I don't have kids .. which makes a huge difference. I do ... mmmmm ... probably 3 loads a week of clothes. On the weekends I do towels and linens and probably once every other week I throw in the kitchen rugs. So, 2 loads on the weekend, at most.
I don't love laundry. I don't hate it, but it's just time consuming and a pain. I do, however loathe ironing with a purple passion. Ack. And I have 3 shirts and a skirt that are waiting to be ironed as we speak.
I dont have kids either..but me & dh will only do laundry when we're out of clothes and underwear. Needles to say I have about 400 pairs of undies and dh has a ton as well, lol. Plus..we have a lot of clothes between the both of us. The only stuff we wash regularly is towels, sheets, uniforms and the odd pair of dirty clothes every now & then, lol. Somehow though..after we cleaned our bedroom a few months ago...we managed to make a giant pile of clothes that hasnt been washed until today!! I finally did it!! I'm so proud of myself. WOOHOO!!
Btw..The only stuff we iron around here is uniforms. Things usually go from the dryer to the hanger..so we can avoid ironing, lol.
I, too, live in an apartment which doesn't have hookups, so I either have to take my laundry down to the basement (and risk having my clothes removed mid-cycle from the dryer so someone else can use my time to finish their clothes), or to my mother's or my boyfriend's.
When I was in college, doing laundry was a luxury - it required planning (did I get quarters from the supermarket? is my neighbor doing hers?) - so when I got home and was able to do laundry as much as I wanted, I volunteered to make it my duty.
Still to this day I feel lucky to be able to do my laundry at my leisure.
im surprised at how many people in america have dryers...
i dont have one... i wouldnt ever use one, they are hugely uneconomical and massive waste of electricity! sorry!
i use the line outside to dry things, and if its winter we hang on clothes horses in the house and on radiators....
i dont see the point in paying for something twice if that makes sense?
i have about 10 loads waiting to be done... we are still catching up from moving here in november. (i know iknow!)
im gonna do a couple today while i clean my house top to bottom!! and once its spotless Fiance has to keep it that way for 5 weeks... its a little test im making him complete as he is the messiest person EVER! it drives me v crazy!!!
im surprised at how many people in america have dryers...
i dont have one... i wouldnt ever use one, they are hugely uneconomical and massive waste of electricity! sorry!
i use the line outside to dry things, and if its winter we hang on clothes horses in the house and on radiators....
i dont see the point in paying for something twice if that makes sense?
I have about 2 loads to do today. I typically wait until I can fill up my washer (which is quite large, it will accommodate a king comforter no problem) so I don't do laundry very often - sometimes, I don't do laundry for 3 weeks but then I have a few loads. On average, I think it probably down to 1 load per week? Not sure, I don't keep stats, this is my guesstimate.
As far dryers go - yes, I would love to be able not to use one, and although it is not environmenally friendly (even with an Energy Star rating and all that jazz) it does have several advantages. First of all, where I live, winter can last a very long time, up to 6 months. I don't have trees between which I could stretch a cloth line and when I do laundry, there is way more than the unsightly laundry umbrella would accommodate. But, the main reason why I like dryers is because it takes out the wrinkles so no ironing is needed. But, the number 1 reason for me is that is takes care of dog hair that I have on all my clothes. With one dog being white, it really shows (I wear a lot of black or dark colours). I don't know how I could get rid of it otherwise.
im surprised at how many people in america have dryers...
i dont have one... i wouldnt ever use one, they are hugely uneconomical and massive waste of electricity! sorry!
i use the line outside to dry things, and if its winter we hang on clothes horses in the house and on radiators....
That's all well and fine if you live in an area that can accomodate line drying. In the area where I live, laundry lines are not allowed as part of the HOA (home owners agreement). You can get fined for hanging laundry in your yard. And there's no way I could hang the volume of laundry that I need to get done in my house to dry - not in a 2 bed townhouse.
A good, energy efficient dryer is not as huge a waste of energy as you would think. And really, the "waste of energy" thing is an argument that could be made about every piece of electric equipment anyone uses. Why use a washer which actually wastes energy and water, when you could just wash things in the sink? Same for a dishwasher. Etc.
My aunts do not use a clothes dyer. They have a line hung up in their basement, and they hang their clothes there.
If I had to wait for my clothes to line dry, I would never have anything to wear. I don't buy a lot of clothes. I only have 2 pairs of jeans. If I washed both pairs of jeans and then line dried them... I wouldn't have any jeans to wear for a couple of days at least. Of course, I am thinking that the only place I could possibly line dry things is in my basement since I could never line dry in the winter and parts of the fall and spring here. And its not necessarily warm in my basement.
I do less laundry by wearing my pants and bras for more than 1 day. DH does physical labor and takes a shower and changes when he gets home. He tries to wear the fresh pair of clothes again the next day, but some times he doesn't. So he contributes way more than I do to the amount of clothes that need washing!
Oh and PhotoChick wasn't saying it was a law that she couldn't line dry. In the US, some people buy houses in a neighborhood that has a home owner's association (HOA). The HOA can put in place rules about how the outside of your property should look. I've heard of some HOAs that don't allow you to park a truck in your driveway or on the street. It has to be hidden in a garage. I think its weird, but then again I hate the fact that my neighbor's fence is in disrepair and falling down and won't fix it. If I lived in a neighborhood with a HOA, I'm sure they'd have rules against things like that. But I don't!
When I was living in WY it was so arid that the clothes would actually dry faster outside than in the dryer. I about fell over the first time this happened. My ex was so big that I couldn't put his clothes in the dryer for fear they would shrink and we couldn't replace them. If he had a cool shirt that I wanted, though, somehow it would accidently go in the dryer. I have used the dryer since we moved, but I would love to find one of those retractable clothes lines to do our drying.
I've gone without a washer and a dryer for a long time. When we couldnt drive our car and couldnt go to the other base to do our laundry..we'd wash everything in the bathtub..then hang up the clothes over our dining room chairs. I hated it so much. Things took too long to dry. We're not allowed to hang up clothes lines or anything outside (housing rules).
But my grandparents have a dyer..and still use a clothesline. My grandma prefers her stuff to dry naturally.
And you know now they're making washers & dryers that are energy efficient. My friend just bought one like that, and she loves it.
OMG. I just remembered one time we had to get ready for a wedding. As I said, I couldn't put his pants in the dryer, so I strung some bungee cords on our front porch, where the sun was, and hung his pants up to dry(we had about 6 hours before the wedding). He came home and looked at the porch and said, "Good Lord, Baby, we look like a bunch of Hillbillies." I looked right back at him and said,"Well, atleast we're CLEAN Hillbillies."
Oh and PhotoChick wasn't saying it was a law that she couldn't line dry. In the US, some people buy houses in a neighborhood that has a home owner's association (HOA). The HOA can put in place rules about how the outside of your property should look.
Exactly. I live in a townhouse (what I think they call a rowhouse in England?). It's where 4 or 5 homes are all attached in one long building? At any rate, my community is very small ... only 50 homes alltogether ... and we have open back yards. We're not allowed, by the rules of the HOA, to hang laundry in any area open to public view. I have put my comforter on the back porch to air out every once in a while, but it comes in within a couple of hours ... and so far no one has yelled at me for it!
Life in America is very very different from life in Europe. I know it's hard for people on both sides to understand sometimes I've lived in both and there are so many subtle differences ... things like dryers and public transportation issues and so forth. It can be a quite a culture shock, even just to hear about it.
Height: Tall enough for my feet to reach the ground
You would think I had 20 kids and 2 husbands! I do laundry every other day and I have 2-3 loads each time! There are only 5 of us, and 1 is only 3 y/o so I know it isnt her!
Another that lives in a subdivision (HOA) that does not allow clothes lines. I'm not sure I would use one even if they did allow them. With all the trees around I wouldn't hang laundry out to dry so the birds could poo on them. I do have an energy efficient washer and dryer so...
I have used the dryer since we moved, but I would love to find one of those retractable clothes lines to do our drying.
