Thursday, August 14, 2008

All Dried Up


Here's the Challenge of the Moment in the Greene household:  I've lugged home a drying rack from Target.

I was inspired by a post over at Green Baby Guide.  A million years ago, I had a drying rack of my very own.  It was one of those mysterious items on the "must-have" list to go away to college.  Did I ever use it in my dorm room?  Maybe.

But as a broke grad student relying on the coin laundry in my basement, I used it constantly - until it collapsed.  I didn't replace it.  By the time it broke, we were in a house with a washer/dryer, so it seemed silly.

I should have, actually.  Because I've always had enough delicates that require hand washing and drying that I used to turn our bathroom into a giant maze of hangers and such.  And that was when we had just the one shower.  Remembering Franklin's irritation at shuffling around half-damp sweaters and pantyhose, I hesitated to consider air-drying to save the world.

Then I read the post, and thought about it again.  What sold me was this:  a dryer uses the most energy in our households, on an hourly basis.  The only appliance in our entire house that is not EnergyStar rated, as it happens, is our dryer.  I'm not sure if it is possible to replace it with a more efficient model - we have a stacked unit, and there aren't as many models available.

Even if it were possible, the bottom line is this:  our washer/dryer is located on our top floor, which is sparingly used.  I could easily set up the drying rack in the guest bath, or on our roof deck.

Franklin agreed that it wouldn't make him completely crazy, and so here we go:  The Next Green Experiment begins.

2 comments:

Joy said...

I'm glad to hear that you're embarking on a new eco-adventure! I recently found out that energy star actually will not label dryers since they are all relatively equal when it comes to efficiency. Of course, your new air-powered dryer gets the biggest eco-gold star of all!

Fern Greene said...

Thanks, Joy - I was baffled, because the EnergyStar appliance thing was one of the selling points we when chose this house!

We gave our new dryer a "spin" last night, and I was amazed at how quickly it worked. I did use our old dryer for about 15 minutes to finish up the towels and soften the t-shirts - but that was for two loads of laundry, or about 110 minutes of drying time sans rack.

Such an easy change!