There’s nothing more frustrating than a freshly laundered outfit smelling musty and feeling damp, a common struggle many households face during the autumn and winter months. If some moisture remains after drying, clothes will still smell damp even when they are completely dry. In the summer, laundry can be dried quickly out on the washing line, but now that the weather has become wetter, drying clothes indoors can be more of a challenge.
However, this is a problem one mum knew all too well, until she devised a brilliant solution that reduces drying time and saves you money on energy bills. TikTok user Christina Jacobs posted a video on her @chrissy.j.xx account demonstrating a laundry drying hack that doesn’t require a dehumidifier, tumble dryer or central heating.
She wrote: “The only way to dry my clothes in winter is without that horrible damp smell.” Christina begins by adding her laundry load to an airer and draping a bed sheet over it all.
She then plugs in a small electric heating fan, positioning it directly in front of the airer, which is full of clothes and covered by a bed sheet.
The concept behind this hack is that the bed sheet traps the heat from the heater to dry the clothes quickly. The mum claimed that the clothes dry in one and a half hours this way and “smell great”.
Responding to the post, one TikTok user argued that there is a better device to use instead of an electric heater.
A user named @permanentroses advised: “A dehumidifier is better, if you dry in a smaller room and close the doors, it works great.”
Dehumidifiers work by drawing moist air from the environment and passing this air over cooling coils, where it condenses and is collected as water. In the process, the air is dried and blown back into the air as slightly cool air.
Cool, dry air from the dehumidifier blows back to the clothes, speeding up the drying process.
Additionally, most dehumidifiers are much more cost-effective to operate than electric heaters, which could result in savings on energy bills.
