This Trick Will Help Dry Your Clothes Quickly Without A Dryer
Laundry is a chore everyone has to do quite frequently, and one that's made significantly easier with easy access to washing machines and dryers. With over 80% of people owning laundry machines, per Statista, the task is seamless for many. However, those with a communal laundry room or who use a laundromat will find the rather routine task a little more difficult, if not costly.
Laundromats aren't only a bit of a nuisance — having to drag your laundry from your home to car to the laundromat — but they can also run up a pretty steep tab. According to Two Shot Clothing, laundromats charge anywhere from $2 to $3 per load, whereas an at-home washing machine costs an average of $0.87. While line-drying your clothes is always an option for cutting these costs down, it can be time-consuming to wait hours for your clothes to dry. If you have a radiator, however, you may want to try this clever dryerless laundry hack.
Make use of your radiator
If line-drying isn't cutting it, and you don't want to spend egregious amounts of money on laundromat dryers, consider exploiting other sources of heat in your home. Namely, your radiator.
Before getting into this hack, Village Heating warns against placing your clothing directly onto your radiator. This is because the heat from the radiator will release the moisture from your clothing into the air, which at best will lead to your home being damp, stale, and likely cold, since all the heat from your radiator is being sucked up by your clothing. At worst, it could lead to mold developing, or even worse, become a fire hazard.
This hack doesn't require your laundry to come into direct contact with your radiator, though — only to manipulate the heat it produces. This trick comes from TikTok user @cleaning_at83, and requires a rack for line-drying, a large fitted bedsheet, and, of course, a radiator.
Fitted sheet hack
To begin, @clean_at83 says to hang your laundry up on a drying rack as you usually would. For a quick rundown on how to most efficiently line-dry your clothes, make sure pants, shirts, and tops are hung upside down, or draped halfway over the rack, per Rinse. Then, grab a clean, ideally dry fitted sheet that's as large as, if not larger than, your drying rack.
Then, cover the entire rack with the fitted sheet, making sure to tuck the fitted, elastic part over the bottom legs, completely enveloping the rack in the sheet. Now move it over to the radiator, and tuck the free ends behind the radiator. Turn it on, and the heat will go straight into the sheet and stay there, quickly and safely drying your laundry. If there's any condensation or moisture released, it'll stay within the confines of the sheet. Once dry, fold and put away your laundry as usual.