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>your clothes would not last that long Washing on cold or warm, gentle cycle, and then either tumble drying on low or hang drying will greatly extend the life
by DebtDeflation 1y ago
>your clothes would not last that long
Washing on cold or warm, gentle cycle, and then either tumble drying on low or hang drying will greatly extend the life of your clothes. Washing on hot with a more vigorous cycle and then drying on hot not only risks shrinkage in the short term but will cause your clothes to wear out and fall apart much faster.
- ajuc 1y agoIn Europe most people don't use cloth dryiers. You just hang the clothes on lines (usually on your balcony or in your bathroom if you live in a flat, or in your backyard if you live in a detached home). Clothes are dry the next day anyway, what's the rush? I wonder if the UV from sun vs the longer time to dry results in less bacteria overall.
- HPsquared 1y agoI'd expect a longer time spent "damp" probably increases bacterial growth.
- dreamcompiler 1y agoSolar UV helps a little, but UVC (180-280 nm) is necessary to thoroughly kill many bacteria and viruses (including COVID) and UVC doesn't reach the Earth because the atmosphere absorbs it.
- altcognito 1y agoUVB kills covid, and sunlight is a pretty good disinfectant in general. https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/222/2/214/5841129?login=false https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/222/2/214/5841129?login... https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/study-reveals-ultraviolet-light-exposure-has-antiviral-effects-on-covid-19-variants/ https://www.cedars-sinai.org/newsroom/study-reveals-ultravio... I think the idea that sunlight doesn't breakdown the virus comes from people trying to "cure" cases of covid-19 with sunshine, which yeah, that's not going ot work.
- dreamcompiler 1y agoUVB does work but it takes longer than UVC. So long that if you try to use it to disinfect skin, it's likely to give you sunburn before it kills much of the virus. https://www.nationalacademies.org/based-on-science/covid-19-does-ultraviolet-light-kill-the-coronavirus https://www.nationalacademies.org/based-on-science/covid-19-... Contrast Far-UVC (200-235 nm), which kills the virus quickly and yet does not seem to cause skin or corneal damage, despite being more energetic than UVB. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-UVC https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Far-UVC
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- xattt 1y agoPeople often dry their clothes for several hours during the day to take advantage of the sun.
- deeThrow94 1y agoNot to mention UV will break down the fabric itself.
- DebtDeflation 1y agoThis is how it was in the US too growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, everyone had a clothes line in their yard. But by the late 1980s it seemed everyone started getting clothes dryers.
- ghaff 1y agoClotheslines were not the norm in the 1970s US in my experience. Dryers, like dishwashers, took longer to be broadly adopted than other major appliances but they were hardly uncommon in the 1970s or even earlier.
- SoftTalker 1y agoDepends on where you lived. In rural areas, or in older city apartments, yes perhaps. My parents house was built in a subdivision in the 1960s and had an electric clothes dryer on day one.
- firesteelrain 1y agoMy mom still hangs clothes on clothesline. I used to hate it when she would hang towels on the line because they would get hard. I also grew up wearing cloth diapers. We grew up poor.
- HideousKojima 1y ago> In Europe most people don't use cloth dryiers. You just hang the clothes on lines (usually on your balcony or in your bathroom if you live in a flat, or in your backyard if you live in a detached home). Clothes are dry the next day anyway, what's the rush? Lived in the Czech Republic for two years and got to experience this. The result: my underwear felt like sandpaper compared to when I dried it with an actual dryer.
- MisterTea 1y agoYeah this is why line drying kinda sucks. Worse in the winter when you have dry skin and your stiff jeans are sanding your legs down. The solution is to tumble them in a dryer for 10 min on no heat or low to soften them up. If you dont have a dryer you can shake/tumble them by hand wrapped up in a bed sheet, laundry bag or basket. I did that a few times but it's laborious.
- zippyman55 1y agoWhat is the difference between your air dried underwear and sandpaper? Sandpaper has one smooth side.
- aaronbaugher 1y agoI use a clothesline in good weather. If it's a particularly calm day without a breeze to sort of fluff the clothes up a bit, then after they're dry, I'll toss them in the dryer on an air (non-heated) cycle for a few minutes, which takes care of it.
- eptcyka 1y agoWait what? Who in the EU has the time to hang clothes out? That is like a 15x time difference between a dryer and hanging clothes out on a line.
- Symbiote 1y agoPeople like you and the GP, who generalize across a huge continent/trade block with a wide variety of climates, living arrangements and wealth.
- eptcyka 1y agoPeople like us do what?
- MisterTea 1y agoYou plan by doing laundry ahead of time. When you have a washer and dryer you get spoiled with ~2hr wash and dry times allowing you to wash needed clothes on the day you need them. If you didn't have that luxury then you would plan ahead. I lived without a dryer for a few years and did exactly that, wash the day before and hang dry.
- eptcyka 1y agoSure, I still plan abead of time, but it still takes more time. I don’t dry all of my washing in the dryer, the delicates are hung. But I do have better things to do than spend hours on laundry weekly.
- MisterTea 1y ago> But I do have better things to do than spend hours on laundry weekly. You dont have to sit and watch the laundry dry, it does that on its own ;-) Cheekiness aside, it adds maybe 10-15 minutes for hanging up but not hours unless you have to hike to some mountain top or whatever. You still have to fold so it adds little to that when taking them down from the line.
- balfirevic 1y ago> In Europe most people don't use cloth dryers As a European, to the extent that this is true, it's only because they don't know what they're missing.
- gessha 1y agoAs a European who currently lives in the US, washes and line dries his clothes, I don’t think mainlanders are missing much. It IS convenient but I’d rather extend the clothes lifespan.
- derbOac 1y agoI (American) kind of learned accidentally how much longer clothes last air drying, from drying work clothes and some of my child's clothes, and then expanding from there. I kind of grew up with line drying, and then stopped, and then started again. It is pretty remarkable how much longer clothes last with line drying. I only machine dry heavy items that take awhile to dry and/or benefit from it specifically in terms of fluffing up or wrinkling. I'm tempted to get a heat pump dryer but I'm worried about the size of the ones that are available near me.
- com2kid 1y agoDryers can be set to dry on a lower temperature. Sure it takes 30 minutes longer but clothes last a lot longer. Best of both worlds IMHO.
- danielbln 1y agoGerman here, happy owner of a heat punp drier. To me it's the same as a dishwasher. Something you don't think you'd need until you have it. And once little people enter the equation, having a drier is a God's end. Modern driers are also gentler on the clothes than the hot air jets of yore.
- Tagbert 1y agoI live in the US and during warm weather hang my laundry outside on a clothesline to dry. I live in a suburb and so have a backyard for this. Living in an apartment would make this unfeasible. The area I live in has quite a lot of cool or rainy days so that does limit it to about 1/3 of the year.
- energy123 1y agoHang drying increases household dust. Clothes dryers' mechanical motion is great at removing lint from clothes as an unintended consequence.
- wkat4242 1y agoAnd it also makes them wonderfully soft <3 And smooth so they don't have to be ironed. I hate the power it takes but it's worth it over hang drying IMO.