Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Today's Energy Insight


Today's warm breeze makes it a perfect day to hang sheets, bedding and clothes outside on the line to dry. A simple investment of clothesline rope and wooden clothespins is a great way to save energy by not running your electric or gas clothes dryer. If you don't have two trees for hanging up a clothesline, look for other areas like a fence or corner of the house for an anchor point. Or your local hardware store has several options for retractable clotheslines. Be creative and see how best you can hang laundry out to dry during these glorious spring days.

If you don't like the "crunchiness" of some items after being air dried, for example denim jeans, give these a head start outside on the line and then throw them in the dryer to finish drying and soften up a bit. Additionally, spending less time in an automatic dryer can add to the longevity of a garment as air drying is not as hard on clothes as power dryers.

Lastly, if you run your dryer at the same time you are cooling your home with air conditioning, try to run loads in the morning or at night and not during the peak cooling hours of mid-day through the late afternoon into early evening. That can go for washing machines and dish washers as well.

So on the next warm and sunny day, be sure to take advantage of nature's clothes dryer.

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