An energy conscious guide to indoor clothes drying

We’ve had a few weeks of rain, and the wintery weather is on its way which means one thing – we need to revert to drying our clothes indoors. Now depending on the size of your house, the level of inconvenience will vary, but I think we can all agree that the last thing we want to do is venture into a wet garden to hang clothes out.

So here’s our tips for making the best of drying indoors.

Start at the beginning – your washing machine

  1. Don’t put too much in your washing machine, packing it all in means the water will sit in your clothes, so reduce how wet they are when you take it out by putting less in.
  2. Use a high spin setting on your washing machine to help ensure as much water as possible is removed from your clothes before you’re ready to dry them. An extra spin at the end of the cycle will again remove more moisture, and use far less energy than running a tumble dryer.

Getting clothes dry indoors, quicker

  1. Invest in a heated airer – Philip and Holly on This Morning recently were talking about how great these are, (Holly has one) and I’ve only just started using one but already I can see it becoming a life changer, as I’ve been surprised at how useful it’s been. Far, far cheaper to run than a dryer, kinder to your clothes and it speeds up the indoor airer style of drying tremendously, by 5 times they say. Electric airers are said to cost around 4p per hour to run which is an excellent use of energy.
    This is mine, the Abis winged dryer (£64.99) which is both lightweight and sturdy, boasts 12m of drying space, holds around 10kg of laundry and folds up super easily when it’s all dry. It’s brilliant for drying jumpers flat which are normally a nuisance to dry and take forever. When you’re done with it, it folds flat to easily slide under bed or behind door… Excellent. It comes with a super long electric cord so moving it to the best position is easy and it has a waterproof switch too in case of any pesky rogue water droplets.
  1. Create a heat pod – Create a cover using those larger items of laundry draped over the top and hanging down the sides of your airer to create a warmth pod and keep the heat inside for longer. It really does work.
  1. Harness the sun’s warmth – Take advantage of the sun’s sunlight for drying – do your washing in the morning and place your clothes airer in the sunniest location, or close to another heat source for the rest of the day.
  1. Using coat hangers on your airer can maximise the drying time, and the quality of your clothes drying. Hanging them to dry helps those wrinkles to drop out, so you can then hang items straight into the wardrobe. Plus it frees up that valuable drying space.
  1. Condensation battle – Particularly if you live in an older property and struggle with condensation, drying clothes indoors can make it worse so using an electric airer (see above) or even a dehumidifier can both tackle the moisture, and speed up the drying time for your laundry.
  1. Give them space – don’t just pile them all on like the teenager in my home does, but hand individually and spaced out evenly, unravel scrunched up or half inside out items to give them the best access to the air to dry properly and evenly.
  1. Rotate your garments – (not required with an electric airer!) check them regularly to ensure those notoriously hard to dry areas are getting heat attention; pockets, cuffs… place them in the best position to dry.
  1. Remove clothes as soon they’re dry, and move still damp items into better positions. 

Energy tip: If your clothes are drying on a radiator, check them regularly and take them off once dry. You’re wasting energy by allowing the warmth from the rad to permeate already dry items. If they’re dry, get them put away.

You can take a look at our review of the Abis 3 tier electric airer here.

Hopefully these tips will help,
Wishing you warmth and dry clothes this Christmas!