Clothes line

A clothes line, also spelled clothesline, also known as a wash line, is a device for hanging clothes on for the purpose of drying or airing out the articles. It is made of any type of rope, cord, wire, or twine that has been stretched between two points (e.g. two posts), outdoors or indoors, above ground level. Washing lines are attached either from a post or a wall, and are frequently located in back gardens, or on balconies. Longer washing lines often have props holding up the mid-section so the weight of the clothing does not pull the clothesline down to the ground.

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The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (November 2010)

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Clothing that has recently been washed is hung over the line to dry. Nowadays it is held in place with clothespins, but until the 19th century laundry was simply draped over the line (and often blew away), as is visible in artistic depictions of clotheslines from earlier periods. The clothespin was not invented until 1809.^[1]

More elaborate rotary washing lines save space and are typically retractable and square or triangular in shape, with multiple lines being used (such as the Hills Hoist from Australia). Some can be folded up when not in use. The notable con man Steve Comisar once sold a solar powered clothes dryer advertised in national magazines as a scientifically proven, space age method of drying clothes using only the power of the sun. Customers received a length of clothesline. In Scotland, many tenement buildings have a "drying green", which is a communal area predominantly used for clothes lines. A "drying green" may also be used as a recreational space for tenants. The overhead clothes airer is an indoor version hung at ceiling level and also raised and lowered with pulleys.

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Comparison with clothes dryer

Both clothes lines and clothes dryers serve the same purpose: drying clothes that have been recently washed, or that are wet in general. A laundry line saves money^[2]^[3] and a clothes dryer emits (2 kg CO₂eq of greenhouse gas on average per load).^[4] Dryers also cause more fabric wear than clotheslines.^[3] Neighbors may find clotheslines aesthetically unpleasant.^[2]

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Drying laundry indoors

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Perspective

Laundry may be dried indoors rather than outdoors for a variety of reasons including:

inclement weather
physical disability
lack of space for a line
reduce the damage to fabrics from sun's UV rays
legal restrictions^[5]
to raise the humidity level indoors, and lower the air temperature indoors
convenience
to preserve privacy and as a safeguard against vandalism

Several types of devices are available for indoor drying. A clotheshorse can help save space in an apartment, or clothes lines can be strung in the basement during the winter. Small loads can simply be draped over furniture or a shower curtain pole. The drying time indoors will typically be longer than outdoor drying because of the lack of direct solar radiation and of the convective assistance of the wind.

The evaporation of the moisture from the clothes will cool the indoor air and increase the humidity level, which may or may not be desirable. In cold, dry weather, moderate increases in humidity make most people feel more comfortable. In warm weather, increased humidity makes most people feel even hotter. Increased humidity can also increase growth of fungi, which can cause health problems.

An average-sized wash load will convert approximately 4965 kilojoules of ambient heat into latent heat that is stored in the evaporated water, as follows. A typical 4 kg load of laundry can contain 2.2 kg of water, after being spun in a laundry machine.^[6] To determine how much heat has been converted in drying a load of laundry, weigh the clothes when they are wet and then again after the clothes have dried. The difference is the weight of the water that was evaporated from them. Multiply that weight in kg by 2,257 kJ/kg,^[7] which is the heat of vaporization per kilogram, to obtain the number of kilojoules that went into evaporating the water, or multiply by 0.6250 kWh/kg to get kilowatt-hours. If the moisture later condenses inside the house, the latent heat will return to ambient heat which could increase the temperature of the air in the room slightly.^[8] To obtain a good approximation of the effect this would have in a particular situation, the process can be traced on a psychrometric chart.

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Factors that determine the drying duration

Various factors determine the duration of drying and can help to decide whether to use a drier or a clothes line

Placement of clothes line
The environmental temperature - increase of temperature decreases the drying duration
The environmental humidity - decrease of humidity will decrease the drying duration
Wind velocity - Sometimes people put a fan near the clothes when drying them indoors
Direct sun - usually only the external line will be exposed to direct sun, so usually people put the thickest clothes on the most external line.
Cloth thickness

Drying laundry in freezing conditions

Laundry may be dried outdoors when the temperature is well below the freezing point. First, the moisture in the laundry items will freeze and the clothing will become stiff. Then the frost on the clothes will sublimate into the air, leaving the items dry. It takes a long time and it is usually much quicker to dry them indoors, but indoor drying transfers heat from the air to water vapor, so it is a trade-off between speed and energy efficiency. The added humidity cancels out the reduction in air temperature to some extent.

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North American legal controversy

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Perspective

In the USA in the late 2000s to mid 2010s, controversy surrounding bans of clothes lines by landlords and Homeowner associations prompted many state governments to pass "right-to-dry" laws allowing their use.^[2] In 2009, "the majority of the 60 million people who now live in the [United States'] roughly 300,000 private communities" were forbidden from using outdoor clothes lines.^[9]

As of July 2025^[update], the states of Florida, Colorado,^[10]^[11]^[12] Hawaii,^[13] Arizona, California, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Wisconsin had passed laws forbidding bans on clothes lines, while Utah allows local jurisdictions to forbid such bans.^[14] At least eight states restrict homeowners' associations from forbidding the installation of solar-energy systems, and lawyers have debated whether or not those laws might apply to clothes lines. British filmmaker, Steven Lake, released a documentary in 2011 titled Drying for Freedom about the clothes-line controversy in the United States.^[9]^[15] The right-to-dry movement saw little state-level change going into the 2020s, as laundry-drying trends remained seemingly complacent despite legislative changes.^[16]

In Canada, the province of Nova Scotia's first NDP government passed An Act to Prevent Prohibitions on the Use of Clotheslines on December 10, 2010 to allow all homeowners in the province to use clotheslines, regardless of restrictive covenants.^[17] The province of Ontario lifted bans on clothes lines in 2008.^[18] Some affluent Canadian suburban municipalities such as Hampstead, Québec or Outremont, Québec prohibit clotheslines.^{[citation needed]}

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Gallery

Clothes pins (or pegs) on a clothes line
Pegs on a clothes line
Washing line in Iceland
T clothes line
Clothes lines in New York City, from a 1904 postcard
Across-street line in Armley, Leeds, showing pulley operated at street level, July 2004.
Clotheslines fiber made with polyurethane
Clothesline in El Jadida
Retractable clothes line
A folding umbrella-style clothes line
A clothes line as part of the art project Washing Lines in the Colors of the Rainbow