How I dry laundry to save money on my power bill

Washing clothes is a chore I actually quite enjoy. It's not really a chore to me at all.

I always get lulled in by how easy it is to chuck dirty clothes into my washing machine and how nice my laundry powder smells when I scoop it in.

I especially enjoy hanging my washing on the line. It gets me outdoors for a few minutes of fresh air and I'm addicted to the smell of sun-dried washing.

Where my washing routine usually falls down is in the folding and putting away. It's mostly just a timing thing. My washing tends to finish drying at the end of the day, which is when I'm busy doing dinner prep and dishes, and getting kids bathed and into bed. Sometimes I have the energy after that to put my washing away, sometimes I don't.

Anyhoo, today I want to share with you how I dry my washing with the minimum dryer use possible to save on our power bill.

Obviously, on a sunny day, I hang the washing out on our main washing line, which is handily located just outside the laundry door.

Main washing line. 

Lately it has poured buckets from the sky every day, so I haven't been able to use the outdoor washing line at all. Instead, I've been hanging things under cover on our deck to dry. My friend, James, helped me string a washing line there just before the weather turned feral, and it has helped so much. Now I want to string more washing line up, because I think this is going to be my go-to drying space over winter.

Whites drying under cover on the deck. 

Towels drying under cover on the deck. 

Even on rainy days, the washing gets mostly dry out here, so I always hang it up for a while to blow the moisture out of it. Then to finish drying it, if it's not quite there, I either put it in the dryer or, if there are only a few pieces to finish off, I hang them in my hot water cupboard.

Drying lines in hot water cupboard.

I drape as much as possible directly over the hot water cylinder where it's hottest, but I've also strung a couple of lines of wire across the front of the hot water cylindar to maximise drying space in the cupboard.

It always amazes me how fast things get dry in here.  If I'm doing several loads of washing a day, the first load is always ready to pull out of the hot water cupboard by the time the next load needs to go in.

So that's how I save money on our power bill by making use of passive solar energy and the heat that's already being generated in my hot water cupboard. When I do use the dryer, it is for a very short time as most of the drying has already happened on the line.

I'm also now experimenting with washing in cold water to make further savings on our power bill.

I've always done warm washes, with the occasional hot wash to clear out the washing machine and sterilise bed sheets, but after reading this post over at Frugal Girl, I realise there are big savings to be made if I utilise my cold wash more. And since I'm drying out in the sunshine, my washing is getting sterilised anyway.

I think to be successful with cold washes, I will need to soak really dirty items first, but that's tricky since I don't have anywhere to do that in our small laundry. I could do it in the laundry sink, but the washing machine drains directly into that and I don't want anything blocking the drain hole. I'm sure I'll figure something out.

How do you save money on your power bill? Let me know in the comments.