Does an airer really save money when drying clothes?

Better to inspect the property at intervals to check for mould. I use airers as I don't have a tumble drier and have minimal problems with mould. If I see mould I clean it with household bleach.

It's not necessarily about being disorganised. The kids only have one (expensive) blazer each for school, one tie, one pullover. There is no point in having two of each, as they keep growing out of them. If they come home with gravy from dinner or mud from slipping over on them, they need washing, drying and (for some things) ironing for the next morning.

She'd probably struggle with that - she has both rheumatoid and osteo arthritis and her hands are very weak.

She's generally the only one in on a weekday.

The lines (2 of them) run from either end of the conservatory to the corner of the garage. There is no window available to bring stuff directly into the conservatory and an outside landing has problems, a) she'd struggle to get on and off it (she has difficulty with the house steps, even though I have halved the step height), b) the basket would still have to be carried in and c) it'd take up space that I need to turn the kit-car around - due to a kink in the fenceline and the shape of the house, plus the very narrow space, it is pretty well impossible to reverse in or out (the front end swings too far for a small change in angle), so the car has to be driven forward in both directions.

Oh, we have large piles of washing much of the time, but it is mainly cleaned and dried washing, waiting to be ironed and put away.

You don't need a dryer for that. A fan reduces drying time to far less than overnight.

The enormous amount of mechanical energy they took out of the washerperson.

And whn I was small, that was me.

But means getting up earlier and ironing in the morning, instead of doing it before you go to bed.

Electric. With a plate on the side that you hit if your t*ts got caught. (My mum had a single tub machine in the 50s that had a mangle on top.)

I used to like the airers that you pulled up and down. I lived in a bedsitter that had one. I assume it was originally the kitchen of the house. It had an adjoining kitchen that must have originally been the scullery.

Paul, Manchester is like Cardiff. In winter (and regularly in 'summer') either it is raining or you can see the rain clouds coming :-(.

My grandmother had one well into the '80s, an Ada - which, conincidentally, was also her name.

Win win then. No leccy used and the washperson gets warm.

My own version uses two pulleys with a stainless steel continuous (with a joint) wire around them. One pulley is firmly attached to a post at the far end of the garden, via a single SS wire. The house end pulley, has another single SS wire. The latter wire runs round a third pulley, with a very heavy weight on it, to act as a counter balance - pulling the entire arrangement up in the air. The counterbalance weight, runs uop and down inside a length of plastic soil pipe, bought specially for the purpose.

The counter balance pulls the line well up out of reach, So I have a whinch to pull and lock the line down, whilst it is loaded and unloaded. The loading and unloading is carried out, from one place, pushing the line along, around the two pulleys. Much easier than walking along the line, hanging washing.

No such problem with stainless steel wire..

Englishe Electric?

Add an air flow, via a fan, and they become much more effective.

No, a dehumidifier uses much less energy, than warming the clothes to promote the drying. The only energy needed, is for the compressor, to provide the chilled condensor surface.

Yes, you get most all of the energy back, plus a little more heat from the compressor.

We have one; I installed it about 20 years ago.

I happened to check my dehumidifier plus a large fan, last week, drying the equivalent of maybe three washer loads, all hung up at the same time, in my utility for around the 8 hours it took to dry them. It used around 1 Kwh, for the combined load. This was in an enclosed space, in my utility room, which has six washing lines aliong the length of it.