A belated Earth Day tribute to one of my favorite inexpensive, easy-to-use devices for reducing one’s carbon footprint: the collapsible clothes dryer .
Things I appreciate about it:
1. Portability. I can set it up indoors and load it up with laundry before moving it to wherever the prime drying spot is in the backyard. Or, in the winter time, I can strategically locate it near one of our forced-air heater vents.
2. Collapsibility. Folds flat easily and takes up little space when not in use (a big plus for houses stuffed with twins and their belongings). And since I can store them indoors when not in use, they stay cleaner than clotheslines that are outdoors all the time.
3. Cost and Energy Savings. Even in the winter time (with our thermostat set at 58 degrees), clothes left on the drying rack overnight inside the house require 10 minutes or less in our gas dryer. And those of you who dislike the ‘crispy’ texture of drip-dry laundry can still net substantial energy savings by what I call “Hybrid drying” - drip dry the clothes until they’re just a little bit damp and then spin in the dryer for about 5-10 minutes. And the reduced drying time means less wear on your clothes, less lint in your lint screen, and less of your money going to PG & E.
4. Space-efficiency. The racks’ multi-level set up allows you to hang more laundry in less space than a clothesline, and also provides some ‘privacy’ for those who don’t like the idea of having their underwear out to dry in full view of the neighbors (in the photo, the t-shirts provide a ‘screen’ for the underwear).
Granted, this system may not be feasible in tight quarters with curious toddler twins, for whom a rack of dangling laundry would be what attorneys and insurers call an ‘attractive nuisance’ . But now that my kids are elementary schoolers who see a rack of clean laundry as “chores waiting to happen”, my laundry can air dry undisturbed.
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