Miracle Tech

[Cobalt-60]

I recently stumbled onto a miraculous piece of energy saving technology.
I can't say I discovered it, for it proved to have been in use throughout most of human history.
It's a clothesline.
I was forced to deploy one by a dryer malfunction.
The results were so very good that I have yet to repair the dryer.
My clothes smell infinitely fresher.
My cotton shirts almost self press if I hang them by the shoulders.
(I think people started using starch to imitate that effect.)
Be warned that it's not a panacea
The neighbors are clued in to the terrible secret that I'm a wearer of underwear.
And if your line extends beyond the cover of the car port or awning there's bird doo to consider.
This piece of tech is highly recommended

[China_cat]

1. Be glad you don't live in one of our

subdivisions with home owners' associations. They don't allow clotheslines.

Oh, and you're probably too young to remember the magazine scam from about 25 years ago..."Solar clothes dryer, most modern technology available. Yours for only $29.95" (When $29.95 really meant something)

You got a clothesline and a bag of pins. And you couldn't say anything because they didn't actually lie to you. It was new rope, plastic pins and hanging them out is certainly solar drying.

[mntleo2]

2. The Sun Will Also Kill Germs

...it is one of the best ways to make sure your clothes are sterilized. Just be careful with anything that has elastic as the sun eventually (after a couple years of hanging out) will lose their "zing". But hey, usually by that time they are usually ready to be put in the rag bin anyway, right? The sun is also a marvelous way to whiten dingy things.It does fade colors, but again, that is after a long time hanging out. You can also lay out your feather pillows and comforters on the grass in the hot sun for a day and sterilize them from mites.

I am a proponant of hanging out clothes and yes there are scads of places that find it "unsightly". They will find it far more "unsightly" when their children and grandchildren get cancers from all the chemicals they inhale, injest, and get on their skin. They will find it a lot more "unsightly" when their rivers, streams and lakes are foaming and brown with chemicals. They will find it far more "unsightly" when we no longer have the water left to wash our clothes or the energy left to run our dryers.

I usually make sure wherever I move to let them know I WILL be hanging out my clothes as often as I can.

My 2 cents

"Hints From" Cat In Seattle

[bananas]

3. UV sterilization and bleaching

[skids]

4. Me too.

I recently discovered that there are some kinds of clothes that you don't have to wash every single time you wear them. In fact, it seems, that is most of them, and the ones that do need per-use washing tend to be the small ones.

[jpak]

5. Or one of these....

http://www.realgoods.com/shop/shop2.cfm/dp/208/ts/1055273

Works on the screened-in patio and can be hidden by a faux-oriental dressing screen purchased at your local thrift store (so the neighbors can't see yo' unmentionables)...

[freethought]

6. There is no better way to dry out sheets and T-shirts.

Okay, I admit it. Given the choice between a machine dried set of sheets and a set just of the line, I'll take the set just of the line. A great outdoorsy smell and crispness to them. Great to sleep on.

We actually had a neighbor once ( a real image-conscious yuppie-from-hell) who laid less-than-subtle hints that she disapproved of my family hanging out the laundry. What baffled us was that there was no possible way she could have seen it from any point on her house or property. What seemed to be bothering her was the simple fact we were merely doing it.

What did we do? The most effective thing we could. We ignored her.