Author Topic: Laundry Advice  (Read 3200 times)

barakta

  • Bastard lovechild of Yomiko Readman and Johnny 5
Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #25 on: 14 October, 2021, 05:11:35 pm »
We have limited drying/airing space and the smell of chlorine from a towel used in relation to a pool is quite overpowering as it will fill the house. If we had a suitable space to air that could be shut off from the rest of the house, avoiding stinking everywhere else with chlorine that would work...

We live in a 2 up 2 down terrace where most of the rooms are linked.

Kim

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Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #26 on: 14 October, 2021, 05:16:54 pm »
That said, a quick rinse/spin cycle in the washing machine is sufficient to de-chlorine them.

Of course, if you've got them covered in crud from the changing room floor, they may need an actual wash.

Kim

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Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #27 on: 14 October, 2021, 05:17:44 pm »
We live in a 2 up 2 down terrace where most of the rooms are linked.

Read: The doors don't stay closed properly.  Not even the ones that don't have Ethernet cables wedged under them.

Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #28 on: 14 October, 2021, 05:36:16 pm »
We use a dehumidifier which is extremely effective at drying clothes and also keeps any prospects of dampness at bay.

The towels are never fluffy but any harshness disappears with first use.   

Kim

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Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #29 on: 14 October, 2021, 05:37:52 pm »
I borrowed a dehumidifier from nikki a few years ago, for SCIENCE.  It produced plenty of water, but did approximately nothing to the humidity level.

On the plus side, drying clothes indoors does approximately nothing to the humidity level either.

It's all about showering/bathing/cooking, weather and what windows are open.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #30 on: 14 October, 2021, 06:10:02 pm »
We live in a 2 up 2 down terrace where most of the rooms are linked.

Read: The doors don't stay closed properly.  Not even the ones that don't have Ethernet cables wedged under them.
The layout of your house is quite unusual, in that the stairs run perpendicular to how you'd expect and there's no hall, but I don't know if that affects the humidity at all.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Kim

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Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #31 on: 14 October, 2021, 08:18:48 pm »
We live in a 2 up 2 down terrace where most of the rooms are linked.

Read: The doors don't stay closed properly.  Not even the ones that don't have Ethernet cables wedged under them.
The layout of your house is quite unusual, in that the stairs run perpendicular to how you'd expect and there's no hall, but I don't know if that affects the humidity at all.

It's the absolutely textbook late-1800s 2-up-2-down terrace (with subsequent kitchen and bathroom extension) layout, as found all over the industrial North of England.  We lived in a couple of similar houses in the People's Republic, and they all do the same thing of being cold downstairs and warm upstairs.  Sometimes people do loft conversions, and they get even hotter.

They're probably pretty decent if you have a roaring coal fire in the downstairs rooms.

FifeingEejit

  • Not Small
Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #32 on: 14 October, 2021, 08:26:56 pm »


They're probably pretty decent if you have a roaring coal fire in the downstairs rooms.

As I remember it a roaring coal fire does next to bugger all for anything other than the space immediately around it.

Which was why my great aunt lived in the room with the aga rather than the coal fire. Even though she had a propane fueled hob in the lean to kitchen.

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Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #33 on: 14 October, 2021, 08:40:15 pm »
We live in a 2 up 2 down terrace where most of the rooms are linked.

Read: The doors don't stay closed properly.  Not even the ones that don't have Ethernet cables wedged under them.
The layout of your house is quite unusual, in that the stairs run perpendicular to how you'd expect and there's no hall, but I don't know if that affects the humidity at all.

It's the absolutely textbook late-1800s 2-up-2-down terrace (with subsequent kitchen and bathroom extension) layout, as found all over the industrial North of England.  We lived in a couple of similar houses in the People's Republic, and they all do the same thing of being cold downstairs and warm upstairs.  Sometimes people do loft conversions, and they get even hotter.

They're probably pretty decent if you have a roaring coal fire in the downstairs rooms.
I'd have expected the stairs to run parallel to a dividing wall, not an internal one. That's the only thing that struck me as unusual. But perhaps stairs next to the dividing wall are a south-of-Birmingham design! (Or possibly my memory has twisted the layout.)
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #34 on: 14 October, 2021, 09:31:56 pm »
We live in a 2 up 2 down terrace where most of the rooms are linked.

Read: The doors don't stay closed properly.  Not even the ones that don't have Ethernet cables wedged under them.
The layout of your house is quite unusual, in that the stairs run perpendicular to how you'd expect and there's no hall, but I don't know if that affects the humidity at all.

Perpendicular to the dividing wall? That sounds like my old house in York. The (downstairs) bathroom extension was always the coldest bit by far. Curiously, though, I don't remember towels ever getting crispy when I lived there, and there was no tumble dryer. Possibly because we had a little yard and could dry laundry outside? Or perhaps the water was different? ???

Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #35 on: 15 October, 2021, 07:34:24 am »
We live in a 2 up 2 down terrace where most of the rooms are linked.

Read: The doors don't stay closed properly.  Not even the ones that don't have Ethernet cables wedged under them.
The layout of your house is quite unusual, in that the stairs run perpendicular to how you'd expect and there's no hall, but I don't know if that affects the humidity at all.

Have you never watched Coronation Street ?
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Jaded

  • The Codfather
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Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #36 on: 15 October, 2021, 09:16:54 am »
In the two up two down kitchen and bathroom extension house we lived in in Manchester the stairs went from one dividing wall to the other, parallel to the road the house was on.

In line with other threads, that means that it is very clear that this stair arrangement is what is in all such houses.
It is simpler than it looks.

Cudzoziemiec

  • Ride adventurously and stop for a brew.
Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #37 on: 15 October, 2021, 09:26:24 am »
We live in a 2 up 2 down terrace where most of the rooms are linked.

Read: The doors don't stay closed properly.  Not even the ones that don't have Ethernet cables wedged under them.
The layout of your house is quite unusual, in that the stairs run perpendicular to how you'd expect and there's no hall, but I don't know if that affects the humidity at all.

Have you never watched Coronation Street ?
No! Nor East Enders. But I can see the potential for a televisual architectural analysis here. Better include Emmerdale too and Pobol y Cwm (sp?) but not the Archers.
Riding a concrete path through the nebulous and chaotic future.

fruitcake

  • some kind of fruitcake
Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #38 on: 29 October, 2021, 10:42:16 am »
Laundry-drying via dehumidifier is more effective in a small enclosed space. This can mean choosing a small room and closing the door. But I've also seen dehumidifer enclosures to enhance this effect. The enclosure is essentially a tent. You hang the clothes inside it and set up the dehumidifier in the bottom. Dehumidification takes place only within the enclosure and this reduces drying time.

A similar enclosure can be improvised by arranging a clothes horse so that it makes a cuboid structure, placing the dehumidifier on the floor in the centre and draping a bed sheet over the top of the structure. There should be space for air to circulate around the dehumidifier with nothing touching the device.

If you use a tumble dryer, this can be run cold (without power to the heating element) by just setting the dial to 15 minutes. This is the cold stage of the drying programme. The dial may have a fan symbol to indicate that it's just the fan and motor running at that stage. Three 15-minute sessions of cold tumble drying is enough to dry a half dozen shirts. One session of this is enough to finish a load that's been drying on a line or clothes horse.

ian

Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #39 on: 29 October, 2021, 10:56:53 am »
Our guest bedroom/laundry drying room is quite large, we put the laundry out on a rack in front of the radiator (which tbh, doesn't come on often) and run a dehumidifier next to it. Despite being open plan, it dries a full load overnight and produces a couple of litres of water from the dehumidifier. It dries without the dehumidifier in summer, of course, but in winter it would sit there soggy for a couple of days unless I cranked up the heating in that room. Never bothered with a tumble drier.

I just dangle my swimming towel from the kitchen door where it dries fine. I can't say I notice the chlorine odour (it's not actually chlorine, it's the organics like chloramines, and they volatilize quite quickly). That said, our pool isn't that chlorine-y. I certainly don't wash it every time, that way lies madness.

Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #40 on: 29 October, 2021, 06:47:27 pm »
We have a dryer (condensing? no air vents to the outside) and it warms the house nicely and is not expensive to run.  We have a dehumidifier and when it runs we notice the cost of the extra leccy.
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Mrs Pingu

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Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #41 on: 30 October, 2021, 04:36:11 pm »
Laundry-drying via dehumidifier is more effective in a small enclosed space. This can mean choosing a small room and closing the door. But I've also seen dehumidifer enclosures to enhance this effect. The enclosure is essentially a tent. You hang the clothes inside it and set up the dehumidifier in the bottom. Dehumidification takes place only within the enclosure and this reduces drying time.

Things like this but rather with an electrically heated airer frame as opposed to a dehumidifier seem to be popular right now but I have previously thought that the tent idea over the d/h would be a good idea.

Speaking of good ideas, I had a genius idea while I was hanging up the laundry in the kitchen this morning. I'm plotting a new kitchen next year and I was thinking that the area where the clothes airer and the bin are would likely become cabinets. Next to that is the door to the understairs glory hole. In many houses round here it's been converted to a toilet but not possible here as it's off the kitchen.
So rather than using the glory hole as just a pantry (currently full of Ikea Ivar shelf units and the CH boiler) I could move the contents & the shelves to cabs where the washing now is and put the washing racks and the dehumidifier in the understair cupboard. Just means I need to GAMI to put a socket in there.
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #42 on: 30 October, 2021, 04:58:37 pm »
Laundry-drying via dehumidifier is more effective in a small enclosed space. This can mean choosing a small room and closing the door. But I've also seen dehumidifer enclosures to enhance this effect. The enclosure is essentially a tent. You hang the clothes inside it and set up the dehumidifier in the bottom. Dehumidification takes place only within the enclosure and this reduces drying time.


I've only recently discovered this, after years of indoor drying. :facepalm: Previously used to dry laundry with the dehumidifier in the bedroom or spare room, both of which are reasonably big. Moving the airer and dehumidifier to the small box room has drastically cut the drying time!

Mrs Pingu

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Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #43 on: 30 October, 2021, 05:28:28 pm »
Oh that's good to know, another tick in the box for my understairs idea then...
Do not clench. It only makes it worse.

Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #44 on: 30 October, 2021, 06:42:43 pm »


They're probably pretty decent if you have a roaring coal fire in the downstairs rooms.

As I remember it a roaring coal fire does next to bugger all for anything other than the space immediately around it.

Which was why my great aunt lived in the room with the aga rather than the coal fire. Even though she had a propane fueled hob in the lean to kitchen.

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The trick is to have floor to ceiling curtains to enable you to create a small snug around the coal fire.  The amount of air to heat up is then significantly reduced and drafts nearly eliminated. The back of the fire / bottom of the chimney should also be angled such that warm air is pushed out into the room rather just rising straight up the chimney.  Designed well the heat comes into the room without smoke also being pushed out.

FifeingEejit

  • Not Small
Re: Laundry Advice
« Reply #45 on: 31 October, 2021, 07:50:16 am »
Scottish farmhouse reality vs engineering there.

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