Laundry

One of the side effects of installing rooftop PV is a desire to balance generation and consumption. I know of one father who is frustrated by his daughter's use of hair straighteners.  A recent piece in "The Guardian" told of a couple who were surprised by the amount of energy used by a tumble dryer.  Proof of the doctrine of unexpected consequences is that working from home results in swapping the daily commute for domestic chores.  In an attempt to turn laundry into environmental science, I sometimes weigh the washing before hanging it out to dry and then once again when it is it back in the house.  The results of a year's bizarre behaviour are shown in the graph below:

Over the year, the average water removal is 1.5 kg/wash.  By making some assumptions about the efficiency of tumble driers, this approximates to the equivalent of 600 kwh/year, which might account for say 10 - 20% of the average household electricity consumption of 3,500 kwh/year.

Several houses in our road put their underwear on public display a couple of times each week. but there was a time when most households had a washing line and a prop to keep sheets of the ground.  To authenticate this statement, consult the works Shirley Hughes, a favourite author of bedtime stories for many children.

In the newspaper supplements which attempt to promote "eco" living, you will find adverts for rooftop solar water heaters (useful for six to eight months each year) costing around £3,000, ground source heat pumps for even larger amounts, but with the lure of RHI payments.  Washing lines and whirligigs seldom figure in these publications.  We are fortunate in having a conveniently placed railing, but if we installed a proper south facing washing line, the cost might be £100 for poles and concrete foundations, this would be an investment which would pay back in a couple of years.  Laundry is not a sexy subject, even for environmental journalists, so can the lifestyle gurus make laundry fashionable, reduce emissions and boost energy security?

Conservation is difficult for politicians, our present government has attempted to be "the greenest government ever", but it is easier to encourage wind turbines than washing lines.  Does 10 Downing Street have a whirligig?