I have a third-story window that goes out to a grove of oak trees where I want to attach a clothesline from the window to the trees about 100 feet away.
I will go to Home Depot and ask for clothes line, but, before I do, do you have experience with something like this that you can make recommendations?
So, when the wind blows and the trees sway, is the line supposed to stretch and shrink or will you be providing some mechanism to absorb the movement? If you don't allow for movement of the trees then you will need some _very_ strong rope to handle the task and regular clothes line isn't likely up to it. Don't forget that the rope, whatever it is, will need to handle the weather and UV damage since, at 100 feet, it won't be taken down after every use.
Clothes line here is 10 ga galvanized; been up for over 70 years so far and counting...
As another said, however, for that purpose you're going to have to do some serious engineering to keep from yanking the window frame out of the house plus it's got to be more flexible than the wire to be able to be off the pull the top side closer to take the bottom away to be able to put anything more than one or two items on it...
So, for that application, no, I don't have any recommendation, specifically other than I'd probably rethink the idea.
Impose on gonjah to use his soon to be working dryer.
Use the oak tree to hang up a good short-wave antenna.
Typically regular "clothes line" is braided cotton. I think I would spend the extra money for braided nylon tho. Stay away from poly if you live somewhere that the sun shines. It degrades in the sun pretty fast.
My recommendation would be to make sure the clothes line is very light weight. You definitely don't need the extra weight when you're trying to jump 100 feet to the tree. Also, before you make that leap, make sure you have had an extra large helping of beans because the gas the beans will create will make you lighter.
Lastly, as you're in mid leap don't fart! If you do you'll loose that advantage of the gas making you lighter and you'll hit the ground like a ton of bricks.
Say hello to Darwin for us.
It involves anti-water. Do I need to draw you a picture?
Yes, please do. I'll admit, we don't have that in the northern hemisphere.
Sounds to me like you are talking about Flin Flon ! ;>)}
My mother always used cotton clothesline, but only about 6 feet off the ground, because that's as high as she could reach. At one house it was about 50 feet long, and maybe the same at the next house.
But she also needed clothes poles, because the weight of the clothes would make the line sag. I think it makes a catenary, but I didn't know that word then. Her clothes poles were 2x2's about 8 feet long, with a V cut in one end and a point cut at the other. I've seen metal clothes poles too,.
Unless you're very tall, you'll need 100 feet times two to reach 100 feet away, because you'll have to go round trip, and then attach the clothes from the window, pull the other piece of rope so the clothes go away from you, attach more clothes, etc. Plus you'll need a 4" pulley at each end, and a spring to keep some tension on the rope. If the tree you attach too really sways, you'll need a longer spring,
I don't think clothes poles will work for you so expect a lot of sag.
When I was born we had an oak tree in the front yard which must have been 24 feet tall by then. I would look out the window a few years later, and it was as tall as our 2-story house with four steps up the front porch. I"m 67 now and the tree must be about 75 or 80 years old. It obscures from sight, almost the entire 2nd floor. and I saw the tree about 5 years ago. At 20 feet high, it may be too thick to sway, but at 25, the height of your open window, I'm less sure.
AFAIK, clothes line with pulleys at each end is used mostly in the part of the city where apartment buildings are only 20 or 30 feet apart. . Much less sag. Are you sure this will work?
I bought 100 feet of cotton clothesline about 33 years ago, and it's still good today. But cotton might stretch too much and too fast and be inconvenient for 100 foot length.
I wouldn't expect yours to last as long. Mine spent 99% of its time indoors. I haven't gotten it one wet more than once or twice and only a little wet at that, and I've actually only used it for maybe 130 hours total, mostly to tie things to the car, the trailer, the roof of the SUV, to tie the fence to a bush when replacing a fence post, to pull a tree down after I cut about half-way through, things like that. These last 3 things were in the last 2 weeks.
No matter how little it takes to tie something I never cut it, and that came in handy when I wanted to stand 50 feet from the tree I was pulling down.
For 5 years I kept it in my 5th floor bedroom as a fire escape, but there was only one fire and the flames were only 1.5 inches high.
It depends on the type of oak. The white oaks behind my house in Maryland were planted around the end of WWII and they were >12" in diameter at the base and over 50' tall in 1971 when I bought the house.
As for taking up the slack, mount a pulley in the tree, attach a line through the block to your clothes line pulley and put a weight on the other end. I am thinking something like a 45 or 60 lb bag of concrete with a dog stake auger screwed in it. Wet it down good and it will set up solid (drop it in a trash can full of water for a few days)
You could combine my ideas with gfret's, and have a third pully, with the bag of cement holding the whole contraption taut, while still having a round-trip clothes line for attaching the clothes.
Do you own or rent? If you rent, some landlords won't want the bag of cement hanging at ground level, and hanging higher will seem even worse because when the contraption or the rope fails, the cement will fall on someone's head or even on the dog. So discuss this with the ll, before building.
Air drying of clothes is much better than machine drying, at least in terms of cost.
I looked at google maps, the old version, and I see now that the tree is almost twice as high as the two story house. Because of the oak tree, you really can't see the house at all anymore above 8 feet from the ground, only the garage to the right, which is not attached and is twice as far back as the house.
Try 219 East Clen Moore Boulevard, New Castle, PA
From above, the tree is wider than the lot (60 feet?) and covers the driveway on the right and part of our neighbor's yard on the left. **
And then do street view. Be sure to TILT up (using the up-pointing arrow on the circle on the upper left of the screen) and look at the sky. I've never seen anything like it.
What do you think it is?
It looks like there is some big explosion a block or two behind my house, at the same time the streetview picture was taken. Also at 221 East Clen Moore Blvd. New Castle PA ,
My house is on the north side of the street. Even when tilting all the way up, so you're looking straight up, the clouds or plumes are seen, but when panning so that you are looking up in the other direction (south), you can see the outer fringes of those white things, but the rest of the sky to the south is blue.
If you are looking at my house and spin around there is a church directly across the street. It used to be a parking lot for the church to its left.
I thought there were more trees on the street. Maybe the others all died, except the oak.
**But I see the neighbors on the left have a tree in the back yard that covers half of our back yard. (Yeah, I know I don't own it anymore. My mother sold it.)
Are you asking about the type of rope to use?
"Clothesline" rope is cotten. It rots.
Polypropylene floats. Beyond that, it is useless.
Nylon is strong but it stretches. It also degrades - slowly - in sunlight.
Dacron is strong and stretches less. It also degrades in sunlight but less so than nylon.
You won't find anything useful at Home Depot. Go to a marine store...you may not find anything there either but you can on line.
want to attach a clothesline from the window to the trees about 100 feet a way. I will go to Home Depot and ask for clothes line, but, before I do, do you have experience with something like this that you can make recommendat ions?
Try coated steel cable with pulleys and expansion spring.
I have 3 live oaks in my yard that grew from acorns and they are well over a foot in diameter in less than 20 years. They just don't get very tall, compared to the northern oaks. That is why you don't see a lot of live oak lumber.
Are you planning to have a loop of clothesline with pulleys at each end so that you can pull the line to move the clothes in and out?
Paul
How do you plan to hang anything on a line 50 feet up? I'm thinking you may need 200 feet of line, so you can pull the clothes to the window. They did this a lot in tenement apartments.
In any event, clothesline is made of cotton and will fail with exposure to weather. Probably a better choice is Dacron line with UV protection. I would guess HD wouldn't carry this, as it is a product suited for marine use. Nylon is another option, but it is very stretchy.
I would go to an army surplus store if one is near you or get on ebay and look for what is often called 550 cord. It can also becalled paracord or parachute cord.
YOu may also want to look around for differance diameters of the cord. Also look for Dacron cord of differant diameters and pick out the best one for your application.
We had one - southern live oak - start in 2000. It is now well in excess of 12" in diameter - probably closer to 16" - and probably 25' - 30' tall.
We had another start in 2001 about 100' from the first. It is - at the most - 6" in diameter and 8-10' tall. I've never figured out why the one thrives and the other barely grows.
It is also because the lumber - again, SOUTHERN live oak - twists and checks badly. Twenty years ago I tried ripping up a sizeable log into 5/4 and 8/r planks, sealing the ends and air drying under roof. The stuff twisted and checked so badly that none was useable.
OTOH live oak lumber used to be very popular in ship building, primarily because of the tree's propensity for drooping limbs...those limbs could be dressed and used for ribs with minimal bending. I have no idea if that type of live oak checks and twists but I doubt it.
We had one - southern live oak - start in 2000. It is now well in excess of 12" in diameter - probably closer to 16" - and probably 25' - 30' tall.
We had another start in 2001 about 100' from the first. It is - at the most - 6" in diameter and 8-10' tall. I've never figured out why the one thrives and the other barely grows.
It is also because the lumber - again, SOUTHERN live oak - twists and checks badly. Twenty years ago I tried ripping up a sizeable log into 5/4 and 8/r planks, sealing the ends and air drying under roof. The stuff twisted and checked so badly that none was useable.
OTOH live oak lumber used to be very popular in ship building, primarily because of the tree's propensity for drooping limbs...those limbs could be dressed and used for ribs with minimal bending. I have no idea if that type of live oak checks and twists but I doubt it.
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