drying rack for sweaty clothes
hi everyone, looking for any ideas on perhaps a strange question. I exercise (and sweat) a lot and need a better solution for handling wet clothes. It seems wasteful & tedious to do a tiny load of laundry every day or multiple times a day. I can air dry them outside, but often it’s rainy or humid or cool enough that it doesn’t work well, and I have to be home & remember to get them before it rains again.
So my working idea is to just rinse them in the bathroom, ring them out, and have a drying rack for any clothes in there. Then I can store the dried dirty clothes and do a proper load of laundry when there’s enough. I’m in the midst of a renovation, so redesigning the 2 bathrooms anyway. Plan is to have an ERV that draws continuously from bathrooms with boost mode, so hopefully that keeps bathroom humidity down & smells at bay.
Options I’ve thought of so far are:
1. Just use regular towel bars, and maybe with the ERV and the addition of a whole house dehumidifier drying will happen plenty quick on its own. Till now, w/o that setup, drying has often been too slow. And I assume faster is better for hygienic reasons as well.
2. Electric towel warmer. At first these seemed like a fairly wasteful luxury, but then I got to thinking about how they could dry things quickly, and with the right timer might actually be reasonably efficient. They look expensive though, and not sure what kind of model to look for.
3. Rig up some sort of fan to blow across the drying rack. This seems like it could be more energy efficient than #2, but my bathrooms are small and I’d have to figure out how to position the fan or make it look OK aesthetically.
Thoughts on these options? Other ideas? Ways you’ve handled this problem? Or, if there are mini-dryer units of some kind that would work well, please suggest.
Thanks,
Ben
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Replies
I'm in the same boat and considering washing in the sink followed by
this: https://laundry-alternative.com/collections/regular-spin-dryer/products/ninja-3200-rpm-portable-centrifugal-spin-dryer-with-high-tech-suspension-system
Haven't tried it yet, so can't recommend, but its an idea.
I drape mine over the edge of our bathtub and they are usually dry within ~6 hours and then they go into the laundry basket with the rest of the clothes until a load is taken to the washer machine. I would not rinse them, that will just take even longer to dry.
I've made piece with laundrying them after use ASAP. I understand your situation very well. I own a few higher end cycling bibs when I ride in the warmer months. I also own a few unisuits and tech clothing I use on the erg at the gym. Ive found its best to keep the funk down in the fabrics is to rinse and get them dry if I cant launder same day. I sweat a lot. I know people always say that but after an hour erg session I'm dripping from the top of my shirt to the bottom of my spandex shorts, even my socks and shoes are damp.
We have a set of Miele washer/dryer units and I find I can always find something else to launder with my technical clothes in a small cycle for same day wash. We use a lot of cotton and microfiber rags for household cleaning and such and always have dirty ones ready to launder.
We live in a 750sqft 2 bed 1 bath home so space is a premium. I'll wash and rinse while wearing them in the shower and line dry those items outside when I can but that doesn't help in the winter and those wet spring and fall days.
At the very least I think running the small wash load and spinning dry on the highest spin setting and air drying on a standard portable drying rack in the living room or hallway will be better than a heated towel rack with moist sweaty clothing.
My wife does that with a lot of her garments and the high speed spins on the new machines really leaves many garments relatively dry right out of the machine. Dry enough where Ive laundered and thrown on a unisuit out of the washer and left for the gym. Slightly damp but no worse than it'll be by the time I workout.
if you mostly wear cotton garments then obviously drying take much longer and I think any solution is going to require energy. A simple box fan or a small 4",6",8" portable room fan may make hanging clothes in the bathroom more efficient but its certainly not a clean or high tech solution. Air flow and an open bathroom door seem more important than temperature if you are already heating the room to room temperature. They have plenty of relatively small portable desk fans or even cordless fans made by tool manufacturers (dewalt, makita, ryobi, Milwaukee) that use a tool battery and get 4-8 hours of run time. You could always install one or multiple retracting clothes line in the shower area to hang more garments.
Here is my deal. If I'm spending extra time or water or electricity to dry dirty clothes prior to laundering (there is no way with my level of stink and sweat id ever water rinse and rewear as its an invitation for rashes and fungal disease outside of the smell issue) so I can't imagine the energy savings being very great between my high tech low water cycle washer running a small cycle or me hand rinsing then running a fan or whatever to dry dirty clothes only to them run a larger load later. The spin cycle alone saves the majority of energy for drying over hand wringing but there is no way im running a spin cycle only on sweaty gym clothes to then dry out and launder later.
I'm not an expert so take my advice lightly.
Before deeming washing wasteful, in good practice we should know what resources a load uses. I think we have a lot of legacy in mind when we think of wastefulness with appliances.
What I mean by this is that newer front loading washers use significantly less water, soap and electricity than the old top loader washers.
And then throw in a heat pump dryer, in lieu of a resistance electrical or gas dryer, and you're significantly less electricity on that as well. Although you probably don't want to dry your sport gear (spandex/elastane) on high heat anyway.
Throw in a PV system and you might be net neutral on this as well.
I'm getting ready to purchase a new laundry set next year, I've been watching a bunch of appliance tech YouTube channels to be more knowledgeable on this, see the Ben's appliances channel.
Basically, if I was in your baut, I wouldn't mind doing a small load of laundry if I had aodern front loader,. because front loaders use minimal water based on their design, the machine weighs the cloths and uses the appropriate amount of water, (I might use more water hand washing them in a tub) most have ECE motors which are very energy efficient, and they spin super fast which gets the clothes to damp, and I can hang dry them in a room with an HRV going, maybe even with resistive floor heating in the room.
Jamie
I was shocked to see my Samsung front loader uses only 0.12 kWh to do a load of laundry. It is a CEE Tier 3 washer. I always wash on cold and hang dry. It's really super minimal energy usage. I'd be more concerned about wear and tear of the machine in doing tons of extra loads than energy usage. No comment on water usage.
Almost everything I wash goes on this drying rack and I almost never run the dryer.
Walta
That's a nice setup, Walta!
You do not mention your washer, but therein lies the answer.
Rinsing sweaty clothes is a road to failure. The bacteria grows nice and steady and then you need extra wash cycles and sport detergents with disinfectants to kill the smell.
Instead, wash immediately on rapid wash/delicate/half load in a front-loading (low water use) washer and THEN air dry however you want. Once spun, it will air dry any way you wish quickly. You can of course handwash fully - but that is tedious. In such case use dish detergent.
You should not be using a dryer for your exercise clothes unless they are made of cotton.
I love towel warmers, but they are too warm (will wreck the fabric over time - again, unless 100% cotton) for your purpose.
For air drying - a clothes hanger on the back of the door might suffice, or look into wall-mounted folding hangers (e.g. lee valley hardware). They are not offensive.
Thanks. It seems others endorse smaller wash loads as well.
Currently I have an ~10 year old stacked whirlpool washer & dryer. I don't think the washer weighs the clothes or does anything fancy. But, I've been thinking of replacing those soon anyway. Any particular models you recommend?
I would try to see if your specific model has small load setting. E.g. Delicate setting is often (by default) a low-water level setting because you are assumed to only want to wash 1-2 items!
Or wool. It is a cheaper way to model small load. Sometimes Short wash/rapid wash are similar. I really do not like how manufacturers do not disclose it.
Perhaps if you email customer service they might tell you?
Otherwise Miele is wonderful, Some people like Speed Queen but I never used it so cannot say. I really like Asko washers too, but they changed hands (manufacturer) and seems to be hit or miss. But these three are for laundry nerds - most people do not use 80 percent of their features, so no need to splurge on these!
I would think most front loaders that have water volume control would suffice?
(I do like having an option to soak, delay start, extra-hot, small load, wool, silk handwash, etc but not sure everyone needs these cycles).
A drying rack for sweaty clothes is a great solution for those days when you've just finished a workout or are dealing with humid weather. It helps your clothes air out and dry without having to use a tumble dryer, which could damage delicate fabrics or increase your electricity bill. Simply place your sweaty clothes on the rack, and let the airflow do its work. Plus, it’s much gentler on fabrics, ensuring that your clothes retain their shape and freshness. If you're thinking of heading out for a special evening, you could also check out options for a date night dress near me just in case you need something stylish after your workout! There's always a possibility of finding the perfect outfit nearby!