Drying washing outdoors

[AngelDog]

Does anyone else struggle a bit with drying their washing outside? I have a long line (not a rotary one) in a south facing garden - when it's really hot, things dry very quickly. But when it's just warm I struggle to get damper things (eg some nappies) dry in a day, especially if I put them out later in the day. We don't get quite a full day of sun due to trees around us.

The other problem is that I often come home late enough that washing which has got dry has started to go damp again.

What do other people do if the washing is still slightly damp at the end of the day?

At the moment I hang it about indoors, which annoys me as it's doing the job all over again, but throwing it in the dryer seems like a waste. (Plus ours is a washer dryer and usually washing something else at that point.)

I do 1-3 loads a day. I try to have one washed the night before & ready to hang out after breakfast, and the other loads get done as and when. I use these little airers with lots of pegs for nappies & baby clothes.

I have an indoor airer for anything that is still quite damp. A wooden one that up high and is lowered by a rope IYSWIM.
If clothes are only slightly damp I put them in the airing cupboard.

anything still damp gets hung on an airer indoors - my washing rarely dries properly outside as we have a rotary dryer. I begrudge using the washer dryer too.

Thanks - sounds like there isn't a magic solution then!

I could do with one of those airers that you can raise & lower - ours is a freestanding one and when I hang the little multi-peg airers off it, you can barely squeeze through our kitchen doorway.

How do you manage to generate 3 loads per day . I used cotton nappies with my two and never managed 3 loads a day.

I would say firstly to assess if things really need washing and try and cut down to one load per day.

If stuff is still slightly damp then i tend to fold it up as it will be put away but then stack little piles of these clothes on the radiators, this is enough just to dry them out, if i had an airing cupboard then i would use that.

Also if i get home late and the forcast is dry then i would just leave out on the line til the next day and bring in then.

Well, mostly it's 2 loads, but it can sometimes be 1 and sometimes 3. I have a day off laundry on Sundays too. I wash nappies every other day.

I'd love to wash less, but I'm not sure how. Our bedding gets done once or twice a week due to DS having bad facial eczema which keeps getting infected (he lies face down & dribbles on the sheet). We co-sleep so it's big sheets being washed each time rather than small cot sheets. DH usually sleeps in the spare room so that's another set of sheets, although they only get washed fortnightly.

I wear trousers until they're visibly dirty, tops for maybe 2 or 3 days unless they get dirty / smelly sooner. DH does similar. DS wears trousers & vests until they're unfit for further use and never wears more than one t-shirt a day.

I wash hand towels twice a week and bath towels/bathmats fortnightly. I try to re-use DS's bibs from one meal to the next if they're not too grim, although he has a clean dishcloth for each meal (again, due to the infected eczema problem).

I'd not thought of leaving washing on the line overnight, so I might give that a try. I don't have an airing cupboard either, and we rarely have the heating on even in winter , so radiators aren't any good either.

Sorry i wasn't meaning to be critical. How about if you use a cot sheet or similar as a top sheet on your bed but on your ds's side, that way you can wash his dribbly bit as frequently without having to do the big sheets every 2 days?

My friend has a heated clothes airer which she says is fab...would that help?

Another thought, do you have a clothes prop fro your washing line...that defo improves the drying rate by lifting the line up higher?

Am a bit stuck for more ideas after that??

I used to hang things on the radiators (prime cause of condensation and black mould in residential properties!) but now I have moved and live opposite a launderette - well worth a quid of anyone's money to have bone dry undies and fluffy towels

Dry outside then finish off in tumble drier so they're nice and soft and can be put away.

We have a freestanding airer in our room and an airing cupboard so tend to use those first, but will use the tumble dryer for 20mins or so just to finish of items that dried outside but could be damp or might just be cold :)

I figured that we bought an AB rated washer/dryer so we could use it when needed. I tend to put the dryer timer on only for a short period of time so I keep checking rather than whack it on for an hour.

I use the timer on our washing machine to set it off at 5am so it's finished by 6:30am, I can then put it on the line before work. I am regularly home by 6pm and get it in straight away. This works well for us as most things are dry if we've had some sun.

It sounds like the stuff is still very wet when it comes out of the washer, I've been finding that my laundry is drying in a couple of hours in this warm windy weather.

Have you tried doing a final spin in the washer before hanging out? It really does cut down the drying time.

Thanks for all the suggestions, I'll give some of them a try.

thehairybabysmum, no problem - I think I was being a bit defensive.

I've concluded that part of the problem is that the trees at the bottom of the garden have got really tall, and instead of the whole line drying really quickly, only the top end of the garden dries at that rate now.

I guess I need to remember that I can't dry as much washing as fast as I used to, and maybe consider getting a rotary dryer for the top end of the garden to maximise the sunshine. Unfortunately the trees belong to the council who won't trim them. (Still, I shouldn't complain as they give us a nice view from the kitchen. :))

Thanks again.

I'd suggest moving the line or getting a rotary drier placed in the sunnier part of the garden.
Or perhaps you could you stand a clothes horse outside and then bring it in to the house with the stuff still on it?
I also peg out stuff in the early evening and leave it on the line overnight to bring in the next day.
line dried clothes smell sooo nice!

I either put in on an indoor airer and place it in a sunny window to either get the evening sun that evening or the morning sun the next day. Some times just leaving it over night on the airer is enough to finish drying it off.

Sometimes with big stuff like bedding and bath sheets I will just finish it off in the tumbler knowing full well if it was a wet February day it would have gone straight in the tumbler from the washer so 10 to 20 minutes to finish it off is still a saving.

If you have any hay fever sufferers, then you'd be better drying indoors atm.

Hmm, I never thought about the hayfever thing - I do get it, so that's worth remembering.

The things I put out last night are nice & dry now, so I'll do that again. It also means I can hang them out quickly without having to get DS's shoes & socks on and persuade him to let me off playing with him for a few minutes. :)