Wondering, does anyone else put a dry, large and thick towel in with your items in your dryer??

[a kennedy]

Was told it would help dry the items faster. I have been doing it and just thought if there are lotsa others that do it as well.

[Walleye]

1. I put in about four of those dryer sheets that makes it dry faster

[a kennedy]

3. Seriously?? Or are you just joshing me??

[Walleye]

5. No I do it it works great. Probably wasteful,I don't know, they do dry faster

[Bernardo de La Paz]

11. Yes, wasteful, and who needs the chemicals anyway?

[whathehell]

6. I don't want to be a "kill joy" here, but

I believe I read that dryer sheets have some sort of toxicity to them....Don't have the link right now, but I always feel a 'duty to warn', if you will, when I hear of any type of unrecognized danger.

[Walleye]

7. Thanks for the warning, but I don't do laundry often enough to worry about it

[whathehell]

8. Okay, but keeping in mind that

you're using multiple sheets, here is a link, one of quite a few that come up in a search.

https://www.housebeautiful.com/lifestyle/cleaning-tips/a27325859/what-to-use-instead-of-dryer-sheets/

https://www.ewg.org/news-insights/news/2022/08/skip-most-toxic-fabric-softeners

[brush]

9. Aren't the dryer sheets to reduce wrinkles, not to speed up drying?

Last edited Tue May 23, 2023, 10:15 PM - Edit history (1)

[Walleye]

10. Yes, but they do speed up the drying a bit. And no wrinkles

[BlackSkimmer]

26. How on earth could they speed up drying?

Sorry, that makes no sense at all to me.

I dry mine on the line. Those dryer sheets are falloff chemicals, and nothing smells better than fresh air and sunshine.

[ProfessorGAC]

29. They Don't

There is insufficient mass of a low absorbing surface to make any measurable difference.

[a kennedy]

15. Yah, I only use one sheet per dryer load, just for no wrinkles and a nice smell.

[Botany]

2. Yes, that works but let the dyer run for about 5 to 10 minutes first.

n/t

[Bernardo de La Paz]

12. Another waste. . . . nt

[Srkdqltr]

4. Never ever heard of this.

[BlackSkimmer]

27. It's one of those things that pops up on the internet from time to time.

Like, put a plastic bottle under your tire when you park...I've seen those things so many times.

I often wondered if people did that stuff.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Physics explains why this makes sense & faster means less energy use which means less CO2. nt

[Chainfire]

17. I think that physics explains why that the idea is bogus. Someone is trying to steal energy.

You are adding more weight to the drum which needs more power to turn it. You are not reducing the amount of time or energy, but just spreading the moisture around. In the end, if everything is brought to the desired level of "dryness" the towel would have increased the energy usage.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

18. It DOES reduce the time, that's the point!

The dry towel does not add any moisture, so that's bogus as an argument.

The distribution of moisture is key. The towel absorbs some moisture and lowers the level of moisture in the laundry. The time required to get low moisture dry is less than the time to get high moisture dry, for the same amount of moisture.

More surface area gives more moisture available to readily absorb heat.

Thus everything dries to any given level faster with the towel.

As to drum power, there might be a case there, but I think that any extra power consumed to move the towel is greatly more than compensate by the distribution of moisture and ensuing reduction of heat time.

It's the heat that consumes power much more than the drum.

[Chainfire]

20. Nope. That moisture that the towel soaks up still has to be evaporated out.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

21. Exactly and it is more efficiently evaporated from greater surface area. . . . nt

[ProfessorGAC]

30. The Surface To Mass Ratio Is Greatly Enhanced

With a dry towel. I'm sorry, you're wrong because you are only including a single variable (the total mass of water to be evaporated). There are surface effects that need to be included.
The release rate of terrycloth from wicking is much higher than with tighter weaves like cotton, polycotton, or denim.
All that said, I would never do it, because the time difference is not really significant. A minute at most.

[Tetrachloride]

14. In the desert, i don't need a dryer

[Nittersing]

16. I have an old pair of sneakers that I toss in the dryer

if I'm washing something that tends to wad up... like a blanket.

I read that it will help those types of thing to dry better/faster.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

19. We use three wool balls larger than a tennis ball but not by much. Definitely helps avoid wadding

... and I think it helps drying in a similar way the towel does.

The three balls were given to us, so I don't know about their origin other than they are made specifically for the purpose.

[Niagara]

22. I use the wool dryer balls in the dryer.

The only downside of the wool dryer balls is they get caught up in the corner of fitted bedsheets. Also, sometimes they get caught up in the inside of shirts. Once, I lost one all together and I never did find it.


I never dry my bra's, pants or certain shirts in the dryer. It seems to make clothing last longer.

[Kali]

23. I use a clothes line.

In summer around here stuff gets dry before you finish hanging the load.

[Mr.Bill]

24. Solar powered dryer.

[BlackSkimmer]

25. I dry my clothes on the line.

They smell much better than any dryer sheets ever could.

[ProfessorGAC]

31. In Addition,...

...dryer sheets are more than a little less efficacious than liquid fabric softeners.
People are paying for convenience & back-end fragrance.
The static reduction & fiber relaxation is inferior to liquids.

[ProfessorGAC]

28. Wet Towel or Dry?

Dry, it might make sense as the towel absorbing water means a greater surface area to mass ratio.
Wet, it won't help anything dry faster. That increases the total water to be removed & the heat input is a constant.

[Emile]

32. We still hang clothes on the clothesline. Green energy dries our

clothes. Nothing sweeter than smelling clean bed sheets that dried outside.