This is Day 197 of the Green in 365 series!
By Hilary Kimes Bernstein of Accidentally Green
When it comes to laundry, the way you choose to dry your clothes can save – or waste – a lot of energy.
Fortunately, there are plenty of environmentally friendly ways to dry your laundry.
Photo by africa
Air Drying
The most affordable and green way to dry your clothes is by using a clothesline. Wet laundry dries pretty quickly when it’s hung outside, and even though you don’t spy so many clotheslines around anymore, it was the only way clothes were dried in the past.
Since pioneers had no other options, line drying was done year-round – in the Little House series, Laura Ingalls Wilder writes that her family’s clothes were freeze dried in the winter. (You may want to try your own freeze drying this winter.)
If you’re short on outdoor space or simply don’t have much room to hang a large clothesline, you can get creative. Use an indoor clothesline in your laundry room. Use your shower curtain rod. Or, place a drying rack in your bathtub when your tub’s not in use.
Dryer Balls
If you must use a dryer, wool dryer balls are an easy way to reduce drying time – and save energy. While it’s very easy to make your own, I’ve personally found that commercial dryer balls are much heavier – and they drastically cut back on drying time. (They’re a lot noisier, too.)
The thing I love about wool dryer balls is that they naturally reduce wrinkles and soften your laundry – so fabric softeners are completely unnecessary.
Dryer Maintenance
When you use a dryer, there are some basic maintenance tips that should help to reduce energy and drying times – it all comes down to cleaning.
- After every load, clean out your dryer’s lint trap.
- Every season, wash your dryer’s lint trap with gentle soap and warm water.
- And once a year, clean out your dryer’s vent and exhaust duct with a cleaning brush. This helps to remove all lint – which cuts down on drying times and helps prevent potential fires.
How do you typically dry your laundry? Have any other green drying tips to share?
Find all the Green in 365 posts.
Hilary Kimes Bernstein is a Christ follower, wife, mama, and writer who blogs about making healthy decisions that honor God and happen to help the environment at Accidentally Green. She’s recently released her first eBook, First Bites: How To Instill Healthy Eating Habits During Your Baby’s First Year.
__________________________________________
If you’d like to learn more about living green and living frugally I’d love to have you as a Live Renewed reader! You can subscribe, either by email or in a reader, to get the latest posts, ideas and inspiration for living frugally green. You can also connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest!
Please visit our Sponsors:
Wild Mint Shop – A conscious movemint.
Diaper HQ – Your cloth diaper headquarters.
List PlanIt – Lists to put your world in order.
Jenuinely Pure – 100% natural and pure products for the body, face, home and baby.
Mighty Nest – Every product sold on Mighty Nest is free of harmful chemicals and handpicked for durability and design.
I also double spin the loads of heavy laundry..such as jeans, towels etc.. before putting them into the dryer. Using less electricity to spin a little more water out than to heat up the dryer longer… especially when you are total electric like we are.
We live in PR and we have gorgeous weather year ’round! I just put up a clothesline last month and I’m LOVING it! I love to see clothes and cloth diapers hanging out on the line. It’s not very popular to do so here, and I’m sure our neighbors think we’re a bit odd, but it’s ok 🙂