Clotheslines that spin

17 years ago

Since I'm going to purchase a center-post clothesline, I'd like one that spins in the breeze. Any kind of clothesline is difficult to find locally, so I'm looking on the web.

Many say they rotate to load, enabling you to stand in one place while hanging clothes. Does this mean they will spin in the wind?

The ones that are advertised as "breezecatchers" are more

costly. I'm wondering if the cheaper ones also spin and just don't say so?

Any experience? Thanks in advance.

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Comments (4)

grainlady_ks
17 years ago
I've had three of them at three different homes. We purchased all of them at a local ACE hardware store.

I'm a logical person, and when I look where people normally placed them in their yards, I didn't think they thought it through very carefully.

We put the first one on the edge of a backyard patio (about 9-12-inches away). We placed river rock around the base so there wasn't any grass around the post. That eliminated a mowing/trimming problem. I never had to walk through dewy wet grass to hang clothes. I stood on the concrete patio and rotated the line as I pinned things in place. I set the laundry basket in the kids wagon and wouldn't have to bend over very far to get clothes out of the basket. The second house we placed it by a wide sweep of sidewalk near the deck on the side yard, and it worked equally as well. We moved into a new home 3 years ago and we had a "laundry courtyard" designed into the landscape on the side yard, and once again, I stand on concrete to hang the clothes and rotate the clothesline.

Secondary plus to this stratigic placement.... In all three homes we could remove the clothesline from the plastic sleeve set in concrete in the ground, and can put an umbrella in the same hole. When we have friends and family over for a bbq or other get-together we have an extra shaded seating area or shadded area to set up a table for serving.

The particular models that we've purchased had two sides of it where the line loops through the aluminum rod and I utilized these loops for hanging clothes on hangers on the side of the clothesline. I dry clothes that normally hang on a hanger in the closet...ON a hanger. I use nice heavy wood hangers with a heavy wire hook on them. I hook these through those loops of line on the side rods. The loops worked perfectly to keep the clothes on hangers in place. So these clothes go from the clothesline to the closet when dry.

The breeze (which is always a stiff 30mph WIND here in Kansas) will catch the larger pieces of clothing/bedding hanging on the line - like wind catches a sail - and the whole thing WILL rotate, but not very fast.

If this is your first experience with a clothesline, this is my hint for the day for you. If you have a super-duper washer that spins clothes at 1,000 rpms (or faster), you may want to set the spin on the slowest spin possible. When you use the fastest spin the clothes compact in the washer and get a lot of wrinkles in them. That's beneficial when you dry your clothes in the dryer, but not on a line. Clothes that are wetter when you hang them on the line will dry with fewer wrinkles in them. The weight of the extra water + gravity will pull most of the wrinkles out. My washer has a spin cycle specific for line-dried clothes. They are wetter and have very few wrinkles in them when they go on the line.

-Grainlady
Jamie
Original Author
17 years ago
Thanks for all the helpful info.

We will be moving before I get to use the clothesline for a second season of warm weather. I had wondered whether it would be possible to purchase a second sleeve to place in the ground at the next house. I see you just bought a whole new rig. Did you find it impossible to locate a replcement sleeve?
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pacman1062
17 years ago
Jamies,

I don't know about purchasing another sleeve, but, when we moved I just got a piece of PVC pipe slightly larger than the diameter of the post, and set it just like I would have the factory "sleeve".

Good luck, hope this helps,
Dan
joyfulguy
17 years ago
You can get a piece of metal pipe at the the scrap metal yard, if you choose. We got a piece of metal pipe in the kit when we bought our umbrella clothesline, about 40 years ago.

If you move, it isn't a big deal to pull the piece of pipe out of the ground.

ole joyful

Clotheslines that spin

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grainlady_ks

Jamie
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Clotheslines that spin

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grainlady_ks

JamieOriginal Author

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Jamie
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