cut down to 4 loads a week.
During dryer months, I wash in the morning and put it outside. And you don’t need heat. When I was growing up, my mum dried everything on a balcony in winter at -20 degrees. You would get stiff icy sheets which you then bring next to the radiator for 20 minutes to finish them off.

Heat pump tumble dryer is a complete game changer. MUCH more efficient and economical than a standard one and it’ll not shrink things as it’s not a high heat.

Given it's 2024 and you either have a mobile phone in your hand or you're in front of a computer, I would think you can figure out how to find this information for yourself. Google "using a dryer properly." It's not hard and most of it is common sense.

Can you get one of those clothes rails you hang up clothes on coat hangers on.

Hang up clothes - wheel it outside and wheel it in when done. I find that it often means clothes don't need ironing either so win w8n! That takes all but trousers which should fit on a pulley overhead or 1 airer.

Genuine question: How many times a day do you change to manage a full load for each person every day?

Kind of pointless you coming on to comment at all then really, wasn’t it? Oh, sorry, I forgot that some people just like to use Mumsnet as an outlet for being smug and self-important. Hope you enjoyed yourself.

Thanks! Have a lovely day.

Just the ones we already had. They concertina down as opposed to the three part gate like ones. Tbh, the biggest issue was clearing out the cupboard!

Thank you all so much. This thread is blowing my mind with so many suggestions and ideas. I need to process it all and come up with a plan so we can reclaim the room!

We're in a similar position, only worse I think! Our home is quite small and so we don't have any spare rooms - the 'dining' area of our kitchen/diner is home to a big clothes rack and there is hardly a day that it's not up and full of clothes drying! We have a dehumidifier and I'd be lost without it. It's cheap to run and an entire load of washing will be dry overnight. I do have a line outside, but with both of us working, I've often come home to wet clothes because it has rained unexpectedly during the day so now I only use the line if I'm home and able to run out and bring stuff in if it rains! We do also have a tumble dryer but like you I find it shrinks some things and it is definitely a lot more expensive to run than the dehumidifier. I tend to use it to finish things off if they're just not 100% dry on the rack. In some ways I look forward to my teens leaving home so that we have less laundry and I might possibly have a nice dining area back!!

I have a north facing garden and nothing dries out there in winter.
I use my tumble dryer all winter. It doesn't add much to out energy bill much at all ( the smart meter shows orange when it's on)

This is a good point too. My machine has a 1200 spin, I almost always put on a separate spin cycle once the wash is finished.

I have one of these in front of the top floor landing window. We have three floors so visitors can’t see this and with the window wide open it dries in a few hours. I do at least a load every day but everything goes outside when not raining all year round. Bedding and towels are tumbled if it’s wet out.

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