Non testers
Do you own a dehumidifier and use it for indoor laundry drying - perhaps you have tips for making your laundry dry quicker? Or maybe have tips on how to make your clothes feel softer?
Yes - I've been using a dehumidifier for indoor laundry drying for a few years now. When we moved to a house without central heating, I hadn't considered that this was how I usually dried clothes in winter! The house wasn't cold, but clothes spread on a clothes horse took about a week to dry, and I wasn't enthusiastic about using a tumble drier. Separately I was having issues with damp in my porch, as I'd been using as an overflow for my tiny kitchen. Looking online for a dehumidifier I found that the better ones had a setting for drying laundry - I ordered one within the week, and have been using it ever since (pretty much 24/7 in winter, overnight in spring and autumn, and once or twice a week in summer).
I can dry one load of clothes (large capacity washer), and bedding (one king, one double) in one weekend. I’ve been advocating a dehumidifier to anyone who complains to me about their clothes not drying.
I've even (washed and) dried a thick feather duvet in the middle of winter using the dehumidifier!
I use fabric conditioner with clothes/bedding, or a splash of vinegar for items that I don’t want to wash with conditioner (hard water area) and haven’t had a problem with ‘stiff’ laundry. In fact the only time it is a problem is if the laundry is over-dried, like on very hot days where laundry hung outside dries before you can turn around, and I try to avoid line drying on those days anyway as my laundry is mostly blacks or darks and I don’t want them bleached!
Tips:
Clothes - I hang everything on clothes hangers to dry (socks and undies pegged on) and iron nothing, it's easy to move things around if the load isn't drying evenly (or to add a second load) and there's no sorting after they're dry, as I just take the hangers upstairs and hang them up in the wardrobes.
Bedding - I fold and peg on an indoor washing line (the centre of the duvet/blanket hanging down so peg creases are at the edges), and again no ironing needed - I usually try to turn them halfway through to speed up dry time.
Towels, bathmats, dog bedding etc - These I try to wash/dry separately (usually mid-week), they're a lot thicker material, so if you hang them with clothes, the clothes don't dry as effectively and the thicker items are still damp.
Dust/lint filter – if your dehumidifier has one, get into a routine of emptying and cleaning it often (I try to do mine weekly)
Caveats:
Noise - like a 20in fan - I don’t mind the noise, but I wouldn’t want to watch TV in the same room.
Temperature – in winter it’s great, in fact the porch would be unusable without the added heat, but in summer it can get very warm. (If your dehumidifier’s home is in an outbuilding type space, like mine, check its minimum operating range – I usually have a couple of nights each winter where it’s too cold to be very effective.)
Also don’t forget the dehumidifier will ‘pull’ moisture out of non-laundry in the same room, like a house plant, the toilet, or the dog’s water dish - and therefore fill up before you can dry your clothes! coughoopscough