Learning to love the low-power line
Some evade high electric costs by turning toward clotheslines
Published Sunday, June 8, 2008
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As energy costs mount, the humble wooden clothespin is once again reigning supreme.
Area residents, seeking to lower their usage of electricity, are abandoning electric clothes dryers and resorting to a timeless technology familiar to their grandmothers — the clothespin.
“They’re going like hotcakes,” said Scott McNally at Ace Hardware. “The way electric rates are now, everyone is trying to save a dime.”
Samson Hardware, which specializes in things practical for Bush living, has a large stock of laundry tools including one-piece wooden peg clothespins invented by the Shakers and wooden spring clothespins patented by David M. Smith in 1853.
“We’re 104 years young, and we remember these things from whence we came, and we’re going back there,” said Ann Schuyler, floor supervisor at Samson.
“We’ve upped our clothespin order by five-fold,” she added.
Clotheslines and mounting pulleys also are hot items at hardware store around town.
Samson Hardware stocks sturdy pull-out clotheslines, some with five drying lines that stretch to 34 feet in length and can be used indoors or outdoors.
Also selling briskly are foldup drying racks that can be easily set up and quickly folded and stored, Schuyler said.
The hardware store continues to carry clothespin bags and old-fashioned, metal umbrella drying racks that offer lots of drying lines and takes up less space than a conventional clothesline.
The recent 2 percent Golden Valley Electric Association rate increase boosts electricity costs to 20 cents a kilowatt/hour, which does not include a monthly customer charge of $15 for residential services.
According to the home energy usage chart on the GVEA Web site, the average monthly electricity cost for a clothes dryer in a household of two to four people is $18 for 90 kwh.
Mike and Mary McCarroll, parents of three children, purchased a bag of 100 clothespins, two pulleys, 100 feet of synthetic clothesline and a line tightener Wednesday afternoon at Wal-Mart.
“We’re doing it primarily for the savings,” said Mike, who estimates it will lower their monthly electric bill by $30.
“We can’t get around the washing (machine),” he added. “It hasn’t come to that yet.”
But if it does, Fairbanks hardware stores are ready.
In a back corner of Samson Hardware is a contraption featuring two large galvanized wash tubs separated by a hand-operated wringer.
In each tub of the old-time washing machine sits a “Rapid Washer,” a funnel-shaped metal plunger attached to a pole handle. When the handle is operated like a plunger, water flows through the funnel’s internal baffles, providing agitation.
One tub is used for washing dirty clothes which are then put through the wringer into the rinse tub.
According to Schuyler, the shiny galvanized washers are purchased and used by Bush residents.
“We have too many modern conveniences,” she joked.
Community Discussion
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Welcome to the world of rural Alaska. Sampson's Hardware even have some Swede bow saws for cutting up firewood, when your chain saw runs out of gas.
Many many years ago we lived right next to Weeks Field. My Mom would time the hanging out of the laundry so as to miss the landings of the Wien planes on the field which was pretty much dirt at the time. Otherwise the dust would blow over and ruin the laundry.
Fridays Alaska North Slope Crude set a new record of $138.64 an increase of $10.75. The cost to run Fairbanks just jumped almost 10% along with the state budget surplus. If oil stays at this level it will mean $4.85 a gallon heating oil and and additional 2 cent increase in electric rates.
Suomi,
Stop your griping. This is news, and not something I would have thought about. I think I may go out and buy some clothes pins.
Today clothes line, tomorrow the old wringer washer and scrubbing board. What is wrong with using old tried and true methods of conserving costs. Just don't stand too close to the wringer washer my grandma did and got her boob caught.
alaskastoryteller: Good one, on the caution about standing to close. I have several true stories about the scrub board and the #2 wash tub, but your story is better. Hanging closes at -60 F below sure hurries up time it takes to get them up, too.
Suomi (and any other readers who are interested),
This story is the first of an occasional series of pieces highlighting the various old and new ways people are dealing with high energy prices. The stories, we hope, will feature what people are doing at home and at work to cope with the high prices. We want people to contact us, either through commenting online or sending us an e-mail at newsroom@newsminer.com, with their ideas. We'll feature some of them as stories.
About the high price of oil: We have had a steady supply of stories, from the wire services and sometimes from staff, on the topic over the last months and years. We also have a reporter in Juneau covering the special session of the Legislature, which is debating the natural gas pipeline but which just the other day turned into a debate about providing low-cost energy for the state.
Hope this answers any of your concerns about our coverage.
Thanks for your comment. Please feel free to contact me privately at rboyce@newsminer.com, if you like.
Now, back to my work around the house...
I hang my clothes every summer, but this summer I am more adamant about it. I dont like hanging to dry in the winter. My garage smells like diesel! I have hung clothes in the bedroom, but hubby gets mad about that.
Thanks Rod and the newsminer for running the energy saving articles. I will take all of the energy saving tips you have to offer.
I'm looking foreward to the next one.
AlaskaStoryTeller: I loved your Grandma's Boob Story. I laughed so hard!!!!!:)
The garage and the basement are great places to put a clothesline for winter and rainy day drying.
suomi - So much hostility man. What has Fairbanks done to you to make you hate us so much? Granted, our community is far from perfect but I have to think that all this mean-spirited rhetoric on your part stems from some perceived personal insult/tragedy/bad experience, etc. that you have decided to hold the entire city and it's residents responsible for.
I've been using clothes pins in summer and winter for years. My dryer only has 2 settings - shrink and melt. I also like the idea that I'm saving energy.
See everyone down at the river where we can beat our clothes on rocks. If we work it right we can fish at same time. Last person in the line has to catch all our underwear as they float down stream.
Maybe we should of all took notes when watching Little House on the Prairie.
I also think we should do more bartering. We each have unique talents and knowledge. I'll bake you two apple pies if you do the dishes.
i wouldn't think it was possible to use an outside clothes line in Fairbanks in the winter - all the clothes would freeze before they dried.
The one paragraph folks should take a good hard look at, because it's a true stataement is "“We’re 104 years young, and we remember these things from whence we came, and WE'RE GOING BACK THERE,” said Ann Schuyler, floor supervisor at Samson."(emphasis added by author).
If anybody is under the impression that this situation with increasing inflation, out of control fuel costs and rise in the general cost of living is TEMPORARY, they are either stupid, live under a rock, or have too much money for their own good. We Americans MUST change our gluttonous, greedy, WalMart-driven lifestyle whether we like it or not. Lots of people choose to live off the grid and without water, use alternative heating sources and such, here in Fairbanks and I've heard so many derisive comments about their lifestyle from those who live the modern American lifestyle. Well, guess what? A lot of people are going to get a mandatory lesson in living the sort of lifestyle they've been deriding. . .
Might not be a bad time to visit websites like www.simpleliving.net and read books like Duane Elgin's "Voluntary Simplicity"... think about an attitude change.
The wife and I were just talking last night about hanging the clothes out to dry and then we have this article. Weird...A drying rack is on it's way.
Aidey, clothes do dry in the dead of winter. Sublimation: A phase change of water directly from ice to water vapor without melting.
Rob Boyce: Thank you for the focus of your intentions with this article, so I won't dwell on alternatives that would have kept us from crawling back into the cave.
Your readers might think about adding a hot water unit to their wood stoves and plumb it into the house plumbing lines as a booster or replacement to the hot water tank.
And I promise not to explain how to dump a "honey bucket" when the first timers unplug the electric heat tape to save on electricity.
Ailey: Your correct about the laundry freezing (stiff as a board).
It is called freeze dried, which removes part of the moisture before you bring it back in the house to finish drying...keeps the humidity down in an air tight house so you don't have a mold growth problem though-out your living quarters.
alaskastoryteller: It's going to cost you a cup a coffee, along with the apple pies...if you think I am going to do your dishes. And as far as catching the undies floating down the river...depends on who they belong to, otherwise "goodbye".
Ahhhh, ok, makes sense. If I already didn't have a mold problem in my cabin from excess humidity I would probably give it a try during the winter. I don't have a washer/dryer unit anyway, and I'm not super keen on hauling wet laundry from town.
As a renter, I have always had to deal with dryers in horrid condition. Even though I have access to a nice one now, the majority of my clothes are hung dry (in my apt.) as a habit. Things hang dry nice & quickly here, which makes it easy. Just socks, towels & undies get dried, or maybe the occasional item that needs some shrinking. =)
You could always clothes pin your underwear to your radio antenna on your car then drive down the road at 50 mph. They will either drive or if you have my luck end up on the windshield of a state trooper.
alaskastoryteller: Well, with only gravel roads out in the villages, the underwear might get to looking like the color of the Tanana River before they get dry.
For the ladies: Might think about stopping down to Big Rays for a pair of Carharts. Nobody seems to notice if they aren't wash very often.
I think this is a great idea. My dryer sucks anyway, and I love the way clothes smell and feel after they have been hung to dry outdoors.
When not drying clothes you can use that laundry line in a diddley-bow, while having someone keep time on your washboard, and you have an instant blues duo with no need for plugging in.
"Got the high-cost-of-power, big-ol'-pile-a-laundry, no-money-left-in-my-pockets blues."
Out-In-The-Cold: The trick with Carharts is to wear them while you're watching TV. Wipe the grease from your potato chips all over them and pretty soon it will look like you've been working in them. Only an expert will know the difference.
Perhaps a quick look at "The Mother Earth News" magazine might bring about some more ideas of living cheaply.Granted this started by hippies living off the land, but its about living with less, and who cares if it works.Enjoy,its online.
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