The second biggest resource of course is energy usage – especially when it comes to the using a tumble dryer. It is well-known that tumble driers are expensive and huge energy gobblers (using up to 3.3kW!!), but they also distribute a large amount of carbon dioxide into your immediate atmosphere.
In addition, using a tumble dryer destroys your clothes (that lint you clean out from the lint screen every time? That’s your clothes being shredded to bits). Dryers also contribute substantially to indoor dust levels if they’re not vented perfectly, which most aren’t.
Air drying (with a dehumidifier) is best
Air drying your laundry is the best way, but unfortunately it is not always possible to hang washing outside. The next best thing you do is purchase a clothes horse and hope and pray for a miracle that your laundry dries before getting that musty smell.
This is where a dehumidifier, such as the Meaco DD8L Junior Desiccant Dehumidifier comes in very handy! It’ll not only help your clothes dry faster, it may help with many other of the issues that come with living in moist, damp environments. A dehumidifier uses up to 80% less electricity than a tumble dryer, and comes with all other benefits, including getting rid of dust, dust mites, viruses, mould, bacteria and odours.
One of the major causes of condensation and mould in the home is drying clothes on a clothes horse in the winter. As the clothes dry, the moisture is released into the air and the air becomes damp, the room air feels colder, condensation forms on windows and mould grows faster.
Those who use a dehumidifier to dry their clothes put the clothes and the clothes horse into a small room with the dehumidifier next to them. Using a small room enables the dehumidifier to dry the air faster and achieve the low relative humidity that you need to dry the clothes. The DD8L Junior will sense that the air is dry enough for the clothes to dry and will reduce its energy consumption so that as little power as possible is being used.
The combination of the energy saving intelligent Laundry+ control, the high airflow and the rotating louvre makes the DD8L a viable alternative to at tumble dryer and the preferred choice to dry your washing with a dehumidifier.
More tips for effective drying
Here are a few more tips to help you effectively dry clothes inside and save you piles of money:
- Wash in the mornings so that you have the full day for clothes to dry. Drying is not ineffective at night, but it’s far more effective during the day when there’s warmth and light. Wash your clothes in the morning before work, hang them up, and by the time you get home from work, they’re likely to be ready to be put away.
- Make sure there’s space between your clothes that are hanging. This is probably the most important thing to make sure your clothes dry. If they’re touching each other, the moisture in the clothes is not exposed to air and therefore has nowhere to go. For thicker items like jeans and towels, give them two bars on the rack so that both their two sides aren’t even touching each other. For thinner items, one bar is usually sufficient.
- Hang your nicer clothes on hangers. Since you are going to end up putting clothes on hangers anyway, why not use those hangers to dry them? Hang the hangers off the drying rack around the edges or on surrounding furniture or on the chain of a ceiling fan in a little used room. Super effective, and very convenient–when the clothes are dry, just move them to the closet!
- Flip. If you find your clothes are taking a little too long to dry or come up smelling a little musty, you might consider flipping clothes over on the rack, or inside out halfway through the drying process. This exposes the other surface of the clothes to the air and helps them dry much more quickly.
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