How to dry clothes faster

[snopes]

Comment: i heard that you can cut the time it takes to dry clothes in the
dryer by adding a clean dry towel with the wet cloths. i searched your
site and the net and could not find anything. any ideas?

[Morrigan]

I've heard that also. No proof, though.

Morrigan

[snopes]

So, if you filled your dryer with nothing but dry towels, the load would dry instantly!

- snopes

[black roses19]

Originally Posted by snopes

So, if you filled your dryer with nothing but dry towels, the load would dry instantly!

- snopes

Brilliant!

I've added single wet clothing items to dry loads when I need something dried really fast, and they dry very quickly. Not quite the same as adding to the total amount of the dryer's load, but I would imagine moisture from the wet clothes could easily be distributed to the dry towel, allowing faster drying.

[Tarquin Farquart]

Originally Posted by snopes

Comment: i heard that you can cut the time it takes to dry clothes in the
dryer by adding a clean dry towel with the wet cloths. i searched your
site and the net and could not find anything. any ideas?

Wouldn't that make the dry towel wet?

[Wet Blanket]

Originally Posted by Tarquin Farquart

Wouldn't that make the dry towel wet?

Yes, but there would be a more even overall distribution of wetness. I'm going to try it. I suspect that the clothes dryer is the single largest drain on my home's utilities.

[guruwan2b]

But no matter how many dry towels you put in, there is the same amount of moisture in the dryer...
If you have 8 wet towels with 2 ounces of water, adding a dry towel will just end up with 9 wet towels with 2 ounces of water.....
I vote no difference.

[Wet Blanket]

To me, it seems that, for example, three dripping wet towels would dry more slowly than six towels that were wet with the same overall amount of liquid, but that's just based on a hunch and years of laundry experience.

Could it have to do with the amount of surface that is being hit with heat? With six towels, there are more places for the hot air to circulate. I'm thinking it's the same principle as heating your soup in a small saucepan as opposed to a large dutch oven. The larger the pan, the quicker the soup heats because more of it is coming into contact with the hot pan bottom. ("Hot pan bottom." Now there's a sexy phrase.)

This is a job for Adam and Jamie.

[B Hamilton]

When I put only one or two things in the dryer, it takes them longer to dry than if I have in a full or half load. The clothes just kind of wad themselves up and stick to the sides of the drier. When they do dry, they are wrinkled up like a washrag that has dried in the wrung-out postition. If I put in a towel or two, it knocks the clothes into the center and helps with the airflow through the clothes themselves. They also come out less wrinkled.

Originally Posted by guruwan2b

But no matter how many dry towels you put in, there is the same amount of moisture in the dryer...
If you have 8 wet towels with 2 ounces of water, adding a dry towel will just end up with 9 wet towels with 2 ounces of water.....
I vote no difference.

But if you add, say 999,992 towels, you have 1,000,000 towels with 2 ounces of water. If it's evenly distributed, that's probably beyond the threshold of dryness.

[Elwood]

I throw a soaking wet towel in with a dry but wrinkled shirt if I'm too busy or too lazy to iron the shirt. The moisture tranfer and heat seems to function the same as steam in an iron. I've never thought about doing it the other way 'round to improve drying time though. Really our dryer is usally so full that adding one more towel probably wouldn't help at all, though.

They are selling in the UK spiked rubber balls that go in the wash. The balls heat rub against the washing and dry it quicker.

[Wet Blanket]

Originally Posted by lazerus the duck

They are selling in the UK spiked rubber balls that go in the wash. The balls heat rub against the washing and dry it quicker.

...must...have...this...product...!

[bjohn13]

Originally Posted by guruwan2b

But no matter how many dry towels you put in, there is the same amount of moisture in the dryer...
If you have 8 wet towels with 2 ounces of water, adding a dry towel will just end up with 9 wet towels with 2 ounces of water.....
I vote no difference.

I think the premise is that the items would become drier more quickly, but it would take longer for them to become completely dry since the water is distributed over more mass.

I actually do this, and I have for a long time. However, I have never really run a control for this experiment, and since I have to pay for my laundry these days, don't expect me to.

b "saving quarters" john13

[rhiandmoi]

I don't have any sort of moisture measuring instrument to test the dryness of my clothes (besides my extremely accurate hands) but I think I might try to do a comparison on this this weekend. I think I will try it with bedsheets since I have two sets of nearly identical bed sheets, so I don't have to wash the same load twice.

[Diehard]

Originally Posted by lazerus the duck

They are selling in the UK spiked rubber balls that go in the wash. The balls heat rub against the washing and dry it quicker.

A test was done on our local news with these in the consumer section (I will see if I can find it) and proven that they do not work. The only thing you may get out of them is a bit fluffier clothes.

Here is the link

[dave748]

I must be the old fashioned type. I don't own a dryer but let the sun do it for me, which really debunks the towel theory, for me anyway, because I don't think hanging a dry towel beside my wet laundry will make it dry any faster in the sun.

[franjava]

Originally Posted by Diehard

A test was done on our local news with these in the consumer section (I will see if I can find it) and proven that they do not work. The only thing you may get out of them is a bit fluffier clothes.

Yeah, they pretty much suck. Fortunately, I bought mine cheaply at Wally-world instead of the more expensive ones. Of course, I'm sure they work better if you don't cram 5 pairs of jeans in with a full load.

[pirateslife]

Those balls can serve two purposes 1: to soften clothing that can't have fabric softener/dryer sheets-- DH owns those stain-proof pants that fabric softener ruins the stain-proof stuff on
and 2: they sell remarkably similar balls at Bath and Body Works. They are massage balls, you roll them around on your partner's back and they feel devine.