A traditional and effective method for drying your clothes for over a 100 years, and its only now that we’re once again valuing the full benefits of using, once again, a laundry airer. The Sheila Maid is a time old method for dealing with heaps of dripping laundry, and it has also been raised to eco-heights both sides of the energy wasting tumble dryer.
It is rare to find a modern home without a tumble or spin dryer. It is probably the fastest method for drying clean clothes without having to leave the laundry room. But the environmental impact of a nation all setting their cycles to Quick Spin is proving to be catastrophic.
On average, a traditional home clothes dryer has a carbon footprint of approximately 2 kilograms (that’s 4.4 pounds) of CO2 per load of laundry dried. And if you consider the routines of most households, it would not be ridiculous to suggest that a load of washing is dried every other night or so. Adding this consideration to the net total of households there are in England and Wales (22,539,000) and you start to get an idea of the bigger picture that these white boxes begin to mosaic.
Unfortunately for our generation, we’ve become reliant on the technology that has supported a growing culture of unconsidered solutions. Not necessarily our own fault, which is true to some extent, but the fault of our methods of living. However, there have been some technological innovations that looked to tackle the problem of inefficiency and energy waste. Such as, sensor dryers: these are an automatic sensory device that detects when clothes are dry and switches off the dryer. This is a good way to cut down on energy waste, and an ingenious invention to help cut back on over drying. But still, sensory dryers are not fitted in every dryer and are actually quite rare.
So what’s left to do? Well, as we are becoming increasingly aware, we’re having to look at alternatives that work, ecological alternatives that consider their everyday use as well as the time we have to use them. So, therefore, if we were to ask ourselves the question: How am I to cut out unnecessary energy loss? Then one step towards the Sheila Maid would make a considerable contribution to your home’s carbon footprint.
The Sheila Maid is a genuine eco-alternative to the tumble dryer. What is essentially a ceiling-hung clothes rack, uses common sense and simple science to dry your wet clothes. By using the pulley to raise the Sheila Maid to the ceiling’s height (where convection dictates that the hot air will be) you laundry loads can be out of sight and out of mind, until you need them down again.
Available in a variety of sizes and pulley lengths, the Sheila Maid is made from pine rails and cast iron rack ends. It is simply to install and easy to construct; retailing for around £60, it is a superb way to save energy and show everyone else how drying clothes should really be done.
