Washing taking ages to dry outside

[Notcontent]

I am trying to dry my clothes outside as much as possible. Today was a lovely day in London so I hung it out outside. It was outside for about six hours and then I took it in when it got dark. But despite the lovely day it was still very damp. Maybe because there wasn’t much wind today. But very disappointing to have it back inside with the dehumidifier on!

Life is far too short to be hanging a load of washing out in winter only to be having to take it in a few hours later and hang it somewhere else inside because there’s no way on earth it will get dry out there.

I hang mine on an airer near a radiator once. I leave it there and get on with my day. Washing will be dry the following morning.

My polyester work clothes dried in no time but I brought them in by 1.30.

I pop out on airer, bring back in at night and pop by back door of utility room & the draft seems to dry if the laundry. If it’s still got a damp feel I use the 5 minute setting on tumble drier. Rarely use the tumble drier now and have almost halved our electric consumption- which is handy as it’s doubled in price.

I used to put the airer by the back door at our old place and it would dry overnight with the draft

Top tips for success, you want it dry, windy and 50% humidity or lower this time of year so check the weather forecast carefully.

If the ground is dry, it's likely your washing will dry.

Hang out early, if you have a machine with a time delay you can put it in the night before and get it out as soon as you get up.

Bring in before 3pm. I've found after this point it gets damper and damper as the sun goes down

East Midlands here- I had three loads in the line yesterday . Load 1 went out at 8am and was almost dry at 1pm so I left it to finish off . Two hours later it was damper than it had been at 1am so put it in the drier for twenty minutes. Had to do the same with bed sheets but load 3 that didn’t go out until 2pm needed Half an hour in the drier 😩😩x came to the conclusion that it needs direct sunlight at this tjme of year rather than just warming air!!

I've given up drying outside too, OP, as nothing seems to dry when it's cold. ☹️
This time last year I would just stick everything in the tumble dryer and not think twice.

However, I now have a new plan of action which to date is working really well.

Firstly, I do a second spin as suggested by many PP's on here. Then I put all jumpers, tops and t shirts on hangers. I am lucky as I have a pretty large, airy house with a huge airing cupboard. I hang all the tops etc. on hangers along the shelf in the airing cupboard and leave the door slightly ajar. Washing dries pretty well with the heat from the cylinder. Trousers I hang on clip hangers on the ledge above the fitted wardrobes and finally, everything else goes on an airer in the utility area. I leave the laundry like this all day then early evening I finish off in the tumble dryer for roughly 20 mins. which means hardly anything needs ironing.

Wish I could return to just using the dryer but I'll be damned if I am going to spend a huge chunk of our spare income on bloody electricity bills.😡

Yes needs to come in by about 3pm or it will get damp again. November is generally OK for drying as it's often quite breezy, end of December and January are the worst but still doable and my garden doesn't south face.

I think your missing the fact that many of us do not have our heating in yet.

PuppyMonkey

thats why I have 3 surfers & pop outside, then bring into the utility room at night.

I was exactly the same, OP! I hung out a week’s worth of school jumpers, leggings and joggers and was delighted with the weather. Took them in at the end of the day all really damp.

That's the only way I can get it done. I was up at 6 today to hang it out.

I see it more as drying it partially so that it will be quicker to finish off indoors. Also smells nicer if its been outside a bit.

As pp said extra spin really helps

People who put airers on patios and hangers on washing lines must live somewhere that has very little wind. If I did that my washing would be on the ground.

@RampantIvy we put our airers out. They do fall over sometimes but only rarely. Our garden is quite sheltered but the result of that is that everything takes longer to dry. Our washing probably takes 2-3 days to dry on the airer. This is starting to become a problem as we don't have enough airers to do our weekly loads over the weekend when we are at home. Our house is already damp so we don't like leaving them inside to dry while we are at work. We might need to invest in a dehumidifier.

@Flowersinamilkbottle Our dehumidifier is over 20 years old. We needed it in our last house to make the cellar less damp when we were selling it. It is still going strong and is absolutely brilliant for getting washing dry.

@RampantIvy the case for the dehumidifier is becoming stronger. I have a suspicion it will be one of those things we put off buying and then when we get one we kick ourselves for not having done so years ago.

My washing isn’t drying either, despite a good wind yesterday. And some of it is still not dry after a further 24 hours on the maiden indoors.
At least I can reduce the tumble dryer time by having it half dry.

That won’t work if the radiators aren’t on, though - mine aren’t.

It will almost certainly dry faster inside having been out for a bit. It feels like you've achieved nothing outside because everything is cold, but warm it up inside, and it will be almost dry. Keep going. It is worth it.

As many MPs have already pointed out, you need to bring the washing in at least a couple of hours before dark. It was probably bone dry at 3pm.

Make sure your washing line/whirlygig is sited so it gets as much sun as possible.

If you are drying inside using a clothes horse/maiden, put it where it will get any sun.

I should have brought mine in early afternoon when it was pretty much dry.

Instead I got it in around 5.30 (I was out all afternoon) and it was damp again! Definitely got wet again after the sun went down. I was really surprised because the air didn't feel damp at all.

I put towels and pillowcases on the line yesterday and they dried. I'm in Northwest and it was 14° and sunny.

If it's not windy I don't bother as the air is much damper after October.

It’s wind you need not heat.

I had some time off last week and managed three machine loads of bedding almost dry on Wednesday (each needed a 10 min blast in the TD to finish) but I can’t do it on work days any more because its really damp again by the time I get home. I watch the weather forecast and do what I can at weekends, but it needs to be properly breezy to have any hope of drying outside at this time of year. We have a heated airer now which is brilliant, but sadly our 20 year old dehumidifier seems to have packed up this year.

We’ve got our radiators on for an hour in the morning at the moment, seems to do the trick for drying our washing as we have one particularly sooper dooper radiator in our utility room which stays warms for ages afterwards.

But yeah, if you never ever have your radiators on you might have problems drying washing indoors.

I’ve got 3 loads out on the line now. We’re wonderfully sunny today.

but will have to bring things in early so they can be finished in the dryer - towels etc.