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Comment by alttag | Hacker News Reader

Works for a single or maybe a couple, but as family size grows this quickly becomes impractical.

With my family of five, this would be a nightmare.

Never was an issue for a family of four, when I lived at home. Tumble dryers normally ruin most clothes quicker anyway. I always air dry mine.

It isn't for my family of four, even with our rather damp UK weather.

We, a family of 5, do this in the humid Dutch climate all year round. In the summer clothes dry in an hour outside, in the winter in 1 or 2 days inside the house. An electric dryer uses huge amounts of energy, so this is about the most effective thing you can do with the least impact on your life.

Many moons ago, families were larger and clothes dryers did not exist. With enough motivation and wherewithal, you'd be amazed what you can do. You just believe that it'd be a nightmare because a) you don't have any desire to make the necessary personal or familial sacrifices to make it happen and b) you don't know anyone that does it. (And both of these reasons aren't unique to you, so please don't consider this a personal attack.) However, if everyone in your "world" suddenly started doing it, a new "standard" would be set and the practice would no longer seem impossible or nightmarish.

No, but it would still be a pain in the ass. Dryers were invented for a reason.

I agree with Hispanic. I suspect some portion of attachment to driers pertains to the shameful connotations of the phrase "hanging out one's (dirty) laundry in public". My wife asks me to hide her underwear behind other clothes on the rack. Perhaps someone may invent a non-PITA way to hang dry our clothes. Robotic clothes horse?

What's the point of the robotic clothes horse when dryers are already available?

To each his own, I guess. But as I said, dryers were invented for a reason. That reason is mostly convenience. I grew up in a home that hung laundry out to dry. I now live on a large enough property that no one without binoculars would know if I hung my laundry outside, but yet I use an electric clothes dryer. Why? It's infinitely easier and more convenient to just toss clothes from the washer into the dryer right next to it, push a button and walk away knowing they'll all be dry and fluffy when I get back.

Don't discount convenience; it's the other Mother of Invention.

It becomes very difficult and often impossible seasonally in some climates. But we might get a lot of mileage by improving the efficiency of these things, and reducing their usage when the weather is nice.

Line-drying also may not work well in high-density housing.

Italy's population density is pretty high and it works fine. You can buy fairly compact, multi-level drying racks. Or, of course, there's this:

http://www.gettyimages.it/detail/foto/italy-naples-drying-la...

Family size? We have two small kids and hang-drying works fine. There are times I wish we had a dryer, but mostly I don't miss it too much.

We can dry pretty much all our clothes indoor on lines in Scotland - which is a pretty damp place. We have two small rooms for laundry that have "pulleys":

http://www.pulleymaid.com/classic_clothes_airer.htm

We are in a double upper flat - so no access to hang clothes outside.

People hang dry clothes for whole families even in Norway where I'm from, apart from when it goes below freezing, when people will often hang dry clothes inside.

I use a tumble drier almost exclusively (in London these days), but I will readily admit it is out of laziness and not because it is in any way a problem to do other than in tiny apartments etc. that might lack the space (but then again the Italian tendency to hang lines in back alleys etc. in many cities shows that even that is less about what is possible and more about what we're used to).

In my family we were 6 and hang drying.... the main thing was that everyone did their laundry separately so there's almost always things on the line but at least we were able to organize ourselves.

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