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Comment by spodek | Hacker News Reader

It's not the fastest clothes dryer, but I often use one that runs on fusion in outer space.

For apartment goers (or those that live in uncooperative climates) the reliability of such a system is a bigger problem than the speed.

But for those that can use it, it is indeed a great system.

Can you put your clothes on a fire escape? Or in your bathroom (works great if you have a bathroom with a window).

Alternatively, a clothes rack on a balcony or receiving direct sunlight through a window or glass sliding door, with both slightly ajar works well.

One benefit of this is that your clothes last much longer.

In the winter, I find they dry quite quickly if I just put the clothes rack indoors near a radiator.

However never hang clothes on a radiator to dry, this is the least efficient method of using your radiators.

If you have city central radiated heating, then making the radiators less effective is just a bonus of getting your clothes to dry a bit faster.

I'm not sure how common that is, the only place I have heard of it is in some Scandinavian countries but if you know otherwise i would love to hear about it.

All of northern china is like this. I'm sure much of Russia is also, its a pretty common thing spread by the soviets (socialized heating....).

Every apartment complex I've lived in has had rules banning hanging clothes (no idea about enforcement). Also, for any group larger than 2 I imagine the clothes would not dry fast enough to keep up.

And most bathrooms are small and often without a window.

Not a complaint, just pointing out that sun-drying is often not a real choice. Often it is.

Many management types will attempt to tell you that you can't hang clothes on a line. In nineteen states, such rules are explicitly prohibited by state law: http://www.sightline.org/2012/02/21/clothesline-bans-void-in... . They have the cheeky name of "right to dry states".

A related thing often banned is external over-the-air antennas, protected by US federal law.

Well, the focus in that particular article is on HOA bans, not apartment ones. For instance, the Hawaii law (the first one I clicked on that seemed particularly cut-and-dried) is restricted to single-family homes and townhomes.

"The purpose of this Act is to prohibit real estate contracts, agreements, and rules from precluding or rendering ineffective the use of clotheslines on the premises of [b]single-family dwellings or townhouses[/b]." [0] http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2009/bills/SB1338_CD1_....

Living in Beijing, we never dried our clothes outside the apartment. We had racks in the kitchen for that. I don't think management companies can ban drying inside! It sounds unenforceable.

It's considered reasonable to endanger lives to dry washing? (I don't live in the US).

Well obviously don't be stupid where you put the clothes, (I.e. don't block egress).

One day we'll invent a technology device to answer the age old question: "Still wet or just cold?"

https://www.amazon.com/SSEYL-MS-C-Textile-Moisture-Meter/dp/...

Perfect, of course this exists. It even has a FUN button for when waiting for the clothes to dry gets too boring.

What really struck me as remarkable was this bit: "Digital display with back light gives exact and clearly reading although you stay at the somber conditions"

I wish my TV could do that...

4.47$ shipping, and it's not even next day? Pass! /s

Yeah I'll wait for the ETEKCITY version for $16 with prime shipping.

I press it to my face to answer that question. Somehow my face is much more reliable at telling the difference between cold and wet than my hands.

I just mentioned the "wet or cold" problem to someone else and they said "just use your face"! So it's not just you. Something to try this winter...

Lips or tongue are even more sensitive for this IME. I test vitrification of pottery by putting my tongue on it. I use my lips to test washing for cold vs. damp, but we sparsely use an eco friendly washing liquid, YMMV.

Doesn't work so well if you have a beard.

Doesn't using your tongue, which is usually wet, increase the chance of a false positive?

I live in a tiny flat in Austria. The vast majority of my washing dries overnight provided I actually get it done around lunch time... even when it's raining. I don't even put it outside most of the time.

If I'm in a major hurry, mostly due to self inflicted procrastination, I'll point a regular fan at the rack as it dries.

I used to hang my clothes indoors when I was living in Europe (some apartments had clever retractable hangers built above the bathtub), and even when raining they would dry in less than a day.

Hanging clothes in direct sunlight is overkill, and probably reduces their useful life due to the UV. All you need is sufficient moving air. I hang mine under the deck or just on racks indoors.

Sunlight isn't an overkill. It's a great germ killer (You have to be cautious not to leave them out for too long, lest the UV/Heat damages the colours).

You can use a lot of detergent to remove the last bacteria; but household detergents are a big source of water pollution.

Hm, I thought the best way to kill germs is to wash clothes at 60C/140F or higher.

it is a good way, but it's also a good way to ruin some more delicate clothing.

Or you could throw your clothes into a geyser [1] :)

> (...) The group put their soiled clothes in a pillowcase and threw it into the geyser’s cone. When it erupted, the clothes were sent flying over a hundred feet into the air. When they collected them, the churning, heated water had indeed cleaned them.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14146482

Not sure why everybody assumes fusion powered implies direct sunlight.

Drying clothes in the shade is also powered by the sun, because the air only has "unused" moisture capacity because it was heated at some point. To repeat the cycle forever it will need to cool down and then be heated again.

Once both my kids wet the bed every night for a week. 3 loads a day. Even on a sunny day in Scotland a duvet won't dry on the line in 1 day.

I feel you.

Bed-wetting children get cheap blankets and mattress protectors (plastic sheets), not duvets!

I'm at the top end of Scotland - we can barely dry towels and trousers, nevermind duvets.

Years ago (on Mull), I saw someone selling drying tents: basically, a large tent with open ends and clotheslines inside. The shape apparently draws air through the tent. They said that even on cold, wet days, clothes dried quickly because of the air movement, and of course, no energy consumption.

Never, ever seen one since, and a quick web search for 'drying tent' shows up nothing but kit for pot growers.

I've seen indoor ones with fans. Looked like a fabric armoire with a box fan underneath. It blows air through the clothes to dry them faster.

This would also solve the other problem that stopped me drying things outside in Scotland: the garden tended to attract a lot of birds. I won't go into details, suffice to say the results were less spectacular than I had been led to believe.

Lucky you. Try doing that in Chicago or Miami and your clothes will stink like holy hell thanks to the humidity.

If you use an air conditioner, you can do it the Chinese way. In humid cities people hang their clothes near the AC exhaust, since it is "free" hot air. In a super humid city I've seen clothes dry that way in only a few hours.

Is this really free? Doesn't it just lower the efficiency of the AC unit?

Why would it lower AC efficiency? It doesn't use the exhaust air for anything. (Obviously you shouldn't block it)

No, the fans are quite strong and have an effect up to a couple meters away. I think it is more like a cat sleeping on the hood of a car. The waste heat needs to go somewhere, might as well put it in my clothes.

They hang it near, not on top of the vent. And if the exhaust is outside the unit (balcony, etc), it would have basically no effect.

I've heard it has anti bacterial properties as well. Unfortunately, they come at a pigment destroying cost.

Wasn't space fusion established as carcinogenic?

Oh really? I thought those were just little balls of lint and fabric. Now I feel like a jerk.

Doesn't the UV end up fading the colors?

Probably about the same as wearing your clothes outside I'd imagine.

You go outside?

Hang inside out.

A big (practical) problem is that you might not be around to take the clothes of the clothline in time and they end up 'roasting' for extra hours/days. Sunlight definitely does fade the colors.

Beamed energy is here!

Star based clothes drying is always better

We did that, right up until we had three kids and full-time jobs :)

We dry ours (2A+2C) inside on hanging racks, but it takes up a fair bit of space. In a smaller house, we'd have no chance.

You also need adequate cubic footage to absorb the moisture dependent upon the humidity inside. If you run the AC, that helps keep the humidity lower, but it's probably more expensive than just running the dryer.

Why on earth is this being downvoted?

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