Sunday, March 18, 2007
Let nature dry the laundry
Christian Trejbal
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From the RoundTable blog
Now that the spring sun is finally warming Southwest Virginia and America has taken a welcome early leap forward into daylight-saving time, I'm ready to set up some clotheslines.
Have you tried to buy clothesline poles in the New River Valley recently?
Good luck.
I visited the big box stores, the home construction superstores, local fencing stores and farm equipment stores. Zip. The metal 'T' with a couple of hooks or holes is not for sale.
It needs to be the T model, too. Those "umbrella" models with their spinning hexagons, pentagons or squares of rope might seem nice and compact, but they just don't cut it for serious fabric drying.
Not that you can find them in the New River Valley either. One helpful assistant at Home Depot told me, "I think we used to sell them a few years ago, but we don't anymore."
Most of the clerks seemed surprised that their shops did not sell the poles. "That seems like something we should sell," they'd say. "I wonder why we don't."
I wonder, too.
Clotheslines are burned into my brain. Ropes stretched from pole to tree to pole across our back yard when I was a kid. We navigated around the hanging sheets and shirts as we played our games. No one liked to hear my mother direct, "Go take the clothes off the line."
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My mother's devotion remains fierce. She hangs clothes early on winter mornings. Temperatures that linger below freezing turn jeans and towels stiff with ice, but, "It's going to warm up by this afternoon," she explains. "You'll know they're dry whey they aren't stiff anymore."
Watching the weather is a crucial element of effective line drying. You need to know if afternoon storms are forecast.
If skies will be clear, escape for a few hours while the sun evaporates the water from your whites. If clouds are coming, though, stick around so you can run outside when the raindrops start falling.
My mother and I have both been pestering my sister to sew clothespin bags for us, my mother's having grown tattered from years of exposure and mine, well mine is just a plastic bag from the Experience Music Project in Seattle where I once bought a T-shirt. My sister got the sewing machine for Christmas -- 2005! We're still waiting.
Line-dried fabrics surpass anything that comes out of the dryer. The fresh smell and slightly coarse feel delights the senses. There's no artificial fabric-softener "line-fresh aroma." It's the real thing.
These days, it's practically criminal and certainly fiscally foolish not to dry clothes on the line.
Whether one buys into the whole global warming thing, we should all agree that it's a good idea to conserve dwindling fossil fuels and pump as little pollution in the air as reasonably possible.
Dryers are one of the biggest energy hogs in any household and are terribly inefficient. No other device is designed specifically to heat up a bunch of air and blow it outside.
I'm surprised more homes aren't designed to vent the warm, moist air inside during frigid, dry winter months. There are some devices one can install to pull it off, but I've never seen them in action.
Heating all that air takes a lot of power, most often electricity that comes from coal- and gas-fueled plants. Opting for sunlight and warm breezes takes the load off the grid. Less demand means fewer burning fossil fuels.
That's doubly important in hot summer months when humming power lines strain to feed air conditioners.
The saved electricity goes straight into the pocketbook. With Appalachian Power raising rates and the commonwealth poised to adopt loose, expensive re-regulation rules for electric companies, turning off the dryer for six months can save noticeable cash when the monthly bill arrives.
Fortunately, some clothesline poles are on the way. Reed Lumber in Christiansburg has ordered some and plans to have them in this week. The folks at Heavener Hardware in Blacksburg say they can order them.
Or, you can follow the route I did while I was despairing that I'd never find poles.
Pick up a couple of wooden fence posts with holes for tapered rails and a couple of the rails themselves. Plant the rails in the ground, securing them with a bit of concrete, and then set the post across the top. Instant T. Drill a hole or two if you need them.
In no time, you'll be taking advantage of Southwest Virginia's abundant solar radiation, helping the environment and saving money.
Trejbal is an editorial writer for The Roanoke Times based in the New River Valley bureau in Christiansburg.
