Drying clothes inside my apartment & sorting by colors for wash

[resy]

So crappy weather is upon us and has me pondering the best ways to dry my family's clothes while indoors.
I know of racks but was wondering if anyone has any tips/tricks otherwise?
Also, growing up my mom taught me to sort clothes by color for the wash( whites, darks, and colors). The reasoning is that the colors bleed and if you wash say whites with darks, eventually your whites will have that dullish/gray look. I have always washed my clothes like this and never questioned it. My clothes (as my mom's) keeps for years in outstanding condition but it does require more loads so I wonder if it's truly necessary?

[NewbieFrugalUK]

Top tip for those without a dryer - once the washing cycle is finished, set a second spin cycle. The clothes then dry on an airer much faster :)

[BPA]

I have two drying racks but if I'm trying to conserve space, I use plastic hangers on the shower curtain rod to dry shirts and those pants hangers for children's clothes to hang dry pants and towels.  I like how this helps humidify the house during the winter months when the air is dry.

I've been known to toss whites in with colours when there aren't enough whites to justify a load.  My whites seem fine.  Every couple of months I do a load of whites with a bit of bleach. 

[MayDay]

I never separate colors unless I am washing a new dark colored item for the first time.  We don't have a ton of white stuff, and if gym socks get grey, who the hell cares?  I was the college laundry guru, I taught all the clueless boys that if they just washed everything on cold, it didn't matter what else they did ;).

Anyway, I have a big drying rack that stays set up in the corner of the bedroom.  It doesn't bother us to just have it sitting there.  I holds one load of wash about perfectly. 

[Pooperman]

General things: unless the colors have never been washed before (as used to be true of colors, but not anymore), everything can be washed together. Shirts/pants tend to be hung from the shower curtain rod with about 4 inches separation to allow for drying. Racks hold the rest (underwear, socks, towels, etc). Only takes about 12 hours to dry inside and it acts like a humidifier too!

[GuitarStv]

I don't believe in laundry segregation.  Break down the barriers, wash in cold.

[RetiredAt63]

I sort more by fabric, once I know an item is colour-fast.  So light-medium weight fabrics go together (on delicate), heavy things go together, sheets go together (especially flannelette, it sheds), towels are on their own because they shed.  Anything that is unusually dirty or stained gets pre-treated.

I don't worry about "full" loads because I can set my water level.  Everything gets a second spin on heavy duty to get the rest of the water out.  Then I do fluff in the dryer (no heat) for a few minutes because they wrinkle a lot from that.  After that it is air dry.  Pants dry nicely if you have spare pant hangers - I put one hanger on each cuff with the crease in its proper place, hang them upside down, and they dry fast and don't wrinkle.

When I was in an apartment for a while (communal coin-operated machines) I did full loads, didn't do the extra spin so I didn't need the dryer, and just accepted that things would take longer to dry.  Racks and shower curtain rods are our friends.

If you are worried things won't come clean in cold water, choose your detergent carefully and let them soak.  Our day-time electricity is expensive, so I often start a load early in the morning, let it agitate (lid propped open a bit so it doesn't spin) then it sits all day.  I restart it once the price goes down, and it is fine.  In the apartment I was still paying extra if I used hot water (each apartment had its own hot water tank) so I would put laundry into a bucket, add detergent and water and let it soak, and then just dump the whole thing into the machine.

[Bob W]

Wash clothes only when needed.  Towels about once every 10-15 uses in dry winter months.  Socks and underwear after one use.  Pants 5 uses in general.  Shirts perhaps every 2 uses if undershirts are worn or they pass the smell test. 

So for one person a weeks worth of laundry might be 14 socks,  7 under pants,  7 under shirts, 4 shirts,  2 pants,  1 set of PJs.  That is about 1 load. 

Always hang your clothes.  Never a hamper.   Even when they are awaiting washing. 

Use the minimal amount of detergent you possibly can.   1 $3.00 54 load bottle should last over a year for one person.  I  mean very little soap is needed.  You might also consider double rinse cycles to remove soap.   Nothing worse than your clothes smelling like "Mountain Air."    You can also start the load and then pause it for several hours after the initial agitation.   This allows the soap the most amount of time to work. 

Spin the hell out of them and they should dry in 24 hours.   Fluff in the dryer.     

Do separate whites and colors when you care about the whites.  (i.e. white shirts or pants)  This way you can bleach them and keep them nice.   

Instead of a drying rack for the shirts and pants you can use a shower rod or put a bar up in a door.  This way you can hang them from hangers. 

People over wash clothes in general.   Even a family of 4 should be able to get by on 4 or less loads a week.  This can be accomplished by starting the washer when you awaken.  Then hang them to dry throughout the day. 

[dodojojo]

I dry my clothes on hangers on two shower curtain rods.  One of the rods actually holds the curtain.  The 2nd rod hangs over the middle of the tub.  I'm short so the rod doesn't affect showering in tub.  Even if I was taller, I would just raise the rod placement.  With two rods, I can dry a full load. 

I use the dryer for bedsheets, but everything else ends up on the rods.  As I live in an apartment, I do this year-round.

[Mrs. Frugalwoods]

I too used to separate out all our colors, but, it was too many washes per week. I now throw everything I can into the washer together and am able to get by on just 2 loads/week (which includes all of our sheets and towels too). I wash on cold and haven't had any problems.

I air dry indoors down in our basement. I have two drying racks and clotheslines strung from the ceiling on which I hang clothes on hangers (pants drape directly over the lines). Usually takes 24 hrs for everything to fully dry, which works fine for us.

[Zikoris]

I've never separated colours, first out of laziness, then out of realizing it was pointless. My stuff is all way too old to bleed.

[The Architect]

Shout sells color catchers that keep your clothes from bleeding onto eachother. Seem to work well, but I'd still do a first-wash on a pair of jeans or similar in like colors. Tear them in half and throw one in on a load you're worried about. Tap cold for everything anyway though.

[Penny Lane]

I do two loads a week, too, separating lights from darks.  Easy peasy.  We do a lot of gardening and outdoors things so all that goes into the dark load.  Now when our kids were still here, we maybe did 3 loads a week ( one was their stuff and they did it themselves!).

[resy]

Ok thanks you guys. Per your posts, I will start to seperate my clothes into darks and whites only (opposed to the 4 different color categories I used to do), keep air drying on my shower curtain rod but will add a second one over the bathtub. Awesome tips, thanks!

[Polaria]

I basically split the batches between lights and darks.  A dark batch is every week, a light batch every three weeks I'd say.

I also do separate pullover batches (I do that when I have only one left to wear and I use a gentle cycle) and odd batches like red/pink/orange (again when I have enough clothes to justify a batch), towels / sheets (higher temperature), and the cats' cushion covers.

I'd say I make 5 batches every two weeks for two people (and two cats... stomach issues add to the batch count)

[Lyssa]

Ok thanks you guys. Per your posts, I will start to seperate my clothes into darks and whites only

That's what I do as well. Separating whites seems necessary for me since I like to wash oir sheets and SO's undershirts with warm water. I also have experienced white shirts to go grey. Not upon the first or even fifth mixed cycle, but down the road it didn't match my definition of white anymore

[pagoconcheques]

Locate your drying rack above or below a heat/AC vent.  The moving air will significantly speed drying.  We run ceiling fans in our bedrooms 24/7 during the warmer months, and you can lay things flat on the bed to dry as well. 

As others pointed out, if you wash in the morning a lot of things will dry by evening. 

[Hotstreak]

I don't separate colors on a regular basis.  My only whites are socks & undershirts for work so it doesn't matter much in the first place, but when they start to get pit stains or fade I do a bleach load.  This is about once or twice a year, involves a long bleach soak and an extra rinse cycle.  It's all cold water so the cost is pretty low, and the clothes turn out very white.

[greaper007]

I have two retractable lines in my basement, I can fit two loads on them.    You could set up the same thing in an apartment and just dry at night.    Then take the lines down in the morning.

[Sunny]

I have three drying racks set up in my dining room, the least used room of the house.  I do one or two loads a day (three active kids) and dry indoors on the rack in the winter.  It adds some humidity to the house which makes us more comfortable.  During the warmer months, I hand laundry outside on lines.   I hardly use the dryer anymore.

[Clever Name]

As others have said, I wash everything together on cold with no bleach. Occasionally you can wash your whites separately with bleach if you feel the need, but I have never done that and none of my whites are turning gray. A new pair of jeans or other dark, heavily dyed item does get washed alone or with similarly colored items the first time.

[m8547]

I separate my laundry into velcro and non-velcro loads. Things with velcro include hiking pants, biking shorts and gloves, jackets, some ski stuff, etc. I probably do a velcro load once a month and throw in stuff that's durable, like jeans and cotton socks, to fill up the load.

I dry everything on one drying rack and a section of the hanging rod in my closet. I use a box fan in front of the drying rack to speed things up. It uses 95 watts on high or 75 watts on low, so I probably average 1kWh to dry one or two loads. It looks like an electric dryer uses 3.3kWh per load (http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/dryers.html), plus sucking heated air out of the house and reducing humidity in the winter, warming up the house or sucking out air conditioned air in the summer, and it causes more wear on clothes from tumbling them around more.

Maybe with a second drying rack I could spread stuff out more and skip the fan, but it would take 200 loads at $0.10 a load to pay back a $20 drying rack. At one load a week that's about four years.

[ubermom4]

Hi -- great question. I have 4 kids who are very active in different sports and are outdoorsy. I don't usually separate the lights/darks. When I find a bunch of 'dingier' socks, shorts, etc. then I do a separate load on 'hot' with some color safe type bleach.  Otherwise 'warm' seems to work really well and deals with teenager 'smells'. I use very, very little detergent and am sensitive to most of them.  I also frequently augment the detergent with washing soda or borax. Both of these additions really help.  We do use the dryer but I have experience with air drying. If you have a small space and you would like it to be tidy, I would suggest laundry in the afternoon/evening then hanging it with a fan. By morning it should be dry enough to put away. You could switch it around and let it dry while its during the day. A simple fan really, really moves things along. If you have kids, try to teach them not to wear their white socks outside without shoes   ;)    Hope this helps.

[falcondisruptor]

I used to throw everything in together on cold wash.  Our new detergent doesn't work so well on cold, so we do separate out our whites/linens.

We started line drying our clothes this fall.  When it was damp outside and in it was a pretty pathetic experience.  It's so much better now that the air is drier. 

Now we really spread the clothes out on the rack more, and hand whatever we can on our shower curtains and in our doorways (which seem to get better air flow than in the tub).  Someone suggested we hang sheets over the backs of doors, and it's worked for us so far.  In a day almost everything will be dry now, but some thicker things take two days.