Does anybody use an outdoor clothesline?

[Deleted]

I'm really interested in setting one up and using it for laundry, especially during spring and summer. If you have a ready made one do you know where it was purchased? Or do you have one that you built yourself? Regardless, do you like it?

[peach]

You cn buy them at any home improvement store or prob Walmart. Install one reel at one end and te other on you fence or shed etc. pretty idiot proof to install. I only use mine for sheets and cloth diapers mostly but it's nice. I should use it more

[housegeek]

I've always wanted too but I worry about pollen.

[duckduck]

I do when I'm home for the day and the weather's going to be nice and not incredibly humid-- in other words, hardly ever. Ours was left up by the previous owners. I'd like to add another one so I can hang a full load out.

I grew up hanging clothes on the line (the kind with pulleys). If you have the time early enough in the day to hang the clothes out and live in an area where it's not super-humid all of the time, I think they're great.

[emjacobs]

I have horrible seasonal allergies so I can't dry clothes outside and still be able to breathe. We do spray down nasty jeans and let those dry outside before washing them. And let pool towels dry outside.

[sillygoosegirl]

If you have an HOA, you should check with them on what they allow. We are not allowed to hang clothes outside. :-(

I do still hang our clothes, but inside. I like hanging inside better when possible anyway (because I'm super lazy), but if I do more than one load in a day, there just isn't room.

[mrs.jacinthe]

We do. I've bought clotheslines/supplies from Lehman's before - good quality, some stuff made in usa, etc. We use an "umbrella" style line.

Our issue isn't actually pollen, it's dust and/or bird crap. I have to be careful to bring things in before they get dirty. LOL

[bethaboo]

I really want to have a clothesline, but we are apartment-bound for at least a couple more years. I think the Container Store has a couple of options for clotheslines.

[tcsbride]

I actually have a close line I setvup in my basement and prefer it to my outdoor one the outdoor one is retractable. Bought it from ac hardware but really only use it for bed spreads or sleeping bags. For every day use I had dh hang a couple retractable ones in my lau dry space in the basement. That way I can toss things in the dryer for 5 min to fluff, then pull it out and putbit on the line. Then the nex day, just toss it right back in for another 5 min to fluff I'm super picky about stiff clothes though and the smell of downy.

[Deleted]

I have one I bought from Ace Hardware. It has big, all metal pulleys and a plastic coated wire string, and it's lasted several years so far. I think having a sturdy pulley (not plastic) is key. I started with a fiber cord, but that rotted pretty quickly, so I switched over to the wire. I use it all dry season and love it. It does cut down on our gas bill for half the year, though we're also not using furnace during the dry season, so I'm not sure how much to attribute to each. I also love the smell and don't mind the extra few minutes I have to spend putting things out and taking the down. I don't use the line for towels or socks because it makes them stiff. But I generally only have one dryer load a week of those.

I have read that CA and other states' laws, some explicitly, ban HOA restrictions on clotheslines (not that that stops HOAs from putting illegal rules on the books). But I don't really know too much about it. I'd do just about anything before I lived in an HOA.

[jena]

I guess we "built it ourself"... but it's two pulleys that screw onto a fence and the corner of the garage, and a rope that is knotted to a turnbuckle. It's not too complicated.

Just in case you need to know... A turnbuckle is a nifty little thing that allows you to screw two ends of rope together and as the line stretches you can just turn the turnbuckle to keep it tight. I'm probably making it sound more complicated than it is.

[heliocentric]

Ours is homemade. DH got a heavy duty cord and attached a hook (that closes) on one end and a ring on the other (it's adjustable, but I have no idea what it's called). We have eye hooks on our basketball pole (it used to be on a tree, but we had to cut that tree down) and the post of our back porch and we connect the cord to them. It's long so it sags when it's full, but we have a stick with a notch in the top that we use to prop it up.

It's not fancy at all, but it works great. It's also nice that we can take it down when we're using it.

I don't line dry as much as I'd like since it's weather dependent.

[gwynnetx]

we have a retractable one. i mainly hang my swimsuit and swim towel on it and tshirts from the washer.