Putting it all on the line
I quit using my clothes dryer on May 7th and embarked on a new journey in the land of "Mount Washmore." The truth is: I am loving it! Any excuse I can find to be outside to do housework and I am all over it!
I made an initial investment of about $20, buying clothesline, clothespins, hooks, pulleys, and a laundry basket. My goal: to makeup that $20 on my natural gas bill with PG&E the first month. The benefits so far have been even greater than I bargained for. I have brought my natural gas bill down from $47 to $26. In addition to the economic benefits, I could probably sing praises for doing laundry "European-style" all day long. Of course, it doesn't hurt that I live in sunny Sacramento, California. My clothes are dry in about the same amount of time as using the dryer.
The big question for many is not about saving money, however, it is about saving time. Is it really worth it? Let me count the ways. . . I am a procrastinator at heart. I have always been pretty good about keeping up with the washing step--it grosses me out to have smelly, dirty clothes sitting around. Then, I can also keep up with "rebooting" the laundry--rotating the wet stuff to the dryer. My problem lies in the next two final steps: folding the laundry and putting it away. I inevitably ended up with a pile at some point during the week on my couch, dining room table, bed, wherever. UGGGHHHH! So the best news (next to saving cold, hard cash) is that my new method seems to have cured me of my procrastination. I basically do a load a day. I have enough line space to hang one really large load or sometimes two smaller loads at a time. I only have one laundry basket. (This is enough for our modestly-sized home.)
As much as I would love to say I am invested solely for the planet, for future generations, for energy conservation and lowering my personal carbon footprint, I am afraid we live in a culture that still cries loudly for immediate gratification and personal benefit. Having said that, I can say without reservation I remain committed to this cause for reasons difficult to put into words. The smell, ahhhhh the smell of sheets freshly dried on the line, the crisp feel of clothes I would never have taken the time to press, the brightness of the whites (without additional chemicals), and my kids want to help! It looks like fun to hang the laundry, and in a way, it is. There is more to the aesthetic of line-drying--a "somebody's home" kind of feeling that takes me to another place in another time. Many of our own mothers hung the clothes on the line. Why did they stop? There is joy in the work.
On Sunday, June 24th the Sacramento Bee had a front page piece on the rising costs of utilities. They reported consumers enjoyed two decades of low natural gas prices before they started climbing several years ago, according to the director of the University of California Energy Institute in Berkeley. According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics between March 2002 and March 2007 natural gas costs have risen 70.68%.
My family (4 people--2 adults and 2 kids) does about 7 loads of laundry per week. I have a natural gas dryer. I also have a natural gas hot water heater. My newest plan: on June 15th, I switched to washing all laundry in cold water only. According to research conducted by Procter & Gamble, households can save up to $65 a year by making this switch. (Based on national average electric cost (2/07), water heater at 140F, warm to cold switch, and 7 loads/wk.) So, my goal is to shave another $5 per month off that PG&E bill.
Happy line-drying!
