Washing and drying clothes in autumn is often a difficult task thanks to the unpredictable weather which can quickly turn from dry to wet in a moment’s notice.
It means you can spend your day ferrying your clothes outdoors and back in, and hoping it’s had enough time to get dry. Now that autumn is in full swing, temperatures are slowly getting colder and the wet weather is becoming more frequent, so it often means having to abandon outdoor drying and resort to hanging your washing indoors to dry instead. If you aren’t lucky enough to have a tumble dryer or a heated airer, the process of getting clothes dry can be frustratingly long and you can wind up with damp clothes cluttering up your home for days. But according to laundry experts, there is a very cheap and simple way to speed this process along and it won’t cost you anything extra on your heating bills, as all you need is a bowl of salt.
Salt has excellent moisture-absorbing properties and is a great natural way to soak up excess moisture from the air when you’re drying clothes.
So if placed strategically around your home in rooms where clothes have been hung up to dry, a bowl of salt can help to lower moisture levels in the room and help your laundry dry faster.
In addition to a bowl of salt, experts also advise keeping rooms where clothes are drying well ventilated too, so make sure to open a window to allow some airflow.
Proper ventilation is important when drying clothes indoors as this helps to prevent dampness and mould from developing, plus a slight breeze will help remove moisture more quickly.
Experts at Style Degree said: “If you’ve resorted to leaving your clothes in your living room or bedroom to dry, make sure to keep the room well-ventilated with a fan or open window.
“To reduce moisture in the room so your clothes dry faster, expose a pack of unrefined salt or chalk in the room, or leave a stack of newspaper to absorb the moisture. These will work to lower moisture levels in the room so fungus and mould growth is inhibited.”
Experts say you can use table or rock salt to help absorb excess moisture in the air, and you can pick up a bottle of table salt for just 65p at Sainsbury’s Morrisons or Aldi, so it’s a very cheap and natural way to help speed up drying times during the colder months.
The bowl of salt will become wet or turn black once it is completely saturated, so it’s a good idea to change it each time you do a load of washing to ensure maximum absorbency.
Explaining tips to dry clothes faster indoors, experts at Housing.com said: “Proper ventilation is essential to avoid dampness and mould formation when drying clothes indoors. This means windows must be kept open to ensure air circulation.”
The experts added: “Put rock salt into a bowl and leave it on windowsills to absorb water from air as a makeshift solution.”