Clothesline Vs. Dryer
- Clotheslines allow a consumer to dry his clothes without paying any energy fees. TerraPass estimates that an average family could save about $70 per year by air-drying half of their loads of laundry. Further, the family would conserve over 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year. Overall, clotheslines are cheaper to the individual consumer and better for the environment.
- Despite the cost and energy savings, there are several key drawbacks to using clotheslines. It can be time-consuming to hang clothes on a line as opposed to simply tossing the whole load in a dryer. Also, clotheslines cannot be used in inclement weather; thus the method is not always a reliable way to dry clothes. Clotheslines also require space, so people living in small spaces—such as urban condos—may not have room for a clothesline. Finally, some citizens argue that clotheslines are not aesthetically pleasing and should be banned because they reduce the beauty--and property values--of the surrounding community.
- Dryers primarily offer convenience, as many new appliances and technologies do. Dryers are typically placed right next to washers, so unloading a wet load of washed laundry into a dryer is very easy. Dryers also save time because they dry a load of laundry in under an hour whereas a clothesline could require several hours to dry the clothes. Because dryers can be used in any weather conditions, they are also more reliable than clotheslines.
- Though the added energy costs and use are the biggest downsides, dryers do have other drawbacks. Because dryers toss clothes around throughout the drying cycle, clothes can take a beating. Dryers ultimately reduce the life of clothes as a result. Also, dryers are expensive to purchase compared to clotheslines, so the initial cost is also a downside.
- Despite the recent push from environmentalists urging consumers to use clotheslines, some areas make use of clotheslines difficult due to long-standing bans, usually as part of homeowners' association rules. Proponents of such bans argued that the sight of clotheslines reduces property values. Proponents of clothesline use in the province of Ontario, Canada, fought for years to lift an arcane law allowing municipal bans on clotheslines, finally overturning the bans in 2008. Some homeowners’ associations and towns still ban clotheslines. Typically, though, areas with bans do allow retractable clotheslines that can be stored when not in use.
