Today we will be talking about clothes lines. The most popular devices that are used to dry laundry are electric clothes dryers. They are very common and can be found in the majority of homes. However, today many people are switching to an umbrella clothes line for a number of different reasons. Some people switch to clothes lines for economic reason, some for environmental reasons and others for the benefit that it provides over an electric dryer. We will go over all of these reasons and discuss the options that are available.

History

Clothes lines have been around for centuries. In Europe people used to hang them from between buildings. This carried over to America. In days gone by it was a usual sight to see clothes lines hung between buildings in New York and Chicago. Then there were the single home variety. For people who lived on their own plot of land stringing a clothes line in the yard was a simple way to dry clothing. This tradition lives on today.

Reasons to Switch

The price of electricity is high and it's only getting higher. This makes it very expensive to run an electric dryer especially if you have a lot of people in the house. There is a way to completely eliminate this expense. It is by using a clothes line. There is zero recurring cost with clothes lines. Your dryer uses a huge amount of power to operate and getting rid of it can make a huge difference to your finances.

People have become more environmentally conscious in the past few years. With this increasing consciousness comes and increasing desire to conserve power. A good way to conserve power is by using a clothes line. These devices do not hurt the environment at all, they use no power. They use the natural energy of the sun to dry clothes rather than electricity produced by coal fired power plants. For those people who are concerned with the effect that power consumption has on the environment, a clothes line is the perfect solution.

A clothes line does nothing to harm clothes unlike dryers. An electric dryer puts an incredible amount of friction on your clothing. All the lint that you find in your lint catcher is fabric that has been torn off of your clothing. They also break the small fibers in your clothes with their intense heat. If you switch to using clothes lines you will not have any of these problems. They dry laundry naturally without any intense heat or extreme friction.

How to Use

If you are using a traditional string clothesline you must hang it from between to solid objects. These can be buildings, trees or posts that are specifically made for the purpose. You will also need clothes pins in order to hold the wet laundry in place. Once the clothes are in place you should leave them out for about four hours in order to allow them to completely dry. Make sure that you hang them when it is sunny. Clouds will affect how long it takes to dry your laundry. If it begins to rain, immediately take down all of the clothes.

Rotary Clothes Lines

Rotary clothes lines can be a better alternative to the original string lines. They make it possible for you to hang a lot more clothes in a smaller area. The resemble beach umbrellas only instead of a canopy on top they have a series of strings. You then attach your laundry to these strings using clothes pins. They can be rotated around easily and this allows you to hang clothes on all sides without walking all the way around. You should rotate it a few times while the clothes are drying so that each side gets an equal amount of sun.

Summary

Now we have gone over the reasons that people have been switching to clothes lines. The price of electricity is high and thus so it the cost of running a clothes dryer. The environment is in peril and cutting down on your power consumption can help it. Clothes lines do no harm to clothes unlike electric clothes dryers. You should have a good idea of why it is good to switch to clothes lines. So go out and get yourself a good clothes line today.

Above is an example of a typical rotary clothes line. These are used by people all over the country to dry their laundry.