Laundry Time!

Ok, you all know if you have been reading here that I am a little (soap) nuts about laundry. You may also remember how resistant I have been to line drying my clothes. I would sometimes run dried towels in the dryer just to warm them up.

And then our electric co-op mentioned that our monthly bill is higher than it should be, nearly double of our neighbours. We wrote it off as the electric tank heaters for the livestock....but then I noticed that the trend continues in the summer.

So the first step was to use a Kill-O-Watt meter on all major appliances. Nothing was pulling unreasonable amounts, it all added up to less than 100$. So what could it possibly be? We could not hook it up to our electric dryer because the plug is different. So I stayed upstairs and Chad stood at the meter......I hit power and the meter went from near still to spinning.

Yeah. We found our offender. I usually do three loads of laundry a DAY. Running the dryer, meter spinning like that for 3-4 hours each day. Whoa. So, things are also getting frugal with our monthly expenses and this money needs not to fly out the window into the farmyard.

So first up? I bought a 12$ indoor line. Mounted to the ends of the room above the machines. Pretty good tension, is supposed to retract but that part is a pain so we do not, but cannot really hold jeans or wet bath towels. This becomes the line that dries underwear, t-shirts, diapers, and dance clothes. Downside is that I have to use a step stool to hang them. I'll live.


So I had a brilliant thought. We already dry mittens and coats on the metal baby gate around the stove..... how many loads could this dry? So one full load of towels or jeans is the answer and it takes about 8 hours to dry during the day or overnight. The towels stiff and crunchy until first use, but that makes it super easy to fold. The jeans dry stiff like ironed and starched. Totally awesome. Bonus, the fold so easy that it makes them easy to stack neatly and then go straight upstairs and get put away.

As you can see, I am still working on having mad folding skills. Not there yet.

Other benefits we have found? No static build up. No lint. So much moisture goes into the air. Moisture that would otherwise be wasted! Moist air feels warmer so the heat can be set lower and we feel comfortable. The woodwork, animals, children, and my skin are thankful for the extra moisture in the air. Holly breathes better too.

Our monthly electric bill arrived showing just two weeks of our efforts resulted in 100$ savings. I only ran the dryer two times in those two weeks, both times with the vent outlet into the room instead of outside so we don't waste the heat and moisture that way. I was really surprised at how much lint it produced and static electricity was horrible from those two loads.

I am looking into getting racks. If I had forced air floor vents, I would set them over those.

This method is definitely saving us money. I am also extra attentive to clothes that are not dirty being thrown in the laundry pile. Not cool folks. Way too many things. How could we be so wasteful? For so many years?! We are also shopping around for a good stable laundry line and T bar system for outside, it has to be able to stand up to the really strong prairie winds, sometimes gusting at 60 MPH.