Tips on Drying Laundry Without a Clothes Dryer

Drying laundry in a small apartment typically means you do not have the necessary facilities for washing and drying laundry. In other words, no washer and no dryer. Doing laundry in a sink is both unsanitary and also does not get the clothes really clean as it does not even approach the type of cleaning that gets done in a washing machine. Therefore, going out to a laundromat is usually the best option. This can be time consuming and that probably eats into your free time and in the world we live in today everybody wants to save time. Certainly doing laundry is not an exception to this. Waiting through the washing machine’s cycles is one thing but then having to endure an additional extended wait for the dryer to finish its job is another. The washing machine does its thing and when it completes it’s cycles you know that your clothes are properly cleaned as long as you use the correct detergent and additives. However, when it comes to drying you may very well find that the cycle is not long enough to complete the drying of the clothes you put in it not to mention the fact that this is an additional expense and also becomes an environmental issue because of the power it consumes. The solution to this is to complete the wash cycle at the washing machine and then put your clothes into a laundry basket and bring them back to the apartment for the final phase.

The first part of the process of course is to make sure that the washing machine has a spin cycle that removes as much water as possible. Then when you bring the laundry home there’s just a minimal amount of moisture that needs to be removed. You can probably hang most of your clothes on a regular clothes hanger and then find some fixture, shelf, or other part of your apartment from which to hang it and let it dry. However, these tend to be fairly inefficient because you don’t have that many places to hang your clothes. Another option is a clothes drying rack. These are standalone units that typically fold for storage and have multiple rungs and a flat upper surface where you can display and dry a variety of items. Typically, these racks are made from wood, bamboo, or metal. If they’re made from wood they need to have a enamel type finish that does not come off. If they’re made from bamboo (this is a tricky one) it is typically stained to give it a uniform color and the stain, which is oil based, can come out on your clothes so you need to be careful in this area. Finally, there are the metal racks. If the metal rack has a good powder coat or enamel finish this may end up being your best option. You can typically buy these at big box retailers such as Wal-Mart or Target or you can get them online from retailers like Amazon. The way to approach this is you put small items like socks, underwear, etc. on the lower portion of the rack and place your large long items like sheets, towels, etc. on the higher racks to prevent them from touching the floor. It is a good idea to put the rack near a heat source. This could be a radiator, a window that gets good sunlight, or near some other type of appliance that generates heat. It’s also a good idea, if available, to put some type of a box fan near the drying rack to help circulate the air and direct moisture away from the clothes. If you have a bathroom with a tub and shower, you probably have a shower rod that runs the full length of the tub. This shower rod presents a really good opportunity for hanging clothes particularly if you put them on hangers first. The important thing here is to space them so that air can circulate freely around them and then once again if you have a box fan use it to accelerate the drying process.

Whether you wash your clothes at home, in the apartment, or at the laundromat one of the key things to remember is that the sooner you can get them hanging to be dried the better, as you want your clothes to maintain their shape, and then receive the most amount of air circulation as quickly as possible. However you decide to dry your clothes rotating them on a regular basis during the drying cycle will accelerate the process. If you find yourself in a situation where you do not have a drying rack or a shower rod, you can use things like a broom or mop handle stretched across two chair backs or something similar and use that as a rod from which to hang clothes or hang them on hangers. This leads us to the next option for drying clothes in an apartment, and that is a clothes line or multiple clothes lines as the case may be. This is not as outlandish a suggestion as it might seem. Clotheslines lines do not have to be a heavy 3/8” thick piece of rope that runs around two pulleys. It can be a much simpler affair. For drying clothes in a confined area like an apartment there are retractable clotheslines that can do the job extremely well. These consist of a strong nylon line with a fitting on the end of it that fits into a bracket, that is placed on one wall, and the clothesline and it’s retractable canister is placed exactly opposite on another wall. When the line is pulled out of it’s canister, it locks into to the bracket on the opposite wall, and the line is ready for use. When the drying is completed it’s simply a matter of unhooking the line from the one end and letting it retract into the receptacle on the other wall. This is an extremely effective way to dry clothes in a confined area and using one, two, three, or even four lines as the case may dictate will help get your clothes dried quickly and easily and without the expense and the time of running them through the dryer at the laundromat. The retractable clothesline that we use is made by a Tech Team https://techteamproducts.com/ and is an extremely efficient little unit. It is their item number 758 https://www.amazon.com/Tech-Team-Retractable-Clothesline-Hardware/dp/B07JMWDKQH/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1550178391&sr=8-1&keywords=tech+team+retractable+clothesline and it has a semi-circular chrome case that contains the line and the retracting mechanism and a bracket for mounting in the opposing wall. The neat thing about these is that they only need one or two little holes in the wall which can be easily plastered over when you need to vacate your apartment. At the end of the day since they take up very little space are relatively inexpensive and easy to use. These are probably one of the very best options for drying clothes in a confined area.