For anyone interested in saving money or reducing their environmental impact, ditching the clothes dryer offers an easy first step. It’s difficult to imagine a more elegant, low-tech way of harvesting the power of the sun. As easy as it seems, I had some trouble in the beginning. Some of the more nuanced aspects of setting up a clothesline may be overlooked by those who grew up tossing handfuls of wet clothes from the mouth of one spinning behemoth to the next. They were, at least, overlooked by me. My clothes would come off the line dry, sure, but I broke three clotheslines in two months. For someone trying to save money and avoid waste, my consumption of polyester line felt counterproductive. The sun and rain did a number on my lines. When I would try to tighten the tuckers-hitch that created tension in my clothesline, it snapped. I needed a clothesline that I could quickly and easily put up, tighten, and take down every time I did laundry. The solution I came up with has served me well for the last five months. With a few simple knots, it could serve you just as well.
What You’ll Need
All the necessary materials can be procured with little expense form any hardware store.
You’ll need
- A cotton clothesline (length is up to you)
- 3 feet of strong cordage with a thinner diameter than your clothesline
- A small carabiner
- A stick
Putting It All Together
Unless you’re a boy scout or you rock climb, some of the knots used may be unfamiliar to you. Don’t let that turn you off to the design. Anyone interested in a resilient, skill based lifestyle should know how to tie several common knots. Now is a great time to start.
Step 1
On one end of the line, tie a figure eight on a bite, so you have a loop big enough to fit you hand through. This will be used in combination with your stick (which I will refer to as a toggle from now on) to anchor your line.
Step 2
Fold the thinner cordage in half so the two ends are next to each other. Now tie the ends together using another figure eight on a bite. This should create a loop with a three-foot diameter. This will become your prusik loop.
Step 3
You’ll be farther along seeing how to tie a prusik than reading about it. Check out this video to see how it’s done.
Step 4
Anchor your clothesline by passing the end with the loop behind the post or tree you are anchoring to. Now, take a bite of clothesline and pass it through the loop you tied at the end of the line. Place your toggle through the bite of rope so that it cannot be pulled back through the loop.
Step 5
At the other end of the line, attach the line to your second anchor point by wrapping the end of the prusik loop with the carabiner around your anchor and clipping the carabiner back onto the prusik. Holding the free end of the clothesline, pull the line tight. Push the prusik knot forward to catch your progress. Pull the line tight and push the knot forward until it’s as tight as you’d like. It can help to throw the end of the line you are pulling over a branch so that the direction of pull is vertical instead of horizontal.
Step 6
To take the line down, just pull out the toggle and wrap up the line. Taking care of a clothesline is just like taking can of any other rope. This video may help. You may want to make a spool to wrap your clothesline onto. Keeping your clothesline put away, when not in use, will ensure it lasts for years to come. It also keeps the line clean, so it won’t soil the clothes hung on it.
To Wrap It All Up
Line drying clothes is indeed one of the most simple and elegant ways we can put ambient sunlight and wind to use. By making the above adaptations, I’ve made it much easier to ditch the clothes dryer. I would have solved my problem sooner if I had not thought of a clothesline as a piece of infrastructure that always stands erect in the yard. While some people seem to make that work (see pulley clothes lines), I’ve had greater success by thinking of the clothesline as a tool that comes out only when it’s time to use it.