Drying clothes indoors during the colder months can be a challenge, but a dehumidifier hack could get laundry dry in as little as two hours without a tumble dryer.
As temperatures fall and days grow shorter, hanging washing outside becomes less viable when the weather turns damp. Draping laundry over radiators can leave it taking a long time to dry and risks making condensation indoors worse.
Why a dehumidifier speeds up drying
Reach's Sophie Harris has experimented with various ways to speed up drying clothes during winter, from positioning the airer strategically to running extra spin cycles on the washing machine. Some approaches helped, but none made as significant a difference as a dehumidifier, which has become a staple in her autumn laundry routine.
Rather than attempting to make the clothes themselves dry more quickly, the appliance targets the moisture released into the surrounding air. As clothes dry, water evaporates from the fabric and disperses into the room. A dehumidifier draws in the humid air, extracts much of the moisture, and pushes drier air back out, creating more favourable conditions for the remaining water in the clothes to evaporate effectively.
How to use the hack effectively
Sophie has found the method especially handy when she has an airer packed full of wet washing that would otherwise take forever to dry. She loads the wet laundry onto an airer, leaving sufficient gaps between items to allow air to circulate freely, then positions the dehumidifier close by — rather than directly beneath or pushed right up against the airer.
The key is to ensure the appliance has sufficient space to work effectively while keeping the room's doors and windows shut. This allows the dehumidifier to focus on the moisture in that specific area rather than continuously attempting to extract damp air from other parts of the house.
Results and additional benefits
Sophie's Meaco dehumidifier operates around the clock during the autumn and winter months, and she has found that her washing dries in roughly two hours, as long as she has given it an additional spin in the washing machine first. Running it continuously can also help ward off window condensation and mould, and she hasn't experienced either issue.
Heated airers have also grown in popularity in recent years, and when used alongside a dehumidifier, Sophie believes they could prove highly effective. That said, she didn't find it particularly successful on its own, as it only managed to dry certain sections of the clothing.
