clothesline

 VERY approximately how long does it take to dry regular clothes on the line?
I am having my husband install a clothesline to lessen our reliance on the
dryer. I want to know if it is nice in the am, but going to be rainy in the
pm, does it make sense to put the clothes out? I am talking order of
magnitude here. It could be an our or 12 hours as far as I know!

Thanks.

S

  Stephanie wrote:

   And it could be both!

   For most items, a few hours on a somewhat sunny day suffice. Clothes
will dry fine in cold weather as long as you have some sun. A breeze helps.

   Heavy weight items take longer. The only killer is damp/wet weather.

   If I'm doing several loads, I'm regularly taking items off the line
that I had put on earlier.

   Jeff

 
The other posters mentioned a broad variation of outdoor drying time
and my experience is the same.  I have been hanging up my clothes to
dry as pften as possible for over 35 years.  I even have a couple of
lengths of short clothesline in the basement for haning things up in
the winter.  It all depends on the humidity.  I live in an area where
there is a significant Amish polulation and they hang their clothes
out year 'round!  One word of caution (and I find this incredibly
amusing in this day of energy conservation):  some neighborhoods/
developments have what are variously known as "deed restrictions" or
"deed covenants."  If you have one of the aforementioned existing on
your property, you may be in for some civil action from your
neighbors.  Other typical deed restricitons are: No parking motorhomes
or trailers in your yard; none of those small steel, utility sheds; or
no cars regularly parked in your driveway (all of them have to be in
the garage).  Good luck!

 
That's definitely true.  Basically the neighbors don't want to see
your hanging linens above the fence.  On the same subject, my mom
lived in a condo community where you couldn't park if you had a pickup
truck.  My brother had an S-10 he'd have to park out on the street.
Of course the HOA came up with this back when regular people had cars
or station wagons, "trucks" were for plumbers and carpenters.  I
certainly hope that got changed seeing as how average families own
trucks and SUV's.

 Stephanie wrote:

Where do you live, what is your humidity and temperature like?

Here in California where it doesn't rain all summer and it gets very
hot, I tend to hang laundry in the evening and take it down at about 10
am.  The evening heat and breezes dry it but don't put in wrinkles, and
the sun isn't on it so long that it starts fading it.

If you have dry heat, which you might not if it rains in the summer
where you live, your laundry will dry very fast.

If it is 80s where you are and breezy, your laundry will dry before it
rains at night.