We’ve all been there. You’ve just finished a load of washing, you’re feeling unusually productive, and then you look outside to discover Melbourne-style weather has decided that sunshine was merely a temporary arrangement.
Or maybe you simply don’t want to fire up the clothes dryer every time you wash something and watch the electricity meter start behaving like a poker machine.
Whatever the reason, drying clothes indoors can become a surprisingly frustrating exercise. Get it wrong and the house starts feeling like a tropical greenhouse, while your freshly washed clothes somehow develop that unmistakable damp smell that suggests they’ve been sitting in a gym bag since 1997.
Fortunately, there are a few simple tricks that can dramatically speed things up.
Start With Another Spin
One of the easiest ways to reduce drying time happens before the clothes even come out of the washing machine.
If the fabric can handle it, run another spin cycle once the normal wash has finished.
The spin cycle removes water from clothing using centrifugal force, so giving everything another high-speed spin can remove a surprising amount of moisture before you even start drying.
It might add another ten minutes to the washing process, but that extra ten minutes could save you several hours waiting for clothes to dry around the house.
Less water in the clothes means less water that needs to evaporate. Simple.
Need Something Dry Quickly? Grab a Towel
This one is particularly useful when you suddenly realise the shirt you planned to wear tonight is still sitting wet in the washing machine.
Grab a large, clean and completely dry bath towel and lay it flat.
Place the wet garment on top, then tightly roll the towel and clothing together. Once everything is rolled up, press firmly along the towel to force as much moisture as possible from the clothing and into the dry towel.
You can even kneel on it for a little extra pressure — and perhaps release some frustration about your questionable laundry planning at the same time.
When you unwrap everything, the garment should be considerably less wet.
It probably won’t be ready to wear immediately, but instead of starting the drying process soaking wet, you’re now dealing with something that is merely damp — which can make a huge difference to how quickly it dries.
Give Your Clothes Some Breathing Room
A clothes airer works perfectly well indoors, provided you don’t load it like you’re trying to fit the entire contents of your wardrobe onto six metal bars.
Air needs to circulate around wet fabric.
If shirts, towels, jeans and socks are all touching or overlapping, moisture becomes trapped between them and everything takes considerably longer to dry.
Spread clothing across the airer and leave as much space between individual items as possible.
For shirts, tops and jackets, try putting them onto coat hangers rather than folding them directly over the rails.
Hanging them properly opens the garment up, allowing air to move around both the inside and outside of the fabric. As a bonus, you’re also less likely to end up with enormous drying-rack creases running across the middle of your favourite shirt.
Get the Air Moving
The real secret to drying clothes indoors isn’t necessarily heat — it’s airflow.
Wet clothing sitting in a closed room with still, humid air is going to take considerably longer to dry.
A basic pedestal or portable fan positioned near the clothes airer can make a noticeable difference. You don’t need to create cyclone conditions in the lounge room either. Even running the fan at a low speed helps move humid air away from the fabric and encourages moisture to evaporate faster.
If conditions outside are dry, opening a window can also improve ventilation.
But when it’s pouring rain or particularly humid outside, opening every window in the house may actually make matters worse.
That’s when a dehumidifier becomes extremely useful.
Put the clothes airer and dehumidifier together in a reasonably small room and close the door. The dehumidifier removes moisture from the surrounding air, allowing more moisture to evaporate from your clothes.
It can significantly reduce drying time while also helping prevent all that laundry moisture from ending up elsewhere in the house.
And Avoid the Heater Shortcut
When you’re desperate to dry something quickly, throwing wet clothes directly over a heater or radiator can seem like a brilliant shortcut.
It isn’t.
Apart from the obvious potential fire risk with some heaters, drying clothes directly against heating appliances can release large amounts of moisture into the room and potentially contribute to condensation and mould problems.
Keep wet clothing on a proper airer and concentrate on removing excess water, creating space between garments and keeping the surrounding air moving.
Combine an extra washing-machine spin with good spacing, a fan or dehumidifier and the occasional emergency towel trick, and you can get clothes dry surprisingly quickly without ever switching on the tumble dryer.
More importantly, they’ll actually smell like freshly washed clothes — rather than something you discovered behind the couch.
