Friday, April 22, 2011

Eco Tip #3

Hang dry your clothes.

I'm fortunate enough to have an outdoor clothesline where my clothes dry pleasantly on nice days. If that's not an option for you, then you can use an indoor drying rack or even just hang shirts from hangers (you can also clothespin socks to the bottom of hangers) and hang the hangers on your fan's light kit. The extra air from the fan will help. Other places you can hang clothes inside include: shower curtain rods, door frames, pull up bars, wire shelving, and any other place where you have a place to put a hanger that will leave decent air flow around the garment.

Not only is it energy efficient to hang dry your clothes, but you also reduce wear and tear on your clothes because they aren't being super heated in the dryer. According to this website, clothes dryers can use between 1,800-5,000 watts. If your load takes one hour to dry, then hanging it gives you an energy savings of 1.8-5 kilowatt hours.

Today is Earth Day, making today a great time to try hanging your clothes if you never have before.

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