Smells Like Green Spirit

My grandmother owned a dryer, and the gal was no environmentalist, but as a kid I remember playing catch in her backyard in Georgia under her clotheslines of sheets. I imagine there was just something she loved about the smell of sun dried clothes. I wish I had a big backyard with a clothesline, but as long as I’m crammed in a tiny apartment in Chicago, it’s unfortunately not an option for me.

Here are some ideas that you and I can do to save energy while drying clothes…

• Of course, the first and best way to dry your clothes is to let nature do the work! If you have space, a clothes line is the ideal way to dry your clothes. If you don’t have a backyard, you can purchase drying racks in a variety of different sizes to dry clothes indoors somewhere. I have a clothesline that I can hang across my shower (hooking one end to the showerhead and one end to the shower rod at the other end) made out of a bungee-like cord and clothes pins.

• Only dry full loads so you’ll use your dryer less often…but don’t overfill!

• I always thought my mom was just nagging when she’d go on and on about cleaning out the lint trap in the dryer…but apparently your dryer will suck up around 30% less energy if you keep the lint trap clean.
  • P.S. Fun Lint Fact - Lint is a great fire starter, even better than kindling, so if you have a fire place or are an avid camper, you can recycle the lint by reusing it!

• I didn’t know that those moisture sensors really worked, but apparently they do! Put your dryer on the automatic setting so it stops when the job’s done. Less exposure to unnecessary heat will protect your clothes from damage too. It’s like killing two birds with one dryer sensor.
• Another way to decrease drying times is to separate different materials on the auto-sensor cycle. Heavy towels and blue jeans take longer to dry than lighter materials or smaller items like undies, so separate your stuff!
• You spin me right round baby, right round…put your washing machine spin cycle on high if you can to start dryin’ them clothes before they hit your dryer.
• Who would’a thunk it: Throw an already dry towel in with the load of clothes to absorb some moisture and speed up the drying time of your clothes. You can even leave the towel in the dryer, so it’s there anytime you need it. Unless you wash your clothes at a laundromat like me, in which case, not such a good idea.
• Take a quick look outside at the state of your dryer vent. If the vent doesn’t close properly, then air can leak in from the outdoors and mess with your heating and cooling bills. If the vent is filthy and clogged, it will decrease the efficiency of your dryer, and take longer for things to get dry.
• There is information about do-it-yourself dryer venting on this website: http://www.doityourself.com/scat/clothesdryervent
• If you have enough stuff, running dryer cycles back to back helps your dryer use the residual heat from the previous load.
• Instead of keeping your dryer in a freezing tundra or cold garage, keep it in a heated room if you have a choice about it, so your dryer can work more efficiently.
• Gas dryers use less energy than electric dryers, or so I hear, so keep that in mind when purchasing one.
• Here are websites about products that claim to help with drying costs and energy expenditure, so check them out if you are in the market for such a thing (note: I’ve not tried either of these myself):
  • The dryer box at www.dryerbox.com says it is a system for more efficient dryer venting
  • And Spin-X at www.spin-x.com is a centrifuge drying system that was apparently even featured in Time Magazine as an appliance that will pay for itself in saved money! Check it out.

• Finally, two other ways to save money on dryer costs are to join a nudist colony so you don’t have any clothes to wash, and to not ever wash your clothes at all, which is what I try to do.

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