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Which would you rather see out your window on a lovely summer day: your neighbor’s underwear or a natural gas drilling rig? That, in dramatic and simplified fashion, may be the kind of question that New Yorkers concerned with energy use find themselves facing in coming years. Whether ‘tis nastier to gaze upon the clothes-pinned tighty whities and freshly laundered bedsheets being sun-dried by the folks next door, or to pay ever higher rates, and risk environmental damage and landscape eyesores in exchange for gas and electricity to power clothes dryers?
Think about it. In a hot, dry summer like the one we just went through, it would make sense that the last thing you would want to do is run a dryer inside an already sweltering home. Especially on days when abundant sunshine and dry air are right outside the door, you could hang out your clothes and dry them for free—taking a strain off your pocketbook, the environment and our already tight energy resources.
But here’s the wrinkle. Millions of people around the country, including many here in Central New York, are prohibited from hanging clothes out to dry. In many planned communities, owning a home means joining a homeowners association, and many of those associations have bylaws with covenants that restrict residents from erecting a clothesline or putting laundry outside to dry in any manner.
According to the Virginia-based Community Associations Institute (CAI), in 2011, 62.5 million Americans lived in 25.1 million housing units governed by such groups. Many of those associations ban letting laundry flap in the breeze. That’s nearly a fifth of the nation’s population, and while statistics are not available, it is safe to presume that many of those residents wear clothing, sleep on bedsheets and dry themselves with towels, all of which must be laundered sooner or later. What if they were to be freed from their clothes dryers and allowed to let their garments swing in the breeze?
Erie Village is an upscale complex of private homes in the town of DeWitt. Built by the Oot brothers in 1983, Erie Village now contains 488 homes situated on the edge of a golf course, the Erie Canal and Green Lakes State Park. Typical of many such developments, the price of a home includes membership in a homeowners association, and buying a house means agreeing to abide by covenants that, among other things, preclude posting political signs, planting vegetation without approval or feeding the ubiquitous Canada geese.
And there is this, in Article VII, Section 7, under the heading “Use of Property:”
“Laundry. Laundry poles, lines and the like outside of dwellings are prohibited, nor may laundry be hung in any manner whatsoever outside of the dwelling.”
Erie Village is not alone. Most planned communities outlaw clotheslines for the same reason they ban keeping trailers or campers in your driveway: They are perceived as eyesores.
“You could have people hang things out that other people don’t want to see,” says Paul Franklin, a resident at Erie Village and a member of the board of the homeowners association. “It’s pretty much just appearance, so people don’t have to see who-knows-what out there. Some people would just hang out sheets, and you might not object, but others could hang out who-knows-what, and you can’t discriminate. Who’s gonna police it? There’s no one to police it, and so you would end up with more problems and more unhappy people.”
Franklin, himself a landlord, has lived at Erie Village for five years and served on the board for the past four. He is currently chair of the committee that oversees the covenants, and thus far no one in the community has suggested a change to the air-drying ban. “It has not come up,” he says.
Franklin suggests that a better energy-saving measure for households is to install a high-efficiency washer and dryer, which he owns and recommends. “Compared to the old tub washer, these front loaders use so much less water, and they spin the clothes so well that the drying time is nothing,” he claims. “I get clothes dry in 10 minutes, because they come out of the washer so dry.”
Hung Out to Dry
The clothesline, once a staple in the urban and rural landscape, has become a rarity in a nation of many suburban, planned communities. As we face a future of climbing energy prices and uncertain climate change, why hasn’t a simple solution like drying—a seemingly common sense idea—caught on in a big way, even among those who aim to promote green practices?
Activists in other states have tried to get their state legislators to pass what they call “Right to Dry” laws, which would effectively override the validity of such covenants (and no doubt lead to a lot of dirty laundry lawsuits). Thus far, according to Sarah Eckel, legislative and policy director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, New York is not among them.
Data provided by CAI shows seven states have banned covenants that prohibit clotheslines, and four more, including Pennsylvania, are considering Right-to-Dry statutes. Neighboring Vermont, which claims to be the birthplace of the Right-to-Dry movement, is home to Project Laundry List, a grass-roots initiative that takes its inspiration from longtime anti-nuclear activist Dr. Helen Caldicott. At a 1995 appearance at Middlebury College, Caldicott, according to the project’s website, told her audience that “if we all did things like hang out our clothes, we could shut down the nuclear industry.”
Project Laundry List is an activist group formed by New Hampshire attorney Alexander Lee to encourage activists around the world to let it all hang out. The project claims that 92 percent of U.S. single-family homes use gas or electric dryers (compare that to 4 percent in Italy), while only 8 percent of households use a clothesline. Twelve million metric tons of carbon dioxide, they estimate, could be kept out of the atmosphere if we Americans started using the clothesline instead of tumbling the laundry. Additional benefits include the fresh air smell in your sheets, longer-lasting garments and, in the wintertime, adding humidity to the home by using an indoor drying rack.
Line drying is no magic bullet, and it does have its downsides. Sudden downpours can set back drying time, and laundry on the line is more vulnerable to theft. Then there is the issue of wrinkles; ironing clothes takes time and energy, too. (Many who like to use clotheslines report that they take the clothes off the line and pop them in the dryer for a few minutes to soften the fabric and smooth out the wrinkles.)
Utility company National Grid has extensive conservation programs for both businesses and homes, but no program to quantify the energy used for drying clothes. National Grid’s local representative Virginia Limmiatis said it would be impossible for the utility to estimate the portion of a home’s energy use that is taken up by laundry. Project Laundry List publishes estimates that as much as 6 percent of home energy costs go into washing and drying clothes.
“We don’t have any figures on how much electricity is consumed by the dryer,” says Limmiatis. And while the utility is energetic about promoting conservation, encouraging with both words and dollar incentives the purchase of efficient lighting and appliances, she adds, “We are not doing anything to look for alternative ways to dry clothes.”
The city of Syracuse is about to release a draft of its Sustainability Plan, which contains, according to Andrew Maxwell, mostly recommendations to make city government greener. Maxwell, who serves as Mayor Stephanie Miner’s lead person for sustainability issues, says the plan also includes suggestions for what city residents can do, but there’s nothing in the plan that deals with laundry. “I don’t think there’s anything that we’re doing on that, but as far as regulation, I don’t think there’s anything to prevent anyone from {hanging out laundry}.”
One agency that suggests to New Yorkers that they can save by letting the sun and wind dry the clothes is the Albany-based New York State Energy Research and Development Authority. Kate Muller, director of communications, says that clotheslines are “one of many ways we offer energy-efficient tips, such as not using the stove to cook during the heat of the day.” On the agency’s website, they encourage us to save money and the planet. If you go to nyserda.ny.gov and drill down a bit, you can find this bit of advice: “Avoid the cost of running your clothes dryer by drying your clothes on a clothesline when weather permits or use a drying rack.”
Simple choices can often end up having large consequences. As New Yorkers debate where we are going to get the energy to power our lifestyles, they might find that part of the answer is really right in our own back yards.
