Where I live 🇨🇦, most people dry their clothing in the dryer in the winter months. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t.
I’ve been trying but am new to it. My clothes take too long to dry and get a musty smell. They’re on a drying tree and each item hanging on its own.
Any recommendations? Or only hang dry thin clothes? A lot of our clothes are heavy material so they keep us warm.
Laundry in winter – drying inside without use of dryer
byu/random-person98754 inFrugal
Posted by random-person98754
14 Comments
My roommate and I would hang our clothes in one room, turn on a space heater, and close the door and leave it over night! 9 times out of 10 everything would be dry by morning
In western (upstate) NY my neighbors didn’t have a drier. Hang outside until they freeze, bring back in and thaw… repeat. Took about three cycles to dry.
A small cheap heater fan, it can heat the room and heat your clothes and moving air is the key to drying
To dry clothes, you need dry air, airflow, and surface area. If the air is humid, less water will be able to evaporate off of the clothes. If the air is still, the evaporating wet air will stay near the clothes and also limit evaporation. The more surface area of the clothes, eg the more spaces out and spread the clothes are, the more water can evaporate.
When I hang dry my clothes, I lay them flat across multiple bars, or hang them on hangers spaced apart.
We use something similar it’s an Amish folding clothes drying rack. We run a fan pointing at it overnight and everything is fresh and dry in the morning
Here in ND, and we hang clothes to dry all the time, especially thick wool. Our indoor humidity is incredibly low in the winter. If something takes too long to dry, I may use a fan to keep air moving a little. A full thick comforter takes less than a day to dry even without a fan.
I set up a 6′ long clothesline next to my wood burning masonry heater. I hang the clothes on stainless steel hangers. They dry over night. The hangars spread the clothes out and allow air movement. Being near the ceiling helps, too
Put the drying rack over a heating duct.
If your dryer is slow, check the lint filter.
dehumidifier, or in a bathroom with a fan running
I hang up my clothes and turn a fan on to keep air circulating. The room is warm, and the air is dry from the heat so it’s good.
In the winter where it is very cold (I too live in Canada) you should be using a dryer and not a drying tree. The biggest reason is when you wash your clothes they are wet, you hang in them in your room where it is warm and there is moisture and humidity and that all turns into mold/mould growing on your walls/room. Very unhealthy.
What I do is in the winter I use the dryer but in the spring, summer and early fall I hang dry every thing and don’t use the dryer. No humidity or mold issues in my place doing it this way. The way I got to this practice is by doing what you are doing when I first moved into my place – back then I hung my clothes to dry in the winter and for the first few years I thought thought the mold issue on the walls and ceiling were something else and not what I was doing. I removed all the mold and repainted and after that I started using the dryer in the winter I never had a mold issue since.
Point a fan at the hanging clothes.
But, I dry some items just on hangers in my bathroom on the shower curtain rod and they seem to dry overnight just fine. Up to a whole load at a time. Are you in too warm an area? Or trying to dry too many clothes at the same time?
Make sure the lint trap(s) are clear!
My house is so dry in the winter that we have a humidifier running all the time pretty much.
So I use a drying rack and keep it near the heater vent. If I have a lot of clothes, I’ll hang lightweight pieces on hangers and put them on curtain rods or wherever I have space.
I usually air dry about a load or two, start them early ish in the morning, if they aren’t dry by evening (usually just a piece or two), I spread them out more or position it closer to the heater vent.