Drying LOTS of laundry - your tips please

[TinyTeachr]

We generate a VAST quantity of laundry. 4 children with uniforms and extra curricular things, and we don't rewear things often as the baby has a knack for getting snotty nose/sticky fingers on people when she goes for a cuddle. Middle children often get food on school jumpers too.

In summer it was fine. We dried a lot outdoors - nice big outside thingy and I'd wheel the indoor airer outside when extra capacity was needed.

It's now getting tricky! Most things are dried in one room (we're very lucky to have that space!). I have a heated airer and a normal airer, and a large socktopus for small. I tend to shut the door so it stays toasty and run a dehumidifier to stop the Windows steaming.

Towels and sheets go in the tumble drier.

It still doesn't seem enough! That holds up to 3 loads (If they aren't jam packed) but it takes 48 hours to try when it's not summer. During the weekend I really need to do 4 loads or more most weeks, as although I do some during the week I don't stay on top of it.

What are your solutions? Ceiling airers exist, but sound like a lot of work, so I don't know if it would be worth it. I could put things on radiators as the heating will be on soon enough (probably Monday I'll give in!) But the baby will pull things off which is annoying. I prefer to save that for energencies rather than being something I do every week.

When I had 3 boys at home in school and extra curricular activities I limited my self to one load of washing in the machine per day. So made sure I bought enough school shirts for 1 per day and spot cleaned jumpers/ trousers if they didn't have enough for daily change. This may seem like alot of clothes but washing less meant they lasted longer as less wear and tear.
That helped a lot as wash on over night (means I could use longer cycles so more economical)dried during the day on airer with dehumidifier and folded put away after tea.
It meant had capacity to do bedding/towels/ emergency wash and use the the tumble drier only for those things.

Ach, heat pump is what I meant, not condenser!

sheilamaid.com/

Depending on your ceiling height these are amazing and as heat rises everything dries quickly on them - my utility has low ceilings but I have one in there anyway (well I am renovating but I have it ready to be rehung as I won't be without it!) in my Edinburgh flat the ceilings were so high we had one in the hall which was really discreet and bedding dried overnight even in winter.

In your room where you put the airers currently, can you put up a washing line (we have a 3 line one) across the room, there is also a fold up thing we have on the wall which we hang hangers from, so all the shirts

You need more space for clothing higher up in the room

And we use the denhumidifier to dry all that, usually a day does it well

This type of thing, cant remember where we got ours originally. Its fallen off the wall a number of times over the years, we just get it back up again, but be careful about weight on the outside rungs

https://www.foxydry.com/en-gb/products/foxydry-fold?variant=42655735808215&gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwx4O4BhAnEiwA42SbVO7jCsuja4JB_Kaa5nzw3Va_Py-RCthRbY8P6kkGbVPZ_xrOwdECdRoC-PEQAvD_BwE

What kind of dehumidifier do you have? How big/powerful is it?

I find it hard to believe that clothes take 48h to dry on a heated airer with a dehumidifier running. That's how I dry laundry in winter and it usually takes about 12h. You do have to be careful not to overload the airer so that there's enough air circulation for the clothes to dry.

Do a load of laundry every evening and hang it to dry overnight, most of it should be dry by morning.

Devil’s Advocate here.
If your kids are growing quickly, buy fewer clothes and spend that money on drying them fast in the tumble dryer.
Faster turnaround, less home clutter, less stress.
You may be getting dressed in what you pull out of the tumble dryer (done that) but, hey, you’ve bypassed the putting away!

The trouble is if you are cramming clothes on to airiers they are not going to dry well as you need the air flow around them to dry properly and quickly.

I would do two things one do an extra spin on the washing programme so clothes are dryer coming out of the machine and use the drier more, but I put washing on airier over night and then finish off in the dryer so it doesn't take as long.

I'm lucky to have an open staircase so I hang the thicker clothes, sheets and towels over then bannister to dry as heat rises up the staircase. I also still have an airing cupboard that I can put things into finish drying.

Ceiling airer( Sheila maid) above the stairs or on landing
Radiator airers( small things will dry without heating on)
Extra drain and spin
Hang tops on hangers and spread out more( I have a simple airer with clips on the edges to hang from)
Honestly though, you have lots of kids and a tumble dryer, so just use it!
I live alone now and use this excepting ceiling airer and tumble dryer. I have a dehumidifier which will even dry jeans overnight so I'm not sure if yours works properly!

I like hanging things off doors but it drives DH mad. If it was only me and dc here there would be a curtain of clothes across every entrance! It works though, stuff dries quicker up higher.

Also don't change bed sheets so often, that's the only way I stay on top of it!

Use your tumble drier. Not good at all to be drying that much washing in your house. I use the drier throughout winter and it costs about £20 a month with heavy use. That's money well spent as far as I'm concerned.

Family of 4 here- we have an EcoAir DD1 Simple MK3 Desiccant Dehumidifier. It was recommended on money saving expert. It has a laundry mode and an economy mode.

Dries an entire 11kg load of laundry (including heavy towels) etc in 6 hours. I hang the washing in one of our rooms (on an airier that has good gaps between the rails) and keep the door shut. It's amazing - uses less money than tumble dryer.

All tops on hangers and hung from the curtain poles. Window cracked an inch and they dry really fast as they get the heat from the radiator underneath.

I tumbledry all pants and socks. Best tip I ever read coming up...there are 5 of us. We have 5 net laundry bags with our names on. Everyone puts their dirty pants and socks in their own named laundry bag. The 5 bags go in the wash. The 5 bags go straight from the washing machine to the dryer. Then each clean, dry bag gets emptied back into that person's underwear drawer.

It's made life so much easier. Especially with dh and 3 ds's so about 7000 plain white or black socks in the house!

It's a shit time of year for drying most of our stuff can't be tumbled, and it's not cold enough for the heating on but not warm enough to dry. We play washing Tetris.

Potentially a heat pump dryer will dry a load with about 2kWh, or about 65p. A 6 hour run of a 500W dehumidifier, or a 10 hour run of a 300W heated airer, will be more like 90p.

Very difficult to measure accurately, especially with the tumble, so it's hard to be sure, but I think the main message here is either method is massively cheaper (and therefore better for the environment) than an older style tumble dryer. I like the tumble myself because it saves me laying out 56 socks and 28 pairs of pants a week!

Do the kids change out of their uniform when they get home? If not, get them to do so to keep them cleaner for longer. Wipe the baby more frequently so things are not so sticky/snotty (sorry can't quite work out how to put that more politely!).

I used an electricity calculator- 6 hours for my dehumidifier is 0.44p for my tumble equivalent of 2 hours it is £1.16 so much better for us

Tumble drier all the way Im afraid! Always use extra spin ,esp sheets and towels. Normal clothes ,tops just hang in room. I think its essential we live in UK not Spain !

Totally agree with your three! They make a massive difference.

Also make sure you check the hanging laundry after a number of hours, to identify where you’ve not hung it the best as it’s wettest, or something needs turned over, then it’ll all be dried equally, faster.

Oh and every person in the house has a net bag for their socks and when it’s time to do the washing, the tied net bags go into the machine. Takes away the sorting tedium.

Buy a couple of hanging rails. Pretty cheap from Argos.

When I put towels and bedding in my tumble dryer, I put the hanging rails with the damp clothes on hangers on them, in front of the tumble dryer. The heat helps them dry.

Then I pop the rails either outside or in an empty room with the windows open.....

Underwear either goes on a clothes horse or in the tumble dryer with the towels!

I don't have a tumble dryer. In the winter I do a load a day, I have an old airing cupboard with hanging rail & dehumidifier in the bottom. As long as not overloaded anything will be dry in 24 hours, most normally in 12 hours.
It is vital to have space got the air to circulate, it sounds to me like this might be your issue. Maybe a hanging rail in addition to what you have will give you the space to spread everything out more but I'd still recommend a routine where you wash most days when it can't be dried outside.

We have a ceiling pulley with 6 rows which I bloody love ! I think the obvious one would be to wash more often so you don't have quite as much h at the weekend

I have a spare bathroom where I keep a portable hanging rail. The wet clothes get an extra spin and then are put on hangars and then put on the rail which fits so much more clothes in. I then turn on an electric oil rad and shut the door the clothes dry very quickly

Are you running your tumble dryer on hot. It's not always easy to tell. The lower heat setting might be called "synthetics" and the higher heat setting "cotton" for example. It sure why they don't make it more obvious.

Your tumble dryer shouldn't be shrinking clothes that are suitable for tumble drying but many of them only say they can be tumble dried on low. If you are using the highest setting this might explain why you are having this issue.