simple.green.organic.happy.

Category: Going Green 101

  • Clotheslines 101


    April 19th is National Hanging Out Day!

    Show your support by stringing up a line and flaunting your “greenitude”.

    We started hanging out laundry out of necessity; our dryer was on its last legs and would occasionally scorch our clothes. Even after we replaced that dryer with an Energy Star model, though, I continued to hang our clothes out on the line. Here’s why:

    • The savings on our electric bill is massive, even with the new dryer.
    • There is considerably less wear and tear on our clothing. You know the lint in your lint trap? That’s bits of your laundry flaking off.
    • I just plain like it. I like being outside in the morning, with the sunlight filtering through the trees, the air smells fresh and new. I like to hear the birds twittering and watch the jays chase each other and to be scolded by the squirrels. When I bring the clothes in, at dusk, there is a lone bat that circles overhead, clicking and cheeping as he he swoops down catching bugs that are invisible to me. I like to feel like I am an accepted part of my environment. I like having this time to notice the world around me.
    • I want to do my part to remove any stigma related to hanging out laundry. Our yard is highly visible to our well-travelled road and I figure, everyone driving past sees our clothes drying every blessed day; eventually they’ll think of it as normal behavior. I know some neighborhoods have covenants forbidding clotheslines. We had to get past our own mindset that our line was “ghetto” (my husband’s words). Why is this? Is it because drying your clothes out in the sunshine implies that you are “frugal”, or “old-fashioned”, or, God forbid, that you can’t afford a washing machine? When did frugal and old-fashioned become dirty words?

    Last week I was actually approached by an acquaintance who lives in the neighborhood across the street from us. She had wanted, she said, to tell me that she admires us for taking the time every day to hang that laundry out. (And oh, my gosh, was I proud of this moment. )

    She loves that crisp feeling to clothes and sheets dried in the sun, she said. She just doesn’t have time to do it herself.

    Me, I’m not necessarily partial to the crispness ( I use baking soda in the wash as a softener), but I do appreciate the lack of static cling. As for time consumption, I savor that time outside, the all-too-infrequent “me and only me” time, and I often linger on the deck, just looking around.

    But I have learned a few tricks to shorten “hangtime” when I’m in a hurry:

    1. Have a dedicated box for clothespins, and keep it in a laundry basket dedicated for hanging laundry. (In other words, this basket should be empty unless you’re taking laundry out or in.) Even better would be a bag for the clothespins that you can sling over your shoulder, so you don’t have to keep reaching down into a box. This is something I keep meaning to do and haven’t got around to doing; in the meantime, I wear things with deep pockets and throw all the pegs in there.
    2. Use hangers. I hang all our tops and skirts on hangers. This allows me to do at least half of the hanging inside, and then I just take all the hangers outside in one go. This makes life a lot easier on cold mornings. Also, I have the kids retrieve their own hangers from the line at night, and hang them directly in their own closets. That way the only folding I do is pants and linens.
    3. Hang small or potentially embarrassing items on a folding rack. Again, the bulk of this hanging can be done inside and then carried out in one go. At night I just pull the rack ( ours is a rack sold for dolls’ clothes!) inside and everyone claims their own.
    4. Keep an eye on the weather. If a day is going to be particularly warm or breezy, I know I can get two loads dried, or one load of heavy items (think comforters or flannel-lined jeans). (I am not averse to throwing heavy items in the dryer at the end of the day for a ten-minute tumble. Better to make sure the comforter is fully dry than to have to wash it again because the seams were still a bit damp and mildewed.) If I take advantage of a two-load day, I know I can skip a day if it rains- but if needed I’ll hang clothes from my kids’ bunk beds and from the shower curtain rods.
    5. Do it every day. I have three kids and a husband in construction. My three year old’s favorite game is “dig a hole with a stick”, followed closely by “stomp in mud puddles”. We generate a lot of laundry. By doing one load of laundry every day, no excuses, without fail, we don’t experience laundry back-ups. I think the reason a lot of people hate doing laundry is because they wait until they’re all out of socks or underwear, and then they’re stuck wasting an entire day on laundry.
    6. Don’t bother sorting dirty laundry. I used to wait until I had a full load of dirty clothes, or the bathroom hamper was full. Now I just mix together kids’ clothes, my clothes, towels, napkins, colors and whites. Since I wash everything on cold it doesn’t matter. (The exception here is the construction clothes- they get washed separately because they’re caked in dust, mud, and fiberglass.)
    7. Try putting a load in the wash before bed and hanging it first thing in the morning. This means you don’t have to wait for the washer to finish, and you’re less likely to forget about it entirely.

    But don’t your clothes get pulled out of shape? And what about clothespin marks?

    Well, the hangers take care of that problem for a lot of the laundry. Pants won’t pull out of shape as long as you use enough pegs to distribute the weight evenly. As for clothespin marks, I favor wooden clothespins over plastic for this very reason. Another way to eliminate marks and make heavier fabrics more secure is to fold the back of the waistband over the clothesline and pin at the seam.

    Aren’t your clothes all wrinkly?

    Give everything a good snap before hanging it, and gravity will take care of the rest.

    What about wintertime?

    Admittedly, we had a fairly forgiving winter this year, but as far as I can determine, clothes dry just as well in the cold. In fact, it’s a bit of fun, because when you hang out on a below-freezing day, your clothes releases steam fairly dramatically until the temperature equalizes. Everybody loves bringing in clothes that are frozen stiff. I would then toss the frozen clothes into the basket and sit them by the baseboards and go off and do other things. When when I came back to them, they’d be dry; that’s good enough for me.

    The determining factors really seem to be sunshine, wind, and humidity. You’re much better off on a winter day with sunshine and a breeze, than on a hot day that’s humid and still. (But you’re still good if the sun is shining.)

    This concludes the Elton family approach to laundry!

  • Ways to Conserve Energy (and Save Cash Money, too)

    Steps that Cost Us Nothing:

    • We turned down the programmable thermostat to 63 during the day and 55 at night.

    • We also decided that “night” could begin an hour earlier, at 8:00, since everyone is in bed reading or watching TV by then. (Later, we decided to make 7:00-8:00 family time in our room, so night now begins at 7:00 in the rest of the house.)

    • We closed off those parts of the house that aren’t used on a daily basis, and shut off or turned down the heat in those areas.

    • We learned to live without air conditioning, period. We instead installed ceiling fans in our most-used rooms.

    • We grouped our electronics into families and put each family on its own powerstrips. So when the computer goes off, so too the printer and modem. The TVs are grouped with the DVD player, game systems, and stereo. Also, all the countertop kitchen appliances share a powerstrip.

    • We turned “Turn out the light” into a family mantra. I freely admit to accidentally turning lights off as I leave a room, evoking an angry “HEY!” from the kid I just left in the dark.

    • We started drying our clothes in the sunshine. We did this because our dryer died, but we kept on keepin’ on after we bought a new (Energy Star) model. Partly because it still saves us quite a bit on our electric bill, but also because I’ve really come to enjoy it.

    • We also use the air-dry setting for the dishwasher. Just a matter of pushing an extra button.

    • If I need to use the oven, I’ll bake several items at once or double the recipe. This saves energy by cutting down on pre-heating times, and saves me time because I’ll have extra meals on hand in the freezer.

    • We take shorter showers. My kids have excema, so the doctor wants them taking shorter showers, every other day, at not-as-hot temperatures. We also use all-in-one cleansers to make life easier. Since I make them take short showers, they police my showers with a timer in hand.

    • The outside lights are on a timer.

    • We put up thick curtains (which we made ourselves with sheets and blankets) and we open them at first light to take advantage of the solar gain. (In summer, the opposite holds true; the curtains block the sun and we open them at night to let the cool in.)

    • Wear this outfit twice, and do half as much laundry. Also: washing on cold is just as effective on 95% of your clothes.

    • We unplug our cell phone chargers when they’ve finished charging. This was the hardest habit to develop.

    • I airdry my hair. Unless I really need to look presentable, which thankfully doesn’t happen very often.

    • We keep the fridge and freezer very nearly full at all times, and I learned how to vacuum those coils.

    • Speaking of which, I am careful to keep the heating vents clear and vacuumed as well.

    • Putting the lid on the pot reduces cooking times!

    Steps with an initial cost:

    • When we had to replace our washer and dryer, we bought Energy Star models. Given the amount of laundry involved with three kids and a husband in construction, this had a tremendous impact on our electric bill.

    • Jeff (the husband) bought some caulk and sealed up every crack he could find.

    • He also installed ceiling fans all over, and we made it through last summer never turning on the air conditioner. (On days that were truly unbearable we went to the pool.)

    • As they burn out, we replace our bulbs with CFLs.

    • We bought energy efficient night lights for the kids, which cost only pennies a year even though they’re plugged in 24/7.

    • My boys read in bed every night for a half hour with a solar flashlight. (Bonus: When you purchase a BOGO light from SunNight Solar, one is donated to a child who needs light. You can even choose what organization or area you would like to receive the donation.)

    • I bought a crockpot and learned to love it.

    • I also bought a good thermos to keep my coffee hot, so I can turn off the coffeemaker when it’s done brewing.

    What next?

    • We need to figure out how to set the sleep function on our TV. My husband insists he needs the TV on to fall asleep, and inevitably I wake up at 3 a.m. and the dang thing is still blaring. That’s at least five hours where the only one watching TV is the cat.

    • We are considering putting the water heater on a timer. This makes me a little nervous, having had to bathe a child in the middle of the night when they woke up puking. But given that this particular scenario only happens maybe twice a year, I think the energy savings may win out. (I’m not sure what the hangtime would be if we turned it back on; if we’re able to reheat the water in only a few minutes everything would be fine.)

    • I’d love to put in solar outdoor lighting, but we live on a heavily treed plot; I need to investigate how much sunlight they require.

    • More Energy Star appliances– specifically the dishwasher and refrigerator, when the ones we have kick the bucket, which with any luck will not happen for a long, long time.

    • Look into solar panels. This is a long term dream, to go “off the grid”, and it may not be possible with all the trees around. But worth checking out, I think.

    • More likely is a solar water heater, because this is something you can build yourself. (I can see this appealing to Jeff as a summer project.)

    • Finally, I want to get a Kill-a-Watt, so I know exactly which of our electronics is using the most energy, and adjust accordingly.

    But a lot of these things are little things. Is it worth it?

    Regardless of your “green” leanings, energy conservation is worth taking time for, because we dramatically reduced our energy bills, almost by half.

    I don’t know about you, but we sure can use that extra cash.