drying washing in crap weather, would it be more eco-friendly to

[bohemianbint]

a) turn on the central heating for the afternoon and get everything dry

or

b) have the washer/drier thing going for probably longer?

Just when I was getting to really appreciate being able to line dry everything May goes soggy. Obviously if anyone can think of a third more friendly option I'd love to hear it!

Buy an 'airer' type thing. I hated it when we moved here - no room for a dryer at all. And resorted to a couple of those old fashioned airer things. Everything gets dry in a day and they're easy to lift and pop outside if the weather improves.

I've got two of those, one is a fence type thing and the other one you kinda pull up and it locks into place. Leave them in the conservatory when i go to work, only if it's midly nice, doesn't dry if it's raining all day, or i leave them inside by the front door. we have an open plan living/dining room. don't really use front door much, back door is closer to car. Front door opens straight onto main road.

Do you ever find though, that if your jeans take too long to dry they start to smell a bit....odd? I tend to hang other stuff on airers generally but I find if I let jeans (and actually the towels do it too) dry like this they need washing again cos they ming. Why is that?!

having same dilemma bb.. I've put all of mine on an airer and keep putting it outside every time the sun shines and bring it as soon as it rains - boring.

I have been putting the heating on to dry jeans and towels only, cause they take forever otherwise. Really annoying

The thing with jeans and towels is to keep turning them over every 12 hours or so as they don't dry evenly otherwise. I have one radiator that I keep on and the airer goes in front of it and the heaviest items of laundry go nearest the radiator.

Airer here too.

I find that with jeans too.
My towels go harder on the airer and radiator than they do when they are on the line. odd.

Hmm I have wondered this. I do find wet weather in the spring/summer the greatest challenge.

I have an airer but wet weather does mean I get a backlog of dirty washing. I do try and do as many loads as possible on sunny days so that they can line-dry but then I am home all day. I don't have a problem with smelly jeans - how fast is your spin cycle and would it improve things if you spun the jeans and towels twice?

Re crisy jeans/towels. Give them a good shake before and after they go on the radiator and you should find they are much less stiff.

I've just bought a massive sheila maid thing (2.4m long) so I'm hoping that will be big enough and mean that I can get rid of the bloody ugly airer/maiden in my kitchen

crispy

I thought that drying things on airers indoors / on radiators was more likely to encourage damp.

I'd only put things to dry in the bathroom or utility room which have are designed for damp activities.

we are lucky here because we have a car port, where we can hang the washing when it is raining, takes slightly longer to dry but is great for not having wet washing in the house.

Why do you need to get things dry in an afternoon? I don't think i have alot of clothes but can wait a couple of days (and very rarely get round to ironing anything any qyicker than that). I find things on the washing line smell more tbh (of car fumes) but don't care - once you've ironed and are wearing them with your favourite sniffy you can hardly tell.

I put them in the dryer for about 15 minutes just to get warm and soft (ahhh) then hang them on an airer - best of both worlds (almost!)