Washling line pulleys - help

With your 'd' pulley fixed to the wall it still works, but when I tried it that way I was surprised at how much harder it was to raise the washing, and then you have to wind up all the slack onto the cleat (Actually I had a similar problem with window blinds, where the slack went right down to the floor and was a pain to wind on to the cleat. The 'solution' there was to use 2 cleats and wind round the outside of both.)

Only if that is the way you arrange it to be: as I said, I would put a loop in a convenient part of the pull up line so that you just lowered to that loop and hooked it on the cleat with the washing line at a convenient hight for you to hang the washing without dangling it on the ground.

So the fixed side always stays same height but its

If you made the pull up line long enough, but unless you are into skipping or limbo dancing, I don't see any reason to. The less 'spare' line you have to wind up each time you hoist the washing, the better, I'd say.

Yes but it's connected through P to d, not fixed *to* P

Our nomenclature is getting a bit fuzzy here: the pull up line runs

*around* the pulley wheel of P. The eye of Pulley P itself is attached to the wall (With a nice sturdy 'vine eye'). It is *connected* to the eye on pulley d at one end and can be fixed at various points to the cleat c depending on how high and low you want the washing line limits.

Do you attach that to cleat C as well.

Yes: you set a couple of handy loops to tie off at your preferred low and high points.

In which case

Yes: That being the point of the exercise: much less winding, and more leverage from 2 pulleys than you get from 1. (And with the modern coated line you don't have to worry too much about it breaking, so you have more left over for tying up the roses.)

To do that you would need a pulley at the post and at c, and d would have to be a double pulley, with one wheel for each half of the loop, because you are effectively replacing 1 line with a parallel loop. And you might find it a bit fiddly tying the loop ends in a way that didn't get stuck in the pulleys somewhere.

Unless you are intending to hang your washing over a river or road, I think it is easier to walk up and down the line. However, you will no doubt have seen street scenes where the washing is pulled back and forth across the street between the houses, by such means. And after all, if you want to see what complex things you can achieve with pulleys, take a look at a sailing boat!

Who'd have thought there could be so much to say about fixing a washing line!

S
Reply to
spamlet
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"spamlet" wrote in news:Ut5zn.25135$1% snipped-for-privacy@newsfe07.ams:

Right I get you now.

ONE more thing

Instead of having loops could you use somesort of winder system to get the line up and down?

I know what I mean but I don;t know what they are called or where to buy them from

A bit liek how you wind down a car window but you wind down the line itself... and it would obviously be connected to the wall and much sturdier.

ANyone?

Reply to
mo

All this washing line stuff is beginning to sound like a wind up, but if you really are serious, you could get various winders and windlasses from boat suppliers. But really you only have an arm's length or so to pull down and hook around the cleat in your design, which, as I mentioned with my window blinds, is quicker than winding a windlass unless it is a big one. (You actually have to do a lot of turns to wind down a car window - which is why they are all electric these days.)

S
Reply to
spamlet

Kid's stuff, you want one of these:

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Reply to
Steve Firth

anything like it, or any other kind of outdoors washing line. I simply suggested a possible better format for the OP.

The days of laundry collecting every form of passing pollution are thankfully past for me . Drying indoors is hygienic and not subject to the vagaries of the weather.

Cic.

Reply to
Cicero

The message from mo contains these words:

Is this a wind-up? Some of the replies are extraordinary.

Have you never seen typical American washing lines?

Everyone's coming at this from the wrong end.

The typical American line has two pulleys at a fixed height and a continuous loop of wsahing line. Obviously joined with a tensioner -- like a small fence wire tensioner.

Don't get the line to go up and down -- get the person to go up and down. Make a little platform of the appropriate height at the house end. No moving parts.

Pin the clothes on the lower line and shove the line out as you put each item on.

The bigger the pulleys are, the better. Reduces the chance of the clothes winding themselves round the upper line and jamming the whole thing.

The best one I ever saw was made by a car-mechanic friend. The pulleys were a couple of old bicycle wheels minus the tyres. Great bearings. No chance of clothes getting jammed over the top line.

Reply to
Appin

Well if you are going to get that techy why not put the wheels on their side and have a motor on one, so the washing goes round and round and dries even if there is no wind. I expect someone has already done this... it's rather like the way we used to hang printing plates on a production line...

S
Reply to
spamlet

This sounds great if only I could visualise it I really must sit down and do a drawing it's got to work so many people say it's not possible

Reply to
stonemanjenny

It goes on the end

That's what I was thinking. But outside.

Especially if it is raining although presumably the same distance.

If you leave the empty line there long enough it may come down on its own but what would be the point of that?

I always presume that no matter how light it is the washing will hang down.

Thanks back, I always wanted to write like Rod Speed only making more sense. Ah well, off to read the 28 other replies but there may be even more by now.

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

That is a post from 2010 you replied to.. :')

However....

I used stainless flexible multi-strand wire, a galv pulley at each end. With one pulley fixed at the far end, some 50 yards from the house. At the house end, I used a very heavy counterweight via a third pulley under the house eaves, with the weight suspended in a length of plastic drain pipe to make it tidy.

The line goes so high when released, I had to devise a means to pull it down to loading height - I made a hand cranked pulley to do that. The section between the two pulleys is a loop, so all the washing can be un/loaded on the line from one place and the line just rolled along. Either end before and after the pulleys, I used a single wire rope, with just the loop doubled.

One issue I have yet to resolve, is washing attached to the lower line, being able to wrap itself over both lines of the loop, when its extremely windy.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

So that is one got one's knickers in a twist? I suppose it's better than having them in a wringer? Or cheaper.

You should never let fax stand in you way. They did use fax in those days I presume?

Reply to
Weatherlawyer

Tch. What you need is a clothes prop. You don't need any fancy pulleys.

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Just lifts the line up in the middle.

Reply to
harry
2010, well whatever floats your boat. Maybe the original poster has been in treatment since the 2010 post? Why would one put washing out in the rain? The weight of a line full of bedding and the wind loading would make it paramount that the line and its fixings were very solid indeed. also older lines were made of rope which tended to shrink and expand depending on damp. the plastic stuff stretched and broke so the wire cored stuff was the best but was not as flexible and hard to tie off. Really strange revitalised thread this one Brian
Reply to
Brian Gaff

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