how do you stay 'green' when one child keeps peeing the bed and the other keeps throwing up....?

[knickerelasticjones]

seriously now! I'm trying not to use the washing machine much but my goodness! my two DDs are not helping matters. First DD1 peed the bed (so complete wash of all her bedclothes plus duvet) then DD2 vomed all over the shop (so had to strip her bed and do all her clothes as well).

Yeah I'm washing at 30 degrees in Ecover and I don't have a tumble drier so everything is line dried - but honestly the washing machine has been on about three times today!

When will toddlers get the environmental message - aargh!

just rememeber to line-dry (that'll make up for it)!

I'm afraid although I consider myself pretty 'green' the bedclothes always get washed at 60 degrees to make sure any nasty stuff (like dustmites in particular) is killed off. But we don't have a tumble drier so I can feel a little smug about that...

If you live in a part of the world where there's usually a bit of a breeze, drying clothes on the line in winter is pretty easy. I taken the stuff in at the end of the afternoon and air it on the radiators.

I don't worry about dust mites because when the humidity goes below a certain % they stop breeding. We have a monitor to tell us our humidity. Also, they don't like the ultra-violet and so a blow on the line tends to scupper them and act as a natural disinfectant.

So no 60 degree washes are needed. Very, very occasionally (once a year) I'll give stuff a hot wash.

Our humidity is awful though, we have a dehumidifier (and monitor) in ds1's room and it's amazing how much water we collect. Without the dehumidifier the room would probably be dust-mite heaven, and also very conducive to moulds so not ideal for ds1's asthma. Didn't realise about mites and UV though, that's good to know.

Even if it is bucketing rain you don't need a tumble drier. The secret is to have a pulley.

Takes advantage of hot air rising throughout the house....

I have never ever had a tumble drier (can't pretend that's always been due to environmental concerns, I just could never afford one....) so I know of what I speak.

They do a couple of pulleys here and here. Can anyone who already has one advise me - if we had one fitted the rope you control it with couldn't be fitted to the wall in a straight line with it - it would have to come out at an angle - would that cause problems?

I have a tumble dryer but don't feel too guilty because my electricity supplier only supplies 100% renewable energy. I have other threads on this if you are interested!

Good luck with getting through this phase anyway - it sounds like hard work

they should sleep on beds of leaves

just want to add on they drying clothes thing...when i have sheets etc..i hang over the doors at home or i put my dining chairs on top of table during the day and hang covers over them to dry...they really do dry quickly and the room smells lovely as they are drying out..bonus!!!