Drying Clothes: Dryer or Clothesline

"BALCONIES. The balconies may not be used as drying area for clothes or as storage area for any material visible from the outside."

Drying clothes could be a challenge if you live in a condominium unit. Buying a dryer unit would seem to be the easy solution but it's not.

First, you have to solve the SPACE issue. Where will you put the dryer? Will you also buy a washing machine? You will have to find a place near a source of water, a drain and an electric outlet. Luckily, I was able to solve all of these when we had our unit renovated. I found the LaGermania Washer and Dryer combo, one compact unit that washes and dries! The contractor was also able to reserve a space for the unit in our laundry area.

However, there is this second problem, the COST. Not only is the unit expensive (it was around P45,000 three years ago), it also eats up large amounts of electricity. That P45,000-unit will probably eat up around P1,500 in electricity a month.

In the end, we ended up not buying the unit. We just hired an extra helper to do the laundry and she uses the clotheslines at our rooftop to dry our clothes. It works well for us, for now. If we decide to buy a dryer some day, there is a space ready for it in our laundry area. In the meantime, I placed a kitchen rack there and I am loving the extra storage space.

Here is a link to a site that gives useful tips on air drying clothes - http://www.tiptheplanet.com/index.php?title=Air_dry_washing