When the autumn rain arrives the drying rack comes back indoors, and the same old problem comes with it. Drying clothes indoors is the most ordinary thing in the world, but it has an awkward side effect: all that water has to go somewhere. A six-kilo washing machine leaves between a litre and a half and two litres of water in the fabric after the spin cycle, and every drop of it evaporates into your living room or your bedroom. That is where the steamed-up windows, the towels that smell stale and, in time, the mould in the corners all come from. A few adjustments and the laundry dries faster while the house stays dry.
Why drying clothes indoors creates damp
Air can only hold a limited amount of water vapour, and the colder it is, the less it takes. In autumn, windows and external walls cool well below room temperature: the moment damp air touches them, the water condenses. If relative humidity stays above 60 % for several days, mould and dust mites have a clear run. A cheap hygrometer tells you at a glance how you are doing: between 40 % and 55 % is the right range.
Seven steps to dry your laundry faster
- Spin at the highest speed the fabric will take. Going from 1,000 to 1,400 rpm pulls out several more decilitres of water per load, water that would otherwise evaporate inside your home. Check the care label: cotton and towels almost always handle the maximum.
- Pick one room and shut the door. Put the rack in the bathroom or in a room you do not use, rather than in the middle of the living room. That way the moisture does not spread through the whole flat.
- Leave a window ajar in that same room. This is the most important step and the one almost everyone skips for fear of the heating bill. With no way out, the vapour stays put and the clothes never dry.
- Do not pile the garments up. Leave a hand's width between items and hang shirts and dresses on hangers. Air has to be able to move through: overlapping clothes never dry on the inside and end up smelling bad.
- Point a fan at the rack on a low setting. It is the cheapest accelerator there is. Moving air carries away the saturated layer sitting against the fabric and, in practice, usually halves the drying time.
- Roll thick items in a dry towel. Lay the bath towel or heavy jumper on a dry towel, roll it up and press down hard. You will squeeze out a surprising amount of water before the item ever reaches the rack.
- Heat and ventilate at the same time. Warm air holds more vapour, but that only helps if the air can then get out. Heating with everything shut does not remove the moisture: it just moves it to the coldest pane of glass in the house.
What to avoid
- Draping laundry over the radiator. It dries quickly, true, but it releases all that vapour into the room at once, precisely when the windows are cold. It also blocks the radiator's heat output.
- Drying in the bedroom. It is usually the coldest room in the house and you spend eight hours in there breathing damp air. The bedroom wall behind the wardrobe is the classic spot where mould starts.
- Leaving the load in the drum. A few hours in a closed machine is enough for clean laundry to smell stale, and that smell will not come out in the drying.
Where the musty smell comes from
Does your washing smell sour when you take it down? Then it stayed damp for too long. Past roughly twenty-four hours of drying, bacteria have time to multiply inside the fibre, and that is exactly the smell you notice afterwards. The answer is not more fabric softener but faster drying: a harder spin, more space between items and air circulating. Wash towels and sportswear at 60 degrees now and then, and leave the machine door open between loads.
You will find more practical ideas for keeping your home tidy and dry in our collection.